Music has always been my first love.

I grew up listening to music my parents loved, like Queen, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, basically the GOATs of the music industry. I was a part of my school choir and that exposed me to so many more different genres of music. My parents have always been the type to support me in whatever I loved doing and so I got to record an album of me covering all my favourite songs when I was 13 and another one at 14 for my birthday present during those years. Around that time, I also I wrote my first song. It was the cheesiest song about friendship (with a rap included, smh), but hey you gotta start somewhere! As I grew older I developed my own style and found my own inspirations like Adele for her voice and Taylor Swift for her song-writing skills. When I turned 17, I had to deal with some mental health problems, which led me wanting to focus more on song-writing as I realised it had become a healthy outlet for me to let out my emotions. So when I moved to Australia to pursue a higher education, I brought along my guitar and music gear.

Coming to Australia from Indonesia, where the drinking culture is basically nothing compared to Australia’s, I had a BIG culture shock. There were countless amount of times that my university friends had asked me to go out with them to get a drink, and to be honest it became very tempting. And so I joined them a couple of times… I didn’t like it. It wasn’t me. I also felt like I was sacrificing my money and time for temporary happiness instead of investing in my music, an actual prospective career.

And so I decided to stop.

 

 

Now I spend my weekends honing my craft like writing, producing and singing. With the money I’ve been able to save up, I’ve bought my dream guitar, a producing keyboard and a better microphone for recording. I’ve even been able to rent out professional studios to work on music with other producers and musicians and let’s be honest it’s not cheap. HAHA! With the time I have now, I have been learning to produce my own music as well and I can announce that my second mini album is in the works and I’m feeling the best and most confident I’ve ever been within my craft.

I’m so fortunate to have been able to identify my passion earlier on in life and have music be my driving force. Music has saved me in so many ways and it continues to do so, to this very day.

 

Stream Verena on Spotify Here and check out her Instagram Here!