“I feel like the worst version of myself around this time,” Stella Donnelly confesses with a smile, her face lit by a halo of fairy lights that hangs above her in the Naarm/Melbourne shed she’s dialling in from. It’s been three years since the singer-songwriter has shared any music with the world, but with her third album ‘Love And Fortune’ imminent, she’s having to plug back into social media and talk about what she’s made in interviews like this one.
“It’s not just this imagined potential thing anymore,” she continues. “No matter how much work I do on myself to prepare for that feeling, I find myself comparing it and letting my insecurities catch up to me.” This time, though, she’s found an exciting remedy: “I’ve been antidoting that feeling by writing another record already. I feel like now is the perfect time to just continue with the feeling I’ve had for the last few years of writing and wanting to create more music.”
That Donnelly would feel that urge hasn’t always been a given. When she wrapped up touring her second album ‘Flood’ in 2023, she was exhausted and feeling isolated, and decided she needed to take a step back from music rather than keep pushing herself to keep going when her “stores were empty”. “I made the brave or stupid – I’m not sure yet – choice to stop and just take stock for a little while and be curious around whether music was still a part of my life,” she explains.
Losing the momentum she’d built around her work was “a huge fear the whole time”. But she pushed through, leaning on queer, non-binary and femme authors, whom she’d think of as she spent nights in the shed of her share house. “I would picture Maggie Nelson or Sheila Hetty or even Amy Liptrott sitting alone and working on something, and that provided me with great comfort,” Donnelly says. “Also, just the fact that I knew that what I was making now, no matter how well it went commercially, was true and something that I’ve made to the best of my ability.”
Eventually, music called her back, and ‘Love And Fortune’ took shape. It’s a beautiful return – sometimes bare and stripped back, sometimes fizzing with energy – that examines the end of a friendship, refusing to pass the buck for Donnelly’s part in how things turned out. Read on for our interview about stepping back, resisting “sad dancefloor moments”, and where Donnelly goes from here.
After you toured ‘Flood’, you decided that you wanted to take a little step away from music for a bit. How long was that for?
“I think I stopped dead. I didn’t write any music. I didn’t go near any music for maybe about six months. Then Jack [Gaby] from my band started his solo project, and I’m playing bass for him in that project. So then we started recording his music, then we started playing shows, and then I joined two other bands playing around Melbourne. That got me out to watch shows again, and then I was working in a bakery with a bunch of other musicians, and we were listening to music all day. I was coming home and I was wanting to pick up the guitar or sit at the piano.
“It had flipped for me, where it was feeling like I need to pick up the guitar or I need to write a song. It was like, ‘I’ve just had a boring as shit day, but I’ve listened to heaps of music and spoken to heaps of people. I’m ready to express myself through music.’”
Did it feel like going back to how things were when you first started making music, before you put anything out?
“Yeah, it did. It was the perfect formula – boredom is really good for me, and unfortunately, touring is the least boring thing. So I think that boredom really fed wanting to make a bit more colour in my own world at the end of each day.”
You mentioned earlier you’ve joined two other bands and you’re playing in Jack’s project. How did playing in those groups bring you back to music and working on your own songs again?
“It was amazing because, when I first put out my EP [‘Thrush Metal’], I was playing in three bands at that time around Fremantle, and none of those bands were my project. So that’s always been the normal thing for me, up until I put out an EP and it went nuts in a way that I’d never anticipated. Had I known, I probably wouldn’t have put it under my own name. I feel like I’ve become a tennis player, rather than in a football team. I want to be in a football team!
“So, anyway, that was a very strange thing for me doing a solo project, and so being in Jack’s band on bass, it’s my happy place, truly. It’s just so, so much fun. Now that we’re moving into the live world [with my music] and we’re rehearsing for shows and stuff like that, I’m really enjoying it because it’s feeling way more collaborative again.”
Why is it feeling more collaborative? What’s changed?
“I’ve got a great band. I mean, I’ve always had a good band. We’ve got time – that’s the other luxury. ‘Flood’ was coming out while we were on the road, and there wasn’t much time to get those songs into a space… that was around COVID, that was kind of crazy. We rehearse every Wednesday night in this room [gestures to the room around her]. This is my little shed that we’ve made, and we cook – we put a few pies in the oven and sit around the table, eat some dinner, and then play for a couple of hours. It’s been really joyful. Also, coming back to the old songs again has been really fun because having some time away has given me some insight into the fact that I like them.”
