Dianna Bailer Interview - nss-day-cohort-24/uix-company-site-round-2-smelly-cougars GitHub Wiki

What's your name? Dianna

Age? 37

Career background? Started out as an accident didn’t intend to be a musician

What do you enjoy about being a musician? Love making music and travel and making friends, loved making music - enjoyed the relationship with the community

Don't enjoy? Picked on at school for it because I was different from them. Insecure, yes because she stood out and was in the paper. The kids new what she was doing and when. Learned to separate career and private life, to know what she was doing it. Gained strength.

Do you write your own music? Yes -- writing since she was 8 on the bathroom wall. Mom would copy them down on paper.

Do you have writer's block? How do you tackle it? Yes -- often, don’t know how to tackle it. Wait for it to come back. Years where she couldn’t write songs; energy would change, life would change and she could write a whole bunch of songs. Songs are emotional connections to real life.

Insecurities: People not liking what they do. She likes what publishers didn’t like -- fear of not good enough. Grown out of caring what people like.

How do you rate your playing / singing ability on a scale of 1=10? Doesn’t rate herself very highly at a younger age an 8 for a girl from the country who wasn’t taught music or writing or singing. Can’t read music.

Are you afraid of anything being an artist? Not any more - used to be scare to get on stage and choke; not good enough; insecure as an artist; if you are a major artist at a young age and signed my a lablel you are always judged by them, your hands tied behind their back, you have to do what they want to do and say, insecurities came from make you feel small in order to make you follow their orders, insecurities fed by people above them; that your worthless if you don’t follow them No longer care and are secure as an artist, found a grounded place

Do you have any fears around / during performance? Never had stage fright, never nervous, (confident as a kid), please don’t look at my body on stage, most of the time didn’t care; stage fright came after success #1 female country artist in australia -- living up to the presses and publics expectations, had a panic attack before performance

Now: don’t sing on stage as much anymore, don’t get stage fright because she doesn’t take it as seriously as in she does it for the love of it instead of for people’s expectations; making it into a passion and walks on stage and enjoys herself, no one can hurt her anymore

Does the quality of your equipment affect your performance? 100% yes, example: Cheap guitars as a kid, she saved money and she saved for 3 years and bought a really great guitar and it inspired her to play better and more often, it makes the job a whole lot easier

Do you know who your fanbase is? Pretty broad: a lot of young peple - teenage girls, 30’s and 40’s sometimes

Now: still the same but they’re older 30’s and 40’s

What are things that make you feel confident as a musician? The audience built her confidence, she would do festivals and on the street - she would sing and people would come from all around and she would have a huge audience. She was good at listening to the audience, you don’t have to be the best to win a competition. Just go and make friends, said parents.

Now: the same, the audience but she’s settled and grounded in who she is as a musician. Self-awareness.

What do you do to market yourself? She had no money, social media, festivals, talent shows, sing in the street. Completely organic. Then social media. After the record deal she had the label’s help with tv and radio.

Not promoting self anymore - get out in front of people

Where do you want your musical career to lead? As a kid -- never planned, she cruised along and was happy to be whatever. She thought she would be a vet or an trad artist.

Not on stage - writing and producing now; success is behind doors.

Comments: Just be nice to people even when you’re insecure. Treat everyone. Never actually competing with other artists. It doesn’t work like that even though labels push that idea. If you have the skill, and focus on improving yourself then you will be successful. Strong Work ethic is super important. If you’re working really hard, you won’t find to be insecure.cr