Fresh off the announcement of her return to SXSW in 2022, today Australian heralded singer and songwriter Phebe Starr returns with a dark and brooding, yet catchy new single + video, “Everything.” 

Taken from her forthcoming debut album Heavy Metal Flower Petal (set for release on March 11), the track takes us on a journey through time and space, examining the ways in which the quest for love can often lead us to strange and unfamiliar terrain. 

“A lot of my songs start from a visual place in my head,” says Starr, “with ‘Everything,’ I imagined myself walking through the dark matter of the universe as if getting lost in the gravitational pull of a black hole. That feeling was foreign and exhilarating to me, like the way you feel when falling in love.”

 Full of hope and longing, “Everything” is a warm and classic song written and produced by Phebe Starr and Dorny Mayes (Troye Sivan, Gordi, Birds of Tokyo), with mixing by Charles Daly (Amy Shark, Allday, Mallrat) and mastering by Andrei Eremin (Tones and I, Tash Sultana, Matt Corby).

Heavy Metal Flower Petal is Starr’s most potent and liberating work to date, one that unveils an invigorated Starr more in touch with herself than ever before. Written in the wake of divorcing the man she married as a 21-year-old, and brought to life with guests including Alister Wright (Cloud Control, VLOSSOM), Xavier Dunn and Japanese Wallpaper, the album peels back the layers and explores new territory within Starr’s being, showing a contrast between the toughness (the ‘heavy metal’) and the softness (the ‘flower petal’) that exists within her life. 

“The whole album is about my process of letting myself feel things that I was afraid to,” she says. “It’s about letting myself be tender and vulnerable, learning how to incorporate the feminine into my narrative.” Over the course of its ten-track duration, Heavy Metal Flower Petal is a powerful masterclass of Starr’s musical and personal journeys, and an album sure to lift the musician to the highest echelon of Australian homegrown songwriters.

Tell us about your story as an artist.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Australia. As a kid, we didn’t have the internet, and there were no shops around for miles, so we grew our own food, and my clothes were all hand-me-downs from the local charity stores. It was just my family and me on a farm with some animals, so I had to rely on my imagination for excitement. Along with spending my days exploring the forest and cooking cakes, I began writing and creating music as a creative outlet. I started taping myself on old cassette tapes singing and playing along to classical music. I became fascinated with cutting the recordings up and seeing what they sounded like when rearranged. After that, I bought an old Casio keyboard from the junkyard and taught myself to play by ear by listening to pop songs on the radio. The piano cemented my love for music, and soon I was writing lyrics and producing my own tracks. After school, I moved to Sydney, Australia and started putting my music online. 

What do you think is the most important aspect of your life right now?


Staying alive

What makes this song “Everything” special in your opinion?


The feeling. There is something about making music you can’t explain, and I want to give that feeling to others. 


What inspired this track?


Last year I learnt about spaghettification which is a term in astrophysics, (sometimes referred to as the noodle effect), it is the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects into long thin shapes (rather like spaghetti) in a very strong non-homogeneous gravitational field; it is caused by extreme tidal forces.
I thought it was funny but also had the feeling of how I felt at the time like you’re giving everything to life and it’s taking everything. Soo that’s where the idea started. 



What are some of the core messages on the track?


I don’t like to explain my art. Nor do I believe that art has one message or purpose or that my intentions will even matter to my audience. Art is a shared experience.

How do you think Tik Tok and social media are contributing to change an artist’s career?

Conversations about who is trending or going viral are extremely boring. I love how technology can be used positively but I’m finding that the music industry is relying on social media too much to market their artists’ music which means artists are becoming content creators rather than musicians. It’s making a machine of predictable copycat artists that are exhausted mentally and emotionally from oversharing on the internet everyday, rather than enjoying really fucking awesome music. A+R’s don’t really have a good reputation for actually supporting musicians, but putting a bunch of money behind what’s hype. It’s a lame narrative that is changing the way we make art, the quality of makers and the way people quickly move on rather than really listen for depth and to be transported to a more grounding community experience that art has traditionally offered. 


What excites you about your life?

Soft power associates 2022. Terms and conditions apply. Must be available for meetings. Location -30.354509,152.824416. Association exists to protect the powers of soft. While upholding lizards, wildlife and vintage people. Things the association stands for contains many. Tea. Biscuits. Simples. Eating in bathtubs. Popcorn. Suits. Formalwear. Glory. Discussions about spontaneous combustion. Paddington. Plants. The truth about aliens. Cursing. Dancing. Singing. Sailing. Must like snails.

What are some of your core values as a human being?

I named my album ‘Heavy Metal Flower Petal’ because I believe that life is full of contradictions or two opposing ideas that get us closer to the truth or reality. I want to live life with softness, fluidity and love but also I don’t want to take shit nor see BS. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, baby!

What are your projects for this year?

The album comes out March 9th and I’ve just started playing shows again, so getting that happening is my first project. I am coming to the US March and April for shows including SXSW. It’s a thrilling idea about traveling and getting out there to meet fans and people listening to my music. I’m extremely excited about traveling again.
I’m also hoping to release some art and things I’ve made. I’ve been getting really into lighting design, so I’m hoping to bring that aspect to my live show and through releasing some lamps that I’ve made.