How has your relationship with those older songs changed over the years and now, post-break?
“My relationship with them now is that I’m super fucking proud of that obnoxious 25-year-old who just decided to put out a record where she can point outwards in every song, and never pointed anything back in at herself. I’m really proud of her for that. The other records have been more introspective, and I’ve had to go on my own journey in terms of my lyric-writing, so my relationship with those songs is that I’m just like, ‘Wow, good for you.’”
On this album, you’re definitely pointing inwards a bit more, especially on songs like ‘Year Of Trouble’, on which you take accountability for your part in a situation. You’ve said that you almost turned that song into a “sad dancefloor moment”. What was your original vision, and why did you ultimately keep it as it is on the record?
“I really like ‘The Look’ by Metronomy. I love how much it just builds and builds and builds. And finally, at the end, the synth keeps going and going. I wanted to create a sort of meditative, almost Robyn-esque sad dancefloor song out of that. But the more I tried, the more disingenuous it was becoming, or I realised I was trying to hide my shame behind a bunch of production.
“There was a moment where I was like, ‘This is not going to make it onto the record. It’s on the too hard pile for now.’ Then Julia [Wallace], my bandmate who engineered the record, encouraged me to ‘just play the song the way you’ve been doing it and just put it out, it doesn’t have to be this big thing’. Funnily enough, for our live show, I’m going to play the song in full, but towards the end, there’ll be a bit of a surprise.”
You’ve said that you wanted to almost play a different character with each song to help you write freely in the lyrics. How did playing different characters help you with that?
“Honestly, I was playing myself mostly, and I was just playing a different [part of myself]. Every time I tried to write a song about this friendship ending, I tried to capture the whole complex mountain in every song, and that was getting really exhausting, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. So in the end, I set these limitations for myself for each song. So ‘Feel It Change’ is very self-righteous, very bratty, and that was challenging for me to just ‘Lean Into That’, but also knowing that in the next song, ‘Year Of Trouble’, I was going to flip the script and be guilt-ridden, soppy, devastated.
“Those limitations really helped me create the stories in a way. These songs aren’t my life verbatim, but they capture the essence of a certain part of myself and my experience of a friendship breakup, which is not something I found books about or any other resources. You find heaps on romantic breakups, but not much in terms of friendship stuff, and it’s very confusing.”
“I knew that what I was making now, no matter how well it went commercially, was true and something that I’ve made to the best of my ability”
So you had to almost create the resource for yourself and then use it to help you?
“Totally. Also, when Lorde and Charli XCX put ‘Girl, So Confusing’ out, it was just so good to hear that experience in music. I think for me, with this record, I’m not trying to roast someone on it. It’s my experience and my shame and blame around my part to play in a friendship ending.”
Tell me about the way that you’re getting the vinyl pressed for this album. You posted a video on Instagram talking about it being a lucky draw in terms of the colour, but it’s also sustainable.
“I’m going with a regrind option – so the records that I’m having pressed in Australia are all made from the offcuts of other records. When the vinyl plate is pressed, it’s a square that becomes a circle, so you’ve got all these corners that end up in the bin. So, my records are being made out of trash, essentially.
“You don’t know what colour it’s going to be, because you’re at the mercy of whatever’s coming through at that time. It’s really cool. Actually, I went for a walkthrough in the factory and, that week, Big Thief’s record was being pressed on green vinyl, so I was really excited. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll get a bit of Big Thief!’ Hopefully, some of their talent rubs off on me.”
You’ve already started working on another record – where are those songs taking you so far?
“It’s sounding much more outward, way more observational. It’s really upbeat, and it’s just really exciting for me. It’s got a bit more guitar energy to it. The guitar has slowly been making its way back into my life. I feel like I wrote ‘Love And Fortune’ sitting down, and this next record that I’m writing, I’m writing standing up. It’s a nice feeling.”
Stella Donnelly’s ‘Love And Fortune’ is out on November 7 via Brace Yourself Records/Dot Dash Recordings