Tamagotchi Obsessions & How Not To Take Communion: Stella Donnelly Launches 'Two Truths & A Lie'

Yeah, look, let me explain. It’s a play on the classic icebreaker and team-building game, Two Truths & A Lie, where the person in the hot seat shares three sentences – two of which are true, obviously, and one of which is a lie – and the people playing have to figure out which is which. I wasn’t interested in having musicians lie to me, unsurprisingly, but what I was interested in was hearing some stories they’ve never really told journalists before. Stuff that doesn’t normally come up in an interview about their new record, or their upcoming headline run. Like the time they were 20, lost their passport in Belgium and illegally crossed the border. Or were playing their first gig and sharted on stage. You know, that kind of thing. Basically, this column is a safe place to give artists a chance to share stories about themselves, be it about their childhood, their fears, obsessions, life goals, whatever, and a place to share a story about a time a lie got away from them – when it was misconstrued, misunderstood, spun out of control like a yo-yo or became a beast they didn’t even recognise anymore. Don’t worry, everyone has one, or two, or five. There’s no judgement here, just true stories.

So, with that, welcome to Two Truths & A Lie.

I first came across Stella Donnelly’s music at BIGSOUND last year in Brisbane. It was pure chance, really, on the last night of the conference. To be honest, I was super fuckin’ ready to never see another live show again. I was all live music’d out. I was at Heya Bar meeting with some people to head to the official after-party when I realised Stella was about to go on right there. Her name had been flitting through my ears the whole conference, so I thought I’d sneak to the front to see what the fuss was about. She ended up being my favourite set all BIGSOUND.

What struck me was how frank Stella was between songs; she’d be making the crowd giggle one second with a story about not being paid from her old job and then we were all like, dumbfounded, eyes watering, by her candid and heartbreaking delivery of Boys Will Be Boys. Either way, when I was thinking about who I’d want for my first column, she was the first person that came to mind. Given her music, Stella just seemed like someone who would have some stories she’d have to share, and I wasn’t let down. She warned me they were all kinda funny stories (she literally had me laughing and face-palming the entire time) and I got comfortable as she kicked off with her first truth.

Truth

S: I was 12 years old and my sister and I got Tamagotchis for Christmas. Mine was called Gordon and hers was called Sprite, I think.

U: Sprite? Like the drink?

S: Yeah, yeah. So my sister’s three years younger than I am, I’m the eldest of three and my brother’s ten years younger than me. Yeah! So I’m the oldest bossy sister.

U: And you’re 25?

S: Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t 25 when I got the Tamagotchi, just to clarify that! [laughs]

U: Got it, though it would be TOTALLY fine to get one at 25.

S: Totally. Totally fine. No judgement. No judgement AT ALL. So yeah I was 12 and I was just OB-SESSED with keeping this bloody thing alive. You know, as soon as there was a poo on the screen, I got rid of it and as SOON as it needed food, I was onto it. A couple of months passed, it was school holidays, summer, everyone’s having fun but I still managed to keep my Tamagotchi alive… And I started noticing my sister just kind of dropping the ball a little bit with Sprite. She’d be downstairs and playing outside as normal children do, and I’d walk past her room and hear this little… DO do! DO do! noise, and I’d be like, freeeeaking out. I’d run into her room, I’d quickly feed it and get rid of its poo and like, keep it alive. I’d clean it and everything like that, all behind her back! And she’d come into her room and be like, ‘What the hell?! Why have you—just leave it!’

U: Like, ‘Let it DIE!’

S: Yeah, she was like letting it die to see what happened. And I just couldn’t let it happen and it got to this point, this pinnacle, where mum would be downstairs and she just heard this screaming from upstairs and it’s me trying to beat down my sister’s door, just like crying and screaming and like, ‘FEED IT!!!! FEEEED IT!!!!!!’ and all this stuff. That was a bit of moment where I realised I probably need to learn how to let things go and prioritise REAL life over a digital life.

