When Lotte Gallagher was crowned a finalist of triple j’s Unearthed High competition in 2023, her life changed. 

“Obviously, you know, Unearthed was kind of nuts,” the Melbourne/Naarm-based singer-songwriter says. “If I had told myself when I was younger that I would be doing that, never in a million years would I have believed myself.”

Two years, two EPs and a whole lot of life lived later, the 19-year-old indie-pop star is well in the thick of a music career. While not many teenagers can say they’ve played to festival crowds and sold-out shows all across the country, for Gallagher there was never any other option. 

“For me, growing up, I’d always wanted to be a singer,” she says. “It was never really a question of ‘Am I able to do this?’ I just always had [my parent’s] support in that way, and so when I started working properly in the industry, I didn’t necessarily feel like it was anything out of the question.”

From being a punter with her mates at Laneway Festival one year to playing her songs from that same stage the next, the whirlwind of Gallagher’s rise in the music scene might have just swept her up with it if she didn’t have her feet firmly planted on the ground. 

“For me, now, it feels really normal,” she says. “But I kind of have to remind myself that this isn’t a normal experience. This isn’t a normal job.”

Better Than Therapy

With the release of her sophomore EP Blasé Vengeance taking place today, on Friday, October 24th, Gallagher is on the precipice of a new chapter to the story she’s been writing the past few years. That chapter – if the EP is anything to go by – indulges in the cathartic messiness of unfiltered emotion and unstoppable growth. 

“For me, writing songs is my most confessional sharing time,” Gallagher reflects. “That's why it's really important for me to write with people who I have so much trust and rapport with, because when I'm writing a song, it's like writing a diary. It's better than therapy for me.

“I'll come home from a bad day and I'll sit and play my guitar and write a song for an hour, and that's just how I get it out. I'm not really big on holding on to feelings, so I guess it helps me compartmentalise those feelings and put them somewhere. I'll write a song and then I'll listen to it a month later after everything's sorted out and I'll be like, ‘Oh, that's what I'm writing about in that song’. 

"I don't necessarily think it's a conscious choice to be personal, but I think it's just the way that I am and that I need to be," she offers.

The personal nature of Gallagher’s work is one that extends to the energy she brings into her collaborations.

Teaming up with the likes of Harry Charles (King Princess, Sycco, Renee Rapp) and Ciarann Babbington (Bakers Eddy) to produce the six tracks across Blasé Vengeance, Gallagher’s hunger for knowing more about the construction process of music making fuels her with an appetite to write with anyone who wants to write with her. 

“I’m really interested in songwriting and how it works and how to be better at it,” she says.

OUT OF PATIENCE – a product of Gallagher and Charles writing both the music and lyrics together – was one of the first tracks finished for the EP, and one of Gallagher’s most uncharacteristic. 

“It’s quite different from anything I’ve made before,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is sick, I love this,’ but I would have never made that on my own. That’s what I find so interesting about writing with other people, because they just bring such different sounds to you that you would never even think of.”

From The Heart

Citing writing as her favourite part of the entire music-making process, listening to Blasé Vengeance gives a clear indicator as to why she’s found so much success in it. Gallagher’s brutally honest lyricism leaves no stone unturned in her unwavering vulnerability, matched perfectly by a voice that she’s mastered like an instrument. 

Of the half-dozen songs across the EP, LEATHER GLOVES stands out as one of her most frank forays into the complexity of gender in relationships. 

“It’s very, very personal to me,” Gallagher says about the song. “I have experienced a lot of what is in that song as a person with a female body growing up. You know, growing up as a woman, it isn't easy. I don't think I have one friend that hasn't experienced that song in some way.

“And it's not like it's a new subject,” she continues. “It's not like it's groundbreaking or anything. But, for me, it was important to write that song in an explaining way. I think it's important to kind of not be like ‘fuck you’ in such an angry way, but these are genuinely just facts. This is what is happening in the world and guys need to understand that.”

From Fan To Stage

With a collection of songs that so eloquently provide an intimate insight into the workings and wonderings of Gallagher’s mind, it’s no surprise that her younger fanbase have developed such a frenzied connection to her. 

It’s one thing for teenagers to relate through music to the life experiences of artists twenty years older than them; it’s a whole other thing for those artists to also be teenagers. 

“It’s so funny, honestly, because I remember being like 14 and completely obsessing over artists and being like, I know their birthday, I know where they were born,” Gallagher laughs. She recounts one particular fan at a show on her last headline tour that she met before the gig, the fan bursting into tears and offering Gallagher her infinite gratitude. 

“It’s so weird being on the other side of that now,” she says. “And, honestly, it means so much. I feel like they don’t really understand how much it means to me. This is literally all I have ever wanted as a job. 

"They don’t know that it’s literally them making my dream in life be real.”  Gallagher better strap in tight – the dream is only just getting started.

Lotte Gallagher's Blasé Vengeance is out today, with tickets for her run of November east coast tour dates on sale now.

Lotte Gallagher – Blasé Vengeance Tour

Thursday, November 27th – The Toff, Melbourne, VIC

Friday, November 28th – Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, QLD

Saturday, November 29th – Metro Social, Sydney, NSW