🎹 FULL INTERVIEW | Missy Higgins

**Nick Luttsy** (0:00)
Hey, it's Nova106.9, Nick Luttsy & Susie O'Neill with you, and very excited to be joined by our next guest, Missy Higgins. She's coming to Night at the Parkland in September. Tickets are available at nightattheparkland.com.au.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:12)
Missy Higgins.

**Missy Higgins** (0:12)
She joins us right now.

**Nick Luttsy** (0:15)
Hi, guys.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:16)
Excited that you're coming up to Brisbane, again, to perform in the Brisbane Festival, and you're gonna be performing in the Parkland, is that correct?

**Missy Higgins** (0:23)
Yes. I'm playing in Roma Street Parkland 20th of July, and I hear it's a very incredible venue, so I'm very excited. It is, Bryce.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:32)
I know that Jem Casedalian is a Hazel Mayer, I think, supporting you as well, which is pretty cool as well. And you're right, Roma Street, it's a different venue. It's an intimacy about it. It's also obviously a parkland, so it's out of that, out of your usual kind of, like, you know, arena or convention center kind of vibe. So that's really pretty exciting.

**Missy Higgins** (0:51)
Yeah, it's gonna be gorgeous. And Jim Casadeli is an amazing up-and-coming singer-songwriter, and Hazel May is a local artist who's really great too. So yeah, it'll be a special night under the stars in Brissy.

**Nick Luttsy** (1:03)
And you're good. Missy, I saw you, I was in Newcastle for a while, and I saw you perform in Newcastle at the theater there for your show. I was blown away. I mean, this sounds dumb, but I was just blown away by how good your voice is. So it's just you up there, the piano. And what I loved most about your shows is, because you're Ozzy and our humor's obviously the same, you just speak to us like a person, and you really engage with the crowd. You just talk about what you're feeling at the time, what you were feeling when you wrote these songs, how you were 19 when you wrote Scar, and now the song doesn't mean anything to you, but everyone loves it. You have a really authentic show, which is really cool.

**Missy Higgins** (1:37)
Oh, that's good. Yeah. I think I've learned to be more and more authentic as the years have gone by, just because I know that people appreciate it. And I think that's what I love in an artist too. When you go and see them live and you really get a feel for their personality and also the stories behind the songs, I always think that that makes the show much more special. So yeah, thank you.

**Nick Luttsy** (1:57)
Your whole new album, which I love, I suppose it's all about your divorce and those heavier days, if you will. It was funny seeing you do it in the show.
You were making light of it. But what's it like performing that music at your live show when it is so emotive for you?

**Missy Higgins** (2:15)
It's something that I worked through as I was playing the shows. I mean, I think it's such an intensely personal album, and it was very, very therapeutic to write the album. And when I started the tour, I was like, yeah, it was hard. I was crying a lot during rehearsal and getting pretty teary during the shows. But it was also quite an amazing feeling playing that to hundreds of people every night that a lot of which I felt like could relate to exactly what I was singing about. So there was something really beautiful and healing about it. I wanted to find the joy in it as well. That's why I was kind of laughing about it, because I obviously know that it's not a particularly original experience that I've gone through. Yeah, it was really lovely. And that feeling of connection, you know, like connecting with playing.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:00)
I think that's your real strength, though, is being able to say what people are thinking. Like, I know that your first album 20 years ago was a lot of stuff you were saying was what I was thinking. Now, I haven't been through a divorce, but I have known people who are going through breakups, and they say to me that that's the same thing they feel with this next album you've got. You can articulate in a song what the emotions they are feeling and they can't get out, so that's why they connect with your music.

**Missy Higgins** (3:25)
Well, that's good. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the beauty of songwriting and art in general, isn't it? It's like it helps you articulate what you have been struggling to articulate yourself. And it feels like someone's just singing that song for you, even though it's a very personal song, it's like got a very universal truth inside it, and that's what makes you feel seen. So all my favorite songs from my life that I've been inspired by and love have been songs that I felt like were really, really speaking to me, even though obviously, they're a very personal story to the artist.