U: Do you kind of look out for your sister’s things to this day? What if she’s left a shirt on the ground or something, do you go and pick it up so it’s not ruined?

S: Yeahhh. Totally. We’ve become reaaally good friends now but back in the day, I was always so watchful over her and making sure, and she would KNOW that and rebel against my bossy sister act. She was really… she would stir things up a little bit just to watch me like…

U: Clean up her mess?

S: Yeahh. She was the one that reminded me of that story actually.

U: What does she think of that story now in hindsight?

S: Oh, she thinks it’s SO funny. She’s like, ‘it explains so much about you.’ [laughs] Which is great!

Truth

S: This is a moment where I was sooo embarrassed, that you want a hole to disappear into in the ground so you don’t have to DROP. This is probably the most embarrassing moment of my life.

U: Ooh! Thank you for sharing!

S: Yeah, so I was playing in a cover band… and that’s it! That’s the story! [laughs] No, so, I was playing in a cover band and we were playing a wedding, so I was a wedding singer for a while. And I was one of two singers in the band, and it got to the point where we were at this wedding and we started playing Simply The Best by Tina Turner and the boys started playing the song [mimics riff] and Blake, the other singer, he’s kind of in charge of the band and looks after everything and liaises with the bride and groom about how it’s all gonna go. So he was on the mic and the bride obviously told him to dedicate this song, Simply The Best, to someone, so he was like, ‘This one goes out to the late Aunty Nora!’ And she must’ve been the bride’s aunty. But I didn’t hear Blake say LATE Aunty Nora…

U: Oh no…

S: Yeah, so I screamed out, across the whole wedding. “WHERE’S AUNTY NORA! THIS ONE’S FOR YOU! WHO’S SEEN AUNTY NORA! GET ON THE DANCE FLOOR!”

U: Ohhhh no…

S: And it just kept going and going and then Blake had to like, kneel down next to me and like, whisper in my ear, ‘SHE’S DEAD! SHE’S DEAD!’ I realised and I looked over at the wedding party and everyone was just stonefaced, staring at me. But the song had already started playing! So I was like, ‘I call youuuu when I neeeed you…’ I just had to start singing the song and we got through it! We got through it! We had a bit of a break after that and like, did the rest of the wedding, but they obviously realised that it was a mistake and it was fine, but it was honestly… and I’ll never forget looking back and seeing the drummer, like FOLDED over the drums with tears rolling down his face. Just the whole band DYING. I actually got a bit of an award from that, we did these fake ARIA Awards and I got given a little trophy for like the most embarrassing and unprofessional moment of the wedding band career. It was pretty mortifying.

U: Did you go apologise to the bride and groom?

S: No, look, I think it was okay. If it called for it, I would’ve but I didn’t wanna bring it up again. I think they just wanted to forget the whole thing happened. To be honest with you, I think I gave Aunty Nora MORE of a rap, now there are a lot of people who know about Aunty Nora! You know? We’ve kept her alive! The Nora spirit!

U: Did you have a couple to drink or anything?

S: Oh no! I don’t drink before gigs, this was puuuurely my stupidity. I wish there was something I could blame it on…

U: Blame it on the microphone!

S: Yeah, that’s it, blame it on the mic, mate. I just didn’t hear him say ‘late’.

U: When was this?

S: I was just about to turn 21, because my dad talked about it in my 21st speech. It was a few weeks before I turned 21. Yup. Yuuuup.

U: Were your family at the wedding or anything to witness it?

S: No! No one was. Just the band, a whole bunch of randoms and me. I went straight home and told my parents what happened, dad loved it! He loved it. He thought it was great.

Lie

S: This was a five year lie, okay? It was a long term lie. So I’m from a family that’s non-religious, but when we lived in the UK for a little while, we went to chapel. My mother’s mother is Protestant so we’d go to chapel every Sunday. Just do that for the family, but when we moved back to Australia, we weren’t really a religious family. My parents were always really open – they always taught me about all the religions and stuff like that. Just gave me a pretty well-balanced view on the world. I went to a public primary school but when it was time to go to high school, the only really safe high school in our area that wasn’t too expensive was a Catholic college.

