A-Okay

"I'm just writing until I've bled myself dry of lyrics,” Georgi Kay begins. She's working on her new album, and with 30 “epic dark pop” songs in the bag, she's almost there. “There's some slower songs, and some fast-paced dance ones, but they're all quite dark. [This album] is all about relationships - how you go through relationships. The music is kind of reflective of that; it's emotional, it's filmic. I'm excited to bring it out. It's pretty different to what I started doing with acoustic guitar, but the EP I just bought out, In My Mind, is kind of the springboard to that new sound so it's a nice little bite-sized chunk at a time.”

The transformation has been a long time coming, and co-writing was the first step in being able to fully articulate her emotions through sound. “At the end of the day, I can't really write the music that well,” she admits. “It's writing the lyrics and the melody that I love to do, so it's always helpful to have someone else that's knowledgeable about the other stuff and you kind of fit all the puzzle pieces together.”  

In her few short years in the industry, Kay has accomplished more than a lot do in their entire career. She attributes the success to her “year of yes” in 2010, where she agreed to everything thrown her way and more. She met The Stoops through WAM, and, although not being a fan of the genre, worked on a hip hop collaboration with them, before, at the age of 17, winning a Song Of The Year WAMi for her tune Breakfast In Bedlam. It was then she knew she had a chance of making something out of her music. “That was a great feeling. I wasn't expecting anything from that; being nominated was amazing enough, the fact that well-respected artists and people in the music industry all agreed that my song should be Song Of The Year was just great, because that acknowledged that I was on the right track.”

She was definitely on the right track, as this year alone she has taken out an APRA award for Best Dance Release for her co-write alongside Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl, In My Mind, signed to UK label Parlophone, and played a small role on BBC2's TV mini-series Top Of The Lake.

“I kind of promised myself a couple of years ago that if anything big happened, it'd just take it in my stride. I'd be happy about it, but wouldn't explode about it; just kind of keep it under wraps. But the other day I stopped looking forward and had a look back and just thought, 'Wow, the past year alone – there's so much stuff that has happened'. From where I started a couple of years ago to where I am now, it's a phenomenal journey, but it's my story, which is quite cool; it's unique. I just took a moment to sort of reminisce from the beginning to now and all the milestones in-between and I'm just really looking forward to what's going to happen in the future really.”

Once the new record comes out, Kay plans to tour it extensively and get as many people to hear it as possible. Her long-time term goals are a little more ambitious. “I want to play stadiums, I want my face on a pencil case, I want to be internationally recognised, but still be me; to be up there with the stars but still be down to Earth, grounded. To me, that shows people that you don't have to change to fit a mold or a stereotype to be internationally well known or famous or popular; you can just be yourself.”