No matter how you look at it, the debut album from Mia Wray has been a very long time coming.

While Wray had initially launched her musical career as a folk-influenced teenager – over a decade ago – it wasn't until 2020 that the world was introduced to her as a contemporary artist. By this point, she’d become more confident, and certain of what she wanted from a musical point of view, with tracks like debut single Work For Me proving that she was a force to be reckoned with in the music world.

While a run of singles would precede the release of her Stay Awake EP, 2024 brought with it the drip-feed of new tracks that served as a preview of Wray's long-awaited debut album, hi, it's nice to meet me.

Much like her own sense of musical self-discovery, the nascent album is a tale of self-discovery for Wray. It’s an empowering record that features material tracing back to 2018 as Wray goes deep into her experience of falling in love, discovering she was queer, and ultimately meeting her true self for the first time.

With so much growth, so many career highlights, and so many unexpected turns along the way, it does raise the question of whether Wray herself envisioned her musical journey turning out the way it has.

“I thought by the time I was my age that I am now, I truly thought that I was going to be Taylor Swift,” Wray admits via a Zoom call. “I thought that I was going to be playing in arenas wearing specifically green sparkly shorts. That was the vision I had in my head. 

“I think back to when I first started out, the artists that I was looking up to were all in their early-to-mid 20s at like the peak of their career. So I thought, ‘Oh, okay, I need to do the same thing, and if I don't do the same thing, then it means that I'm not successful.’

“I'm 30 later this year, and I truly feel like it's just the beginning of a whole new decade,” she continues. “I don't feel old, like, I feel like I've got so much to give and, and I don't think the peak or the most exciting things have happened yet.”

Of course, given that her career has already experienced some massive highlights, including signing to Mushroom at just 16, performing alongside the likes of Missy Higgins, Kate Miller-Heidke, The Teskey Brothers, and more, and even announcing international tour dates, it’s clear that Wray’s huge dreams are ones we’ll watch come to fruition with excitement.

With the release of hi, it’s nice to meet me, it now feels as though even more items are about to be ticked off the bucket list. But there hadn’t always been plans for an album to arrive, in fact, it wasn’t until a member of Wray’s own team floated the idea in 2022 that the work she was making could in fact be released as a full-length body of work.

“I kind of forgot that I was the boss a little bit and I kind of needed to wait for someone from the label, management, or whatever to be like, ‘This is an album,’” she admits. 

As a result, there wasn’t a particular origin story for the record, or a narrative that had been intended for the album to focus on. Instead, the music she was writing – inspired by her own journey of self-discovery – presented itself as a cohesive collection of songs.

“There were so many full circle moments happening, I think that it just kind of happened,” she explains. “Every time I was in a writing session, one of the lines that kept coming to me was, ‘for the first time in a long time,’ and then I would be like, ‘It's like I'm saying hello to myself.’”

“And then ‘Hi, it's nice to meet me’ just kept coming up and I was like, ‘Oh, I think that's really cool,’” she adds, “Instead of me being like trying to be like, ‘I need to write an album,’ it just kind of came to me and I was like, ‘Okay, well this just seems like it needs to be a thing you just kind of let happen.’”

This journey of self-discovery that hi, it’s nice to meet me lends itself to the sense of confidence that permeated Wray’s own life across her musical career. While the notion of launching a debut album at long last might have been a daunting task, she admits to feeling at peace with the pressures she felt along the way.

“I vividly remember Michael Gudinski saying, ‘The first album is the most important thing,’ and so, I think maybe that's why I never felt confident enough to be like, ‘This is an album,’” she explains. “I felt so much pressure on the first album needing to be amazing, I needed someone else to tell me that it was good.

“I've done a lot of growing since then and I'm really hoping that the next album is led by me, and doesn’t see me feeling so insecure that I need someone else to validate the art.”

However, while the pressures were initially quite tangible, she’s come to terms with it and no longer feels that an album is the monolithic creation that Gudinski once told her it was.

“When it just kind of became undeniable that it was an album, I kind of just had to fall into it and just let it be,” she says. “If it does well, it does well, and if it doesn't, I'm a real big firm believer in the idea that maybe the album that does something is like album five or six.

“We see that happen all the time. I saw that A Complete Unknown movie the other day, and Bob Dylan released like, 55 records. So I'm like, ‘It's fine. Everything is fine.’

“That is the thing that I remind myself when things aren't as successful as I want them to be, or I feel like they have to be, because it's the first record,” she adds. “I don't believe that a first record is the be all and end all of an artist's career.”

There is an odd sense of it being a double-edged sword in a way. On one hand, Wray has crafted an album that sees her reintroducing herself to herself, but also one that serves as another reintroduction to her audience as well.

As she recalls, in late 2023, she spoke to triple j’s Abby Butler and Tyrone Pynor alongside the release of her single Tell Her, and discovered after the fact that her chat with the hosts was a confessional one.

“I remember sitting in my car afterwards and just listening to the interview back and what I just kind of realised to myself was like, ‘Wait, did I just come out?’” she remembers. “All of the main people in my life knew, but one of my best friends was like, ‘Dude, I just found out that you were gay.’ 

