Stephanie Cherote
From the USA to Byron Bay, Stephanie Cherote’s journey to her debut album has been an exercise in ‘the doing’.
Photography by Shayne Comino
Although Stephanie Cherote is living in Northern NSW, her journey has been far from the sea-breezy life that is often likened to the region. From winning Australian Singer-Songwriter of the Year & Unsigned Artist of the Year in her mid-twenties, to leaving a major record label opportunity in the US to write and self-release her album, Some Holy Longing (due in 2021)—Stephanie isn’t your ordinary independent artist.
This level of self-belief and endeavour carries over to the singer-songwriter’s life in her 80s style beach house in New Brighton. Curiosity and ‘doing’ is prevalent in their everyday lives as a young family, where Stephanie juggles life, love and music with her partner and son.
Who are you? Tell us a little about yourself.
Oh the BIG question that I spend most days circling and stirring and staring at blankly, to which no straightforward answer ever emerges! In an interview-appropriate-nutshell, I write songs, I record them and I hope to play them to people again, when performance and social gathering is deemed essential. I am quite nomadic by nature, but I have been a content home-body for the last two years, mothering my baby boy and juggling life and love with my partner.
What's your story so far?
Music was always a prominent part of my life, growing up with four musical siblings and our Mother who shared her love of 50s and 60s records. I played countless cover gigs up until I was 18 and then I picked up a guitar, started writing and eventually recording my own songs. I left Australia in my mid twenties and lived in America for a few years where I spent most of my time working a day job, playing gigs, and writing my debut album which is what I have been working towards releasing this year.
Tell us about your experiences in the US?
I moved from Sydney to Los Angeles initially for recording and songwriting opportunities. It felt like a big leap being immersed in a powerhouse music-making culture, and I was quite overwhelmed by the pace and the muscle of the professional machine. I wasn’t seasoned enough as a writer or assured enough as a person to really assert my vision, but I did have the self-awareness to know that I was evolving and I didn’t want to be ‘man-handled’ or have an identity manufactured, especially by something or someone outside of myself.
I moved to New York where I knew a few people and had a solid day job, it was my way of escaping the ‘big-time’ pressure. It offered me a scope of experiences to catch my thoughts as they sprung from the colourful, chaotic, absurd, and surreal situations that you find yourself in whilst living in New York.
I stayed in New York for almost five years, I found momentum writing and crafting my songs, performing in small venues. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was living in a way that I needed to in order to write the album I had the instinct to write.
What does a typical day back home look like for you?
I am a self-managed artist, so I’m doing a hat-dance every day. If I make it out of bed before my son I take the quiet early hours to write, otherwise it's after cuddles, coffee, and a stroll to the beach. My partner and I are both ‘full-time’ parenting as well as tending to our work and creative lives so we sort of tag team day-to-day and make it work. At the moment I’m focused on the release of my upcoming album and maintaining a musical practice for when the time comes around again to tour. I also like to make sure I get in the ocean and do some version of yoga daily, even if it’s moving around on the sand like a lizard for twenty minutes.
What do you love about your home?
We bought our first home just a couple of months ago in New Brighton, Northern NSW. I love that it stands a few lazy streets from the ocean and the backyard recedes into the beautiful Brunswick river. I’m learning about the cycles of the tide as it moves in and out of our yard and I love watching my son watching pelicans and bush turkeys. I love the largeness of nature all around us and the nostalgia that our house represents for my partner and I. The house itself is a rather passe 80s style beach house but it is homely and very forgiving for a toddler to run wild in. We were excited about making some changes over time, but it’s actually one of the only houses in the area that isn’t undergoing a grand renovation, so I think I’m wanting to preserve the house as is for a little longer. Let it live and age and tell stories that reflect the era of Byron Bay that I found most magical when I came to visit as a teen.
Do you have any daily or weekly habits or rituals around music in your home?
I try to sing every day as my voice is rather temperamental, but also informative. It is the first indicator for when I’m full-brim or emotionally tense—it needs to be visited daily, given a good walk and stretch I suppose. As a family we listen to music in the late afternoons when we’re prepping dinner and having showers etc.
What spaces of your home do you play in?
