International Women's Day 2024: Outside In with Support Act. Hevenshe and Emily Wurramara talk about their lived experiences of mental health and being a woman in the music industry
Interviews: Jett Tattersall
Images: Jess Macc
Published: Friday 8 May 2024
It may sound trite, but it is not an exaggeration to say popular music has saved lives. It is pop music, perhaps more than any other medium, that we turn to in the hard times, in the good times and when we need some kind of release. We may have pressed play on our favourite heartbreak ballads and cried our eyes out over schoolyard crushes; we may have connected with our identity and found our tribe in young adulthood; and we might be reliving those emotions as we get older by listening again to the songs that helped us through.
Music is always there for us. It advises but never tells us what to do, educates but never preaches, and unlocks something deep inside of us that perhaps would have remained dormant if it wasn’t for that one song.
But what about the people who make that music, the music we use to help us through our rough patches? What about their mental health? As Women In Pop knows, it is female musicians who create so much of the culture we live in today, who have pushed the envelope and agitated for social change, and who create some of the greatest music in each generation. Yet it is female musicians who are afforded the least respect in the music industry, who are judged and harshly criticised for everything from their appearance to their creativity, and who are subjected to discriminatory and sexist treatment that ranges from name calling to criminal sexual assault.
On International Women’s Day, Women In Pop have teamed up with Support Act to explore the impact of mental health on women in the music industry, their experiences as female artists in a male-dominated and unregulated industry, and what they have learned along the way. Support Act is a charity that provides crisis relief, mental health and wellbeing support to musicians, managers, crew, music workers and organisations across all genres of music via short-term financial support, funeral support, prevention programs in mental health, education and training.
Women In Pop sat down with two artists to discuss their lived experiences and mental health journeys.
Image: Jess Macc
Hevenshe is the solo project of Tonight Alive’s Jenna McDougall. Her debut EP Wild Wild Heart was released in November 2023 as a fully independent body of work, written solely by McDougall.
Hi Jenna, great to chat to you. Where did your stage name Hevenshe come from?
I was playing with words that had an ethereal and feminine feel to them. Heavenly was something that I was attracted to and there's a band called Super Heaven and I thought that is such a cool name. Then Hevenshe came and it feels like a parallel to divine feminine heaven-she so that was really speaking to me at that time and embodying myself more fully in my womanhood, but also in my divinity, and just trying to get in touch with that through the name.
Is that something that previously, because of the kind of music you were creating, you didn't feel there was space for?
Absolutely. Healing and reclaiming my femininity and finding it in the first place is where I'm at now. In Tonight Alive, I was very much in my masculine and I think that started as a protective mechanism. I think a lot of women probably feel safer when they present in a more masculine way, whether that's in their personality or in the way they dress. It just I felt if I'm to be respected, I'd have to be more like men. That's how I felt even as a teenager. So it's been a part of my journey from the beginning of my career.
I was always around boys and touring I was always the odd one out and I wanted to get less attention for that. Sexually less attention, socially less attention. I wanted to stand out less, fit in more and be judged less and respected more. I felt like being boyish or androgynous or masculine was the way to get respect and credibility.
Do you feel like that comes from a very deep rooted place within the industry that pop music is for girls, and pop music is trash and to be taken seriously, you can't be either of those things: pop or a woman?
When I tell someone who doesn't know me I'm a musician, they go ‘oh do you do folk music? Do you play acoustic guitar?’ They always assume that you're just a little songstress. Another example of that was that when I would get asked to do features on other band’s tracks, it was always the ballad. I was like ‘I want to I want to be on the rock track!’ So there's a lot of assumptions about your gender being aligned with what you would listen to, or what you would create. There’s a lot of generalisation about that.
Image: Jess Macc
The Australian music industry is famously just dude rock. There are so many amazing women working within that industry, but it feels like when there is given space, that's the only space they're allowed to take up - you get to be the one girl doing this. And you can't complain, or take issue with that.
Yeah, we should just be grateful for the exposure or if we get an opportunity you can't make much more noise than your music. People would always ask me when I was young, ‘do you experience sexism in the industry?’ And I would say no, because I was too young to be able to identify it. I didn't know that it should feel different to how it felt when I was a teenager. I wonder if the reason is because you're conditioned to think it's enough. The space you have is enough.
Within the music industry itself, what do you feel it needs do to protect the mental health of the people that work within it?
For me right now, my contribution to music and to my audience, but also to the quality of my life, is me going to therapy. I'm just doing my own work on myself.
You are a voice for Support Act on International Women'‘s Day this year, what drew you to Support Act?
They're one of a kind in Australia, and it was just such a blessing and a breakthrough to find out that they existed during the lockdowns. I was living in Melbourne at the time and we were just on house arrest and all that kind of stuff. But when I was making phone calls to Support Act and asking for help, and also receiving financial support, the people were the thing that connected me with them on the next level. When I started going to their talks and events and just seeing how empathetic and genuinely caring they are. They're not just an organisation that do good things, there's great people that run it so having relationships with them has been really beautiful.
When did you know that music was the thing you would always chase and the answer to your hiccups and happiness?
Oh it must have been as a teenager, I wrote my first song at 11. I used to write poetry when I was a kid, and I journaled a lot - and still do. So I'm not that different to 20 years ago! Artists in particular can struggle to feel understood in the world, I'm sure a lot of people do, but that seems to be the thing artists have in common. So I'm always trying to write a poem or a song to articulate myself. I may not ever articulate myself to people in my life, but the audience validates my experience. Even just like half an hour ago, I was on a walk with my dog singing to myself to try and process. I try not to take my phone on a walk and just sing. I get lots of ideas when I'm in motion.