“I hadn't had enough time to live it personally and then create something; it was all at the same time. So, that has been really hard to navigate.”

The confessional nature of it all has also inspired an internal conversation not to put external pressures on herself, and ultimately, to take a kinder approach with her self care.

“We're in 2025 and at that point it was 2023, and I'm like, ‘Okay, does anybody even come out anymore?’ Whatever, everyone's all over the place. There's no straight or gay, everyone's somewhere in between,” she explains. “Amongst my community, it’s pretty widely accepted and expected that everyone's somewhere on the spectrum kind of thing. 

“But it was a bit of a mindfuck that I was releasing these songs and still currently going through it all,” she adds. “Just the fact that, like, my ex-partner's family is hearing this is really jarring for me because I've never even had a conversation with them about this and they were a part of my life for seven years and now they're hearing it… It’s a very niche, weird situation to be in.

“So I just try to be gentle with myself and just be kind to myself in my head, because it's really easy for it to become too much.”

Still, an album like hi, it’s nice to meet me is one rooted in vulnerability, with themes of heartbreak and loss intertwined between her own journey of queer self-discovery. While most artists find it difficult to be vulnerable, Wray says that such a concept has always been a part of her.

“I just kind of accept that my heart is an open wound and it is also a product that is promoted and sold, which is hard to do,” she explains. “One of the first songs I ever wrote was about my parents divorce. I remember playing it at a school assembly when I was 13, and it's never really been like, ‘Oh my God, am I about to sing a song about something really vulnerable in front of my peers and strangers?’ It's always just been natural to do.

“But when I've done it and then I realise that all of these strangers know my business and know what I'm struggling with, that's hard, and I have to wrestle with that emotion a bit and just be kind to myself,” she adds.

“It's always just been that way. I've always just been vulnerable, and even in my banter on stage, I would quite literally say whatever comes into my head. It's liberating, but sometimes if you do it for too long, it sometimes can be a bit much and then I find myself putting up walls after a certain amount of time that I've been too exposed.”

Again, it’s a double-edged sword, because while Wray admits there then becomes a need to protect herself from herself in the interest of self-preservation, the idea of not being vulnerable isn’t genuine, which is anathema to her personal goals.

However, hi, it’s nice to meet me presents itself as a solid album, one rooted in self-assuredness despite any of the fears and pressures that may have bubbled away behind the scenes. It’s also one that manages to be kaleidoscopic in its approach, matching the ups and downs of the lyrical and thematic concepts behind the scenes.

While it does tend towards the subdued at times, it’s equally upbeat and cathartic, and one that manages to hide any overt vulnerability behind musical exuberance. In reality, it’s much like its creator.

“I feel like I'm a little bit bipolar creatively sometimes,” Wray explains. “I just do what feels good in the moment, and I look forward to the day that I make a record that makes sense. But I don't think this record makes a lot of sense, but that is why it makes sense to me. All of the different parts of me are on this record in the chapter that I was in at that time.

“I used to be like a folk artist and so that part of me is still very present in the songs but there is also this other part of me that just loves power pop and that is also very present. 

“I've had a few conversations with my team being like, ‘Some of these songs just make absolutely no sense together,’” she explains. “The Way She Moves makes no sense next to Fake A Smile, but because of what happened and the turbulence of what I went through, because it doesn't make sense together, that's why it makes sense to me.”

Ultimately, Wray and her team have indeed done a brilliant job balancing the nonsensical nature of it all in a way that makes sense. But still, Wray admits she hopes that one day she can embrace her musical diversity in a lot of different ways.

“I really hope one day that I can just make a folk record, and then just make a pop record, and then just make a blues rock record.,” she says. “But, for some reason, it's just every flavour of ice cream in this.”

With Wray’s debut album out in the world, and a run of tour dates set to kick off later this month, it’s clear she’s found a happy place within herself in which she can be honest, self-assured, and kind to herself. 

While it remains to be seen if she’ll ever reach those envisioned heights of being just like Taylor Swift, it wouldn’t be a surprise if such a future becomes a reality down the line.

“I just truly love what I do,” Wray admits. “The thing I say to myself or anyone that asks like, ‘Oh, how's music going?’ I just say I’m going to keep doing it as long as I can keep doing it. And to me right now, that's pretty much the plan.”

Mia Wray’s hi, it’s nice to meet me is out now.

Mia Wray – hi, it’s nice to meet me Australian Tour

Thursday, March 27th – Brightside, Brisbane, QLD

Saturday, March 29th – Solbar, Sunshine Coast, QLD

Thursday, April 3rd – Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS

Friday, April 11th – Barwon Club, Geelong, VIC

Saturday, April 12th – Volta, Ballarat, VIC

Friday, April 18th – The Stag, Newcastle, NSW

Saturday, April 19th – Mary's Underground, Sydney, NSW

Sunday, April 20th – La La La's, Wollongong, NSW

Monday, April 21st – Smith's Alternative, Canberra, ACT

Thursday, April 24th – The Corner, Melbourne, VIC

Saturday, April 26th – Tanswells, Beechworth, VIC

Thursday, May 1st – Jive, Adelaide, SA

Friday, May 2nd – Mojo's, Fremantle, WA

Tickets on sale now.