I really go wherever I’m feeling pulled into at the time or where I can let go without feeling listened to. I have a room set-up for writing and playing, but I usually end up in the bathroom, in my bed or on the outside deck—the little nooks that don’t feel too demanding. I’ve never been very committed to designated writing spots, or writing notebooks! I’m a ‘grab a corner, find a piece of scrap paper’ kind of person.
How has playing guitar impacted your life as an artist?
I’ve never been very studious when it comes to learning guitar. I have tried to be, but my songwriting detours have always hindered my greater technical potential. For me, the real highlight moments on the guitar arise when I’m writing—finding the chords that support the melody, especially when it is a chord that is technically ‘not allowed’. I’ve had much more musically literate musicians look at my chord progressions and be a bit baffled as to how I’ve gotten away with certain changes within a song. Of course I don’t know at the time that I’m doing something clever, I just know that it is interesting to me. I think delivering my songs with a sense of kinship with the guitar is the foundation to performing confidently. It is a wonderful feeling when I find ease and fluidity within the playing—it gives buoyancy to the entire experience of performing.
Tell us about your guitar—where did you get it and what do you love about it? What makes it special to you?
My ‘main man’ is a Maton Messiah. It is as intimidating to play as its name suggests. It is very beautiful, rather large and adorned in fancy trims. I won the Messiah in a songwriting competition some years ago and I have felt completely out of my depths as a player since receiving it. It is a total pro guitarist’s guitar! I’m not a ‘buy new’ kind of person so admittedly it would never have been my choice to purchase but it has put up with me. I think it must have codependency issues because so many times I’ve tried to sell it or swap it with someone much more adept to play it and it seems to end up back in my arms again. It keeps me on my toes I suppose. It has been a great accomplice in writing songs and I have taken it around the world and back again, I’ve managed to persuade flight attendants to let it fly in the upper cabin of every plane I’ve been on (which is a big adrenal moment when asking, as any guitarist could relate to). I do feel quite sentimental about it don’t I?!
Any great resources or tips and tricks for learning guitar?
My initial motivation toward the guitar was a yearning to write songs, so I navigated it only to seek out the chords and the picking or strumming patterns that I needed to write the song in my head. That alone taught me a lot, but of course it also revealed just how in depth I could go. I think curiosity takes you a long way and also being prepared to sound like total shit most of the time for a long time, it’s just the only way. I watch my two year old learning to coordinate simple gestures and I have endless patience and respect for his processes and his persistence. You need to have that same support, but also softness around yourself when you’re in the learning lane - and we all are really, with everything, every day!
Do you feel like your taste in music has changed over the years?
Not really. Well, it has expanded and I’ve come around to listening to and appreciating music I used to feel overwhelmed by or bored by, but most of the music that made an imprint on me as a small person still bears the same importance. I remember being eight years old listening to Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys and Hank Williams and feeling complete, but also completely in awe, and I still do. There have been a few artists or records that I’ve had a hard time connecting with that I’ve actually felt obliged to love because they were the ‘greats’, so I’ve road tested them again and again to see if my pallet is ready to welcome them, and sometimes I’m really excited to realise that I’m ready to love them! Some, I still can’t.
On that note then, what's an album you never get sick of?
Colour Green by Sibylle Baier.
What comes next for you? Any plans for 2020/21?
Releasing more singles from my debut album, Some Holy Longing. The album will be released in early 2021 and I really hope to tour soon after.
What themes and influences informed ‘Some Holy Longing’?
While I was writing the album I felt conflicted by a sense of displacement. [I was] feeling a bit like an estranged misfit from the music world that I thought I would feel at home in, but also inspired and actually completely at home in the solitude I found myself in. This subtle rivalry provoked a voice longing, the voice that resides in the inner world where perception is filtered by spirituality, poetry and feeling. I just knew when I was in contact with that part of me and I let it speak, I let it make the record.
What keeps your musical spark alive?
It is kept alive in the doing. It’s easy enough to settle into the contrary—a sea-breezy life, one that is perpetually familiar, consuming and disposing, void of creativity. But in the effort, in the doing, I am met by new understanding, new life, new longings, new forgiveness, new songs.
Listen to the first two singles from Some Holy Longing on Spotify and follow Stephanie on Facebook.
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