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Georgia Lines is rapidly establishing herself as one of New Zealand's most exciting musical talents. Recently crowned Best Pop Artist at the 2024 New Zealand Music Awards, her debut album *The Rose of Jericho* debuted at #1, and her singles *The Letter* and *Wayside* topped the radio charts. With over 10 million streams across platforms, Georgia’s captivating songwriting and powerful performances have earned her widespread recognition.

We spoke with Georgia at the recent BIGSOUND 2024 event in Brisbane to chat through her process, what makes her stand out and who she creates for.

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Ones To Watch: Hi Georgia! Great to have you on. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm Georgia Lines, a singer-songwriter artist all the way from New Zealand. I've been doing songwriting music for what feels like a really long time now. 10 years ago, I finished high school and I decided that I wanted to pursue it.

When did you realise you wanted to pursue music? 

I realized I wanted to pursue music during my last year of primary school, when High School Musical came out and I actually had never sang in public in front of anyone up until that point, and High School Musical happened and I decided to reenact the breaking free scene with Troy and Gabriella through high school for a school talent quest. 

It was like my debut moment. From then I realised I loved singing. 

How would you describe your music and is there a difference then to now? 

I find that question always really hard. I do feel like I've morphed and changed and grown a lot in the last. I mean massively in the last 10 years, but even more so over the last two years. When I first started out, I felt like I was trying to be a replica of something, pop, R&B, kind of the soul. I loved Solange. I just felt like I didn't really know what I wanted to be musically. I listened to some of those demos back from like, 10-15 years ago. I'm like, wow, you've come a long way.

Now I've just released my debut album and it still very much fits into the pop world, but there are a lot of big, beautiful piano. I don't know if you can even say this as a genre, but like piano, vocal, emotive pop ballads. It's a wide umbrella. 

Who or what has influenced you in your music?

I've definitely been influenced a lot. There’s a few very significant Kiwi artists for me. As s a young female musician, trying to figure out my way, Brooke Fraser was a massive one for me. I think seeing them, you know in their lane and just releasing music and making really amazing art and consistently just doing what seems like their thing and doing it well.

What would be one thing that you'd want someone to take away? And how would you want them to feel? 

I think for me the thing that I have realised that I deeply connect to you know, within my own writing is writing from a very real place. My hope has been and continues to be that anyone that listens to my music would connect their own story to some of the things. And also the songs that I write from a very deep and raw and vulnerable place that people would listen to and go, oh, someone else has been there. 

Any quick advice to any emerging artists?

I think finding people that really believe in you is really important. That you know can encourage you and pick you up along the way. When it does get really tough because but it's a strange industry, career and job that we find ourselves in as artists and you need people to to champion you and to say you're doing a really good job.