U: And that’s back in Perth?

S: Yup, that’s back in Perth. So I started going to Catholic college and I was actually really excited. I had a hat and a tie and a dress and socks and shoes, you know? I was really excited, I felt like I was in an Enid Blyton novel or something like that. I was one of those people who wanted to be friends with everyone and be part of every little thing and it got to the first mass of the school, and it had been years and years and YEARS since I’d been to any sort of church service. It was a mass at a Catholic school and welcoming you to the ranks of the school and that kind of thing, and everyone went up to do communion. I thought, ‘Oh! That bread looks pretty good!’ This story is really bad, by the way, this is really bad. But I was like, ‘This bread looks really good! Why can’t I have a biscuit?!’ So I went up and I had a look at what everyone else was doing, at all my friends that had gone to Catholic primary school and had done their communion and what they’d done.

So I was like, ‘okay, left hand over the right, okay cool, I’m gonna do it’. What I didn’t think about was… you can’t just do that once and not do it again. People are gonna notice. My friends were like, ‘oh! You’ve done your communion!’ and asking all these questions and like, ‘who was your godmother?’ and I was like, ‘ohhhh…’ I just made someone up. It got to this point where this lie got a LOT bigger and for the rest of the school year, I just had to do communion! And the bread got pretty dry…

U: Oh man.

S: By year ten, I started losing sleep over it because I knew that in year 12, my parents were gonna come to graduation mass and I knew that at that point, that’s when it was gonna explode. Seeing their daughter do communion when they VERY WELL KNOW that I have not been baptised or anything, and my whole schtick is gonna go out the window. In my head, I sensationalised it so much like, ‘maybe I won’t even GRADUATE! What if they stop the mass and call me out in front of everybody?!’

U: Like, ‘STELLA’S A FRAUD!’

S: Yeahh, exactly! What if I get kicked out? All these horrible thoughts were coming out and I think that’s when I started having existential angst as well [laughs] By the time I got to year 12, so many things had added more than that so I was able to kind of tell mum and dad, ‘Look, this is what I’ve done…’ I was like, ‘This is what’s happened… I’m reaaaally sorry… I’ve been dishonest and I’m ungodly…’ but they laughed, they found it so funny.

U: So you stuck it out between year 10 and 12? The whole time?

S: I stuck it out! I was probably more scared of the teachers and students questioning why I was no longer doing it. And then I told my closest friends and it became a bit of a joke. And this is really bad and disrespectful and I do just wanna say to any Catholic people reading this, this was a very disrespectful thing for a child to do and I know that. I do acknowledge that! But yeah, mum and dad just went with the lie for the graduation and we got out of there and I made it through!

U: WOW.

S: I know! It was awful. I don’t know why I did it, all for a piece of bread. The body of Christ, you know? That’s my story; I hope it’s not too offensive.

U: That’s a great example of a lie that got out of hand. Very out of hand.

S: In my head, I just thought that to be the perfect student – like I wanna get A’s in everything, I wanna do every choir, every band, every sport – it felt like a camp! I just thought the teachers would think I was really cool if I also was religious. By the time I got to year 12, I actually got into a lot of trouble in Religion class because my Religion teacher was anti-gay, anti-abortion, he drew devil horns on a picture of Barack Obama and sent it around in an email. He was awful! I actually ended up almost failing religion because I spent half the time in the office because I’d been yelling at him [laughs]. It’s really funny – it’s like I realised there was a bigger picture than being a model student. Other kids started standing up to him as well! But yeah, there were gay kids in our class and he made them feel like they were sub-human and stuff. In the end, I didn’t give a shit what the school thought of me and my piety!

Having just performed stand-out shows at SXSW in the US, Donnelly is now supporting First Aid Kit on tour in Australia and will kick off a co-headline tour with Alex The Astronaut this month. Click on theGuide for more details.

If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honorable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn@gmail.com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.