Shannon Busch, who makes music under the moniker WILSN, is a true soul singer. There’s nothing pastiche about what she does, no mimicking other artists, and no fear anymore. She effortlessly infuses soul music in 2023, jazz, Motown, and hints of pop music. She has a commanding voice and an inimitable vocal tone, as well as phrasing that’s uniquely hers. She’s the modern soul artist Australia has been waiting for.

Busch is gearing up to release her debut album, Those Days Are Over, following some of her poppier efforts. Those Days Are Over finds the Melbourne singer brave enough to tackle the music she’s always loved rather than try to sound like somebody else.

The singles from her forthcoming record are soul music in every way: there’s her stunning duet with Josh Teskey, Hurts So Bad, which sees two powerhouse vocalists share the spotlight. She’s also released Tell Me, You Know Better, and If You Wanna Love Me, all of which have been popular with ABC, Double J, community radio, triple j, and more. The ultimate single, though, is the title track, an empowering banger from the get-go.

Busch wasn't content with making Those Days Are Over a sappy love song like she initially planned. "It’s about trusting yourself and going with your gut and really believing you can do the thing you set out to do. Those days of uncertainty are over, and it’s kind of like a new phase and era of my music has begun. To me, it’s a huge thing to finally be making the music I’ve always loved," she stated. And Those Days Are Over is a banger - a soul track, through and through.

She commented about the album, “Soul music never goes out of fashion because it’s pure. It’s all about a great melody, a great beat and harmony that moves you and makes you feel something. In today’s landscape of artists trying so hard to do something different, often for the sake of being different, it’s nice to just engage with the human voice in an unadulterated way.”

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“We could start with my upbringing,” Busch says about her soul beginnings. “My mum likes soul music; my dad likes old music. I got brought up on a lot of jazz as well. My dad's a big jazz fan. My mum's semi-musical. My dad's not really musical, but they just love the music.” She discovered Aretha Franklin’s music during her formative years – 13 to 14 years old – and fell instantly in love with what she was hearing.

“My dad showed me the movie The Blues Brothers, and I just loved her during that scene in the diner,” Busch continues, recalling how Franklin’s Mrs Murphy was “telling her husband off and singing. From there, I just went on my own journey to finding soul artists and I just kind of connected with them because I was already singing at that point. I just connected with their big soulful voices. It’s hard to tell if I had the voice, to begin with, or if I made it through listening to them… I think it was maybe a mix of both.

“To make soul music, you have to be a long-time fan. You have to be real,” she notes. And Busch is a fan and does respect the artists who came before her. On Hurts So Bad, she and Teskey sound like singers from another era, one where playlists, algorithms, and TikTok didn’t exist.

After touring with The Teskey Brothers in the UK and Europe in early 2020, Busch was inspired. “I got to watch them do that on stage every night, and Josh is just incredible live,” she says. “His voice is amazing. If you close your eyes, it kind of sounds like you're listening to a '60s soul singer who happens to look like Thor,” she laughs, but recording with Teskey was exciting.

“It was super chill. He’s the most chill guy ever. If you ever meet him, you’ll see that he’s the most friendly guy.” Hurts So Bad was recorded at The Aviary Recording Studio, Abbotsford, Victoria. Busch already had her parts and the instrumental recorded, and Josh Teskey just came in and recorded his vocal over it.

WILSN’s debut album is out this week, which is something Busch has been dreaming about for years. “It's hard to describe how excited I am,” she smiles. “It’s been a long-time dream of mine. So yeah, it's kind of overwhelming but also exciting all at once.” What she’s most delighted by, though, is that the songs on the album feel like the most authentically WILSN songs she’s released.

Busch and a friend wrote the title track while she was in LA. “We originally wrote it as a love song, like a heartbreak song,” she admits. The end product couldn’t be more different to her initial plan. “I sat on it for a few months, and something about it didn't feel quite right,” she adds. “And then it clicked: it’s the music. The lyrics need to be empowering and powerful; it just didn’t feel right as a sad record.”

Those Days Are Over is about finding your way through uncertainty and being your authentic self, a mission Busch set on herself during Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdowns. “I was thinking about how I was in lockdown, thinking about my career like everyone else was,” she shares. Busch had no idea what was next or if she’d continue to pursue a music career.

“I was rethinking my whole life because, at the time, I was releasing more poppy-sounding music. This was, like, two years ago, in 2020,” Busch starts. “And I love soul music. It's my number one love. And I kind of did this weird 360, where at the start of my career, I was releasing soul music, and then for a few reasons, like people sort of influencing me, I started releasing poppier sounding music, and it just didn't feel right to me. I love pop, but I felt like it wasn’t my forte.”

When she was writing the title track and the album, Busch channelled the uncertainty about what music genre she would follow and what path she’d go down in her musical career. “Music was the uncertainty for me and, just by chance, it turned out to be a great name for my album and a great meaning for the whole group of soul songs that came together at that time. It's sort of saying, the days of not knowing what genre of music I want to do are over.”

Busch returned to Melbourne a few years ago after living in Nashville for a while. How does home compare to such an iconic music city? “Oh, my god. Yeah, I do love America, but living overseas is hard because you miss your family, friends, and home,” she says. And then there’s that whole cost of living thing.

“Trying to make it as an artist in another country makes it doubly as hard,” she adds. “If you go overseas and you've got a sweet job, you're all set. I'm sure it will be a bit easier. But in music, everything's a little bit harder [laughs]. Living and recording overseas was fun, but it also made me a bit homesick. So yeah, coming home, like you said, it was peaceful. It's also a sad-happy moment for me because we kind of gave up on our Nashville dream, but there's always more opportunities.”

In November last year, WILSN experienced the opportunity of a lifetime for a modern-day soul singer when she opened for US superstar Allen Stone across Australia. “Firstly, that was the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Busch says about what she learned on that tour. “Allen is one of my favourite soul singers, so to have that happen… my mind was blown.

“Watching him perform was really cool because he has such a stage presence,” she continues. “I watched him do that every single night of the tour. He just gave them [the audience] so much energy, and it would have been the best for his band because he’s so welcoming. He makes you feel really nice and welcome. I don’t know if I have that capability. Onstage, he just knows how to work it. You feel like you're in his lounge room, even when you're in this huge room, which is wild. So, I really wanted to take some of that from him and learn how he does that.” WILSN has a few tour dates coming up if you’d like to see how she commands a stage.

WILSN’s debut album, 'Those Days Are Over', is out tomorrow via Ivy League Records. Pre-order the record here.