Alayna Powley. Photo/Stephen Parker
It's rising musical star Alayna Powley's cosmic belief that it's planetary alignments that are propelling her trajectory.
This uber-talented Hamurana 24-year-old, who's spent the past year building her musical career in New York, peppers her conversation with references to the stars and moon being in the right place at the right time for her accelerating success story.
There can be no quibbling that she's orbiting with the speed of sound.
For someone who didn't have a singing lesson until she was 18, her voice has become well-cemented on digital musical platforms. Her first work to stream on Spotify scored more than a million hits within weeks.
R&B/soul is Alayna's genre and you won't find any cover numbers coming from her, her work's strictly original; songwriting's been her speciality since Western Heights High days where, at 15, she wrote her first, Threads.
Her abilities have twice won her a place in the annual Play It Strange competition.
Spearheaded by former Split Enzer, Mike Chunn, it annually selects the country's top 20 teenage songwriters; Alayna's wins introduced her to her first professional recording studio.
This personality-plus homegrown ball of talent may not have had early voice training but she's no newbie to the entertainment arena.
From school days she's been a regular at fundraisers, talent shows and gigs, twice singing at Lakeside and she's back on the homegrown bill for 2018.
Where did all this begin? The short answer's when, at 6, she hummed a song to her music teacher cum local muso dad, Rob Pawley.
"He said 'that's not a bad voice' and recorded me in his [home] studio, we made a CD for my grandparents, I listened to it recently and I sounded like a chipmunk, but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have got into music so early."
Soul became her sound of choice at 18. "Soul challenges the voice, before that I hadn't found my direction."
It's a direction she's followed with compass-like precision, her first destination Auckland's Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand (Mainz).
"I absolutely loved learning about music, it wasn't like study at all, the first year I was a sponge, absorbing everything."
The original plan had been to graduate in two years with a diploma in contemporary music, but when Mainz introduced a Bachelor of Musical Arts Alayna stayed a further two.
"It was an absolute no-brainer."
She applied, and secured, a graduate visa to work and study in the US this year.
"I like being challenged, was ready to jump in the deep end and be smacked in the face, I definitely got that."
Finding an apartment in the "overwhelmingly competitive" Big Apple without knowing anyone to lean on, bolstered Alayna's belief in planetary alignment (or plain good luck).
"I found this place in Brooklyn with three American girls who've turned into older sisters, I've learnt so much from them, how to be unapologetically a woman; before that I'd been more introverted than extroverted, I now know how to trust myself, my gut."
Finding a way to make a living was imperative.
"I walked into this restaurant and got a job on the spot waitressing, it helped I'd had hospitality experience in Auckland."
For starters the Kiwi in her made her turn down tips. "Then I got my first pay, $146, it didn't even cover my rent so I bought a record player."
Settled and employed, she turned to her real reason for choosing America to sharpen her musical ambitions and find a label to promote her. She turned to the musical platform SoundCloud.
"I had an EP with four songs I'd been going to release myself, I put on one, Bliss, and it just flew." Bliss has morphed into her first music video.
The Vancouver-based Indy label 20XX snapped Alayna up but said her efforts needed reworking, initially she jibbed - "it had taken me four years to finally finish something" -but learning it was the instrumentals, not her vocals that the label planned to tweak, she relented.
"I realised I was being given this opportunity to make songs, so why not try? They got a producer in the UK to add what he thought it needed and it was absolutely perfect."
Her Falling Autumn became that runaway Spotify success story.
Big labels Sony and Universal "reached out", Alayna was flattered but remained realistic.
"It was quite cool, but ultimately I just wanted to work with good people and 20XX's owner, Chad Hillard, is one of the best at getting music out there and listened to."
At his encouragement she's taken three road trips to LA.
"I had work booked out every day, sometimes twice a day, with a different person in different studios, it blew my mind to meet young people who were writing a song a day, I realised I have to work harder, it's been good practice for me to get a catalogue of songs whether they are good or bad."
Between May and September this year she wrote 20.
Despite a contract and advance from 20XX, for Alayna life in LA was a reality check; there was none of the star-studded glitz and glamour with which it's perceived.
"I was living on eggs, toast and popcorn . . what the label's paid me has gone on my rent but it has meant I can write every day, I can think of a line on the subway, jot it down on my phone."
New York's hooked her in. "It's like a strong current pulling you, when you fly out, you feel out of it."
With her US study permit expired, she's home applying for a music visa.
"This year's really been the ground work, this time next year I plan to have enough music out there for an American tour."
And beyond that?
"I just want to make beautiful music, work with amazing people. I've got this image of me playing in a little venue in Paris, if I get to that point I'll know I've done my job."
ALAYNA POWLEY
Born: Rotorua, 1993.
Education: Kaharoa School, Western Heights High.
Family: Parents: Rob and Rose Powley, brothers Liam (Perth), Caleb (Auckland).
Interests: Painting and sketching. "Music's my work, art's my hobby." Live shows. "I've found this amazing Greenwich Village bar, Prince played there two weeks before he died." "The lakes and beach when I'm home."
On Rotorua: "I call it my healing home, it's fresh air after big cities."
On New Zealand: "New Zealand On Air funded my Bliss video, that's something New Zealand does really well, there's nothing like that in New York."
Favourite artist: "I grew up with folk music then it was Brooke Fraser, now I'm diving into soul it's Sam Smith, Sabrina Claudio, Adele."
Personal philosophy: "Trust yourself."
A motorcyclist overtook a car and struck Paige Johnson on a pedestrian crossing.