Nicole Millar is a lesson in pop patience

At first, Nicole Millar didn't realise her life had changed. Three years ago the singer and songwriter was just beginning to flex her talents, working at a juice bar on Crown St in Surry Hills while collaborating with fellow musicians.

At one session the Canadian-born and Cronulla-raised Millar wrote two songs with Canberra electronic duo Peking Duk, one of which was High, a hit single that dominated 2014 playlists and sold more than 200,000 copies.

By January 2015, when the track's reverie-to-rave progression had reached No. 2 on the triple J Hottest 100, Millar had the opportunity to build a solo career and the music industry was clamouring for her signature. Everything was moving fast. Maybe too fast.

"My manager said that I should take some time off to write and find my sound and I was like, 'what do you mean? I want to put out more stuff'," Millar says. "I'm so grateful that he told me to wait because I was writing some terrible songs – I had one called Soy Latte that I was convinced would be the next best thing."

Jump forward to 2018 and Millar is literally having her (lemon) cake and eating it too as she tastes a slice from a 25th birthday cake presented by her record company.

Advertisement

Millar's debut album, Excuse Me, is out on June 1, completing a journey of creative self-discovery that began with her pulling her car over to quickly record ideas on her phone and ended with songwriting sessions in Sweden and studio time in Los Angeles.

"I used to say I don't like pop music, but now I obviously make it and I love it," Millar says. "I like writing pop songs with an edge. If I'm writing and it gets too lovey then I pull it back and put on my sassy persona, which is definitely not me in real life. My songs are my inside voice – I escalate things that annoy me and exaggerate the situation to make the song work."

Millar has not only mastered new wave defiance (Gimme a Break) and airy synthesiser longing (Signals), she's also figured out how to progress her career.

It's a balancing act, even if it means Millar missed seeing Beyonce's era-defining set at this year's Coachella music festival because she had to appear at fashion label and record company parties in nearby Palm Springs.

Having learnt to say "no" to the music industry when she needs to, Millar is saying "yes" to her predominantly teenage fans.

Many of her followers are 16-year-olds, and apart from the disconcerting way they casually tell her, "wow, that's so old", when Millar tells them her age, she's discovered how in this era popular music is a kind of personal surrogacy.

"They're looking to someone they can aspire to, or they don't have anyone else they feel they can talk to," Millar says. "I sometimes find myself talking for a long time to these kids on Twitter and I never thought that would be part of making music."

Nicole Millar plays two shows at the Oxford Art Factory (1pm U18s and 8pm 18+) on Saturday, June 23.

Comments disabled

Craig Mathieson has been the film critic for The Sunday Age since March 2012, having previously held the same position for Rolling Stone and The Bulletin. The former magazine editor writes widely on film, music and television, and is still able to quote sizeable chunks of the dialogue from Michael Mann's Heat.

Most Viewed in Entertainment

Morning & Afternoon Newsletter

Delivered Mon–Fri.