Taste Test Owl Eyes

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
I'd like to say something really cool, but it definitely would have been the Spice Girls. I had the movies too. When anything came out of the Spice Girls I'd save my pocket money and buy it. I had a Baby Spice ring, all the albums and posters. I was really into girl power.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
I went to see Mount Kimbie last night. I've been listening to their album a lot and it's really great, it really makes you feel good. I've also been listening to the new Chairlift a lot, I think it's called Something. I'm in love with [singer] Caroline [Polachek]. She's amazing and a babe and I totally wish I was her.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
I love that Phoenix album, Phoenix Wolfgang… however you say it [it's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix], that's a great party album, obviously. I also love The Drums' Portamento. It's a great album, every song is pretty short, good to party to. I was keen to see them so I went to Laneway, and their whole set was just a really fun party, everyone just dancing, getting loose and their tunes are just so infections.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
I really like the Twerps' album. I think that's really nice Sunday music. Nothing too abrupt on a Sunday. And I really like Death Cab For Cutie's album, Plans. That's good Sunday music too.

THE MOST SURPRISING ALBUM IN MY COLLECTION
Maybe The Notorious BIG – Life After Death. Every now and then I get my white girl rapper on. And I like that, what is it, The xx and The Notorious BIG mash-up. Look it up, it's really good.”

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
I think it was Alicia Keys at the Palais. She's awesome, and it was at the Palais, which is such a good first-gig venue, not like, 'Oh, I paid my $5 to get in, yeah!'. I went with my parents, so it's not that cool, but I loved Alicia Keys at the time. I just saw her on stage and she got on the piano and laid back on it and played upside down. And from there I had to get piano lessons. I was already getting singing lessons but I had to be her so I got piano lessons too. It was when I was about 13 I think, she was pretty cool back then, and she still is.

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD
Probably… you know the Secret Garden festival in Sydney? I played at that. It's like a dress-up thing, you have to dress up, and we all played in onesies. My drummer and I, we watch a lot of David Attenborough, we're so cool like that, haha, and my drummer loves him and he dressed up as him, and the rest of the band, including me, dressed up in these fluffy onesies as marsupials. We were all matching. It's already pretty weird – you're looking out over a sea of dressed-up fairies and people just going off in different costumes – and we were outside, and what happened was it started raining and pouring really heavily and the stage got flooded. I was literally dancing in a puddle. It's pretty dangerous when it happens but it's pretty fun, because you get this feeling with the audience that everyone's just in it together. We were all covered in mud and water, my hair and make-up was running, and we were all having a good time. But then eventually we had to leave the stage because the power got shut off because it was too dangerous. But it was pretty fun, and weird.

MY BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES
I'm really influenced by visual things. You know when you have a dream and you see a lot of stories in your mind? It really influences my music. I'm really visual, so drawings and pictures, they can really spark my imagination and creativity. I make mood boards and flick through magazines and it can really spark my imagination and creativity. Mood boards, I made that word up, I just get cork boards and arrange pictures and things that I visually like. I also tend to write down lists of cool words. I wrote a song the other day and the word 'confetti' came into my mind because I looked at my board because I wrote it down. And it sparked this whole story in my head about weddings, and my friend who was with an older guy, and you know, if you're with someone it can move too fast, and that kind of thing, and that all came from 'confetti'. So I guess I can be very visually inspired.

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
I think the coolest person I ever met was John Legend. It was just the way I met him. We were playing this festival in Perth and he was just sitting in the café in the hotel lobby. You know, by himself, no entourage. And well, my keyboard player is just in love with John Legend, and he was sitting there and we were debating for a while whether to talk to him. You know when you don't want to be that fan girl? You kind of feel like, I'm not really allowed to be a stalker type fan, but I'm totally fanning out right now. But we had to meet him so we went up to him and he was just a lovely guy. He was talking about what he was working on. And I think it's just the way that we met him, and how actually suave and smooth he was, he was the coolest person.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH I'VE HAD
Probably when I was, I'm guessing I was about 13, watching Titanic, and every girl my age loved Leonardo DiCaprio. He's quite the babe and I remember my friend had a poster of him and every night before she went to bed she used to kiss the poster goodnight. I didn't go that far – I'm not a creep – but I did have many posters, as if you wouldn't. He was amazing, even boys did it. He's such a good actor.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
I'm a musician so I'd have to say 1969, Woodstock. Who doesn't want to be a hippie at Woodstock? You'd be watching Janis Joplin and Hendrix. I think it would definitely be there.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I sometimes think about this question, because sometimes I think I'm not really good at anything else apart from music. I'm pretty lucky and grateful to be doing it at the moment as my career, I don't really have any, like, office skills. I really love animals, so maybe I would be something like a really cool zookeeper. I really do love fashion as well. I try to mix that with my music, you know, costume aspects as part of my show, as well as other visual aspects, so