Your music lean into this kind of rock vibe and we get an anthemic feel, but alongside that there's such a female energy to your lyrics in these songs, in the classic sense of femininity in that very comforting way.
Thank you so much for recognising that because I hear it too. My voice reminds me of my mum's voice when I was growing up, the soothing and the comforting and the maternal nature. So that's been really a beautiful revelation. When I was when I was younger in Tonight Alive I was singing in my high register, at the very limit of my register, and just belting songs that were so hard to sing. Maybe I was in some kind of way trying to prove myself. Paramore was so popular when I was at that age and when you see what another woman gets praised for you sort of think, ‘well, maybe if I do that thing, I'll get praised for that thing’. Singing in my low register is so freeing, and I feel like that's where Hevenshe belongs. It's in my chest, and it's in my heart and I don't have to push, and I don't hardly have to perform those melodies. They just can come naturally for me.
Image: Jess Macc
Warnindhilyagwa woman Emily Wurramara is an ARIA-nominated and multi-award-winning artist who first came to prominence with her acclaimed 2018 debut album Milyakburra. She has held positions with various non-profit organisations, including having been a panellist for Support Act’s First Nations event Yarning Strong. She has just released her latest single ‘Magic Woman Dancing’ and is playing A Festival Called Panama, Ride The Wave Festival and The Gum Ball.
Hi Emily you are just an incredibly talented musical creature. Tell me first and foremost was music always it for you?
Thank you so much for having me. I just like to acknowledge I'm here in Palawa country here in Lutruwita yarning with you about this. Music has definitely been something that I knew from the beginning I was going to pursue. My people are from Groote Eylandt, the Warnindilyakwa people, and I moved to Meanjin (Brisbane) when I was six years old and I wrote my first little poem kind of song called ‘Over The Seas’. It just kind of went from there. I was always surrounded by music, my grandparents and parents listened to a lot of different genres. My uncle were in bands, through my dad, my Filipino family, karaoke was a big, big part of my childhood. So I have these beautiful fond memories with music and the association with my family. Music has always been a part of who I am, I guess from the womb, from the get go.
You are at the forefront of female musicians on Groote Eylandt, One of the first to be a major musician, am I right?
When I first started doing music, I was the only female from my island who sung, who played instruments, who was on stages, who was performing live in a contemporary modern perspective. But we had song women in our tribe, in our culture and they were the first ones who showed me that it was possible to be able to sing and to be able to be amongst the patriarchy and use our voices in that way - sing spirits, sing trees sing wind, all these beautiful elements as well. It wasn't until I went back home for a festival when I was about 14 years old and my uncle said to me ‘if you want to get on stage, you got to play with us first’. I had to get on stage and show them why they should respect me as a female in the music world. because that wasn't something you saw or something that was normal in a contemporary modern, post colonial age. Women were told to be in the background or be quiet. So me doing the complete opposite, I had to prove why I should not be quiet and why I should be able to use my voice. And so I did. And here I am!
It’s interesting that story because there is this notion in Australia that the Australian music industry is a guy with a beard clutching a microphone. There's very little room for women, there's even less room for women singing any type of pop, or indie of folk, anything that's softer. There's almost like one slot per capita and unfortunately, because of that, quite a lot of our amazing artists are forced overseas or they just don't get any traction at all, because there's no space.
I started off doing music when I was 14, 15. I was very, very young. From my own lived experiences yes, there is a lot of misogyny, there is racism, there is homophobia, there is this abusive culture as well towards alcohol and drugs. When I started, we were told to just suck it up, or just deal with certain things that would happen. And hearing that from a young age really shaped who you are as you grow and do things as you get older. You're like, oh, no, no, I'm not supposed to complain about this, I have to just deal with it. In the last six years since I've released my album Milyakburra I have gone on to do so many things that a lot of people have told me that I couldn't do, purely because I want to set an example in this industry of what it is to create your own safe space and allow others to feel safe in that as well. This industry is based on a system that probably a white old man wrote and determined and defined. As a Blak woman I wasn’t thought to be a part of this industry, so of course the system isn’t going to work for me because I was never thought of in the first place.
My experience now and from all of that stuff happening, I've learned that I am in control, and I can make my own terms and conditions not because I'm a woman, but because that's terrifying as a woman, because she knows her power, and she knows what she can do when she has rituals in place when she has safe people around her when she has a good community that cares about her and her art. Mental health is a discussion that I wish I had, when I was younger, I've had so many experiences where I've cried before I go on stage, or I've something big has happened, and I'm unable to finish the show, and people have just told me to just deal with it. But I have come to learn that if I'm not kind to myself, I'm not setting an example on how others can treat me.
Image: Jess Macc
On that note, we are here of course to recognise and celebrate International Women’s Day and Support Act and even from your very earliest interviews and shows you were always about getting a message out, and about the collective. Where has that come from?
I honestly think I've learned what not to do based on how I've been treated. I think of it as a collective because I don't think of agenda, I don't think of self, I don't think of clout. I think of if I'm okay, my community’s okay. And that's the mindset that I have been brought up with, I was raised in a village style mentality. To work hard, to be a good human being and how to treat yourself and others kindly. There is always going to be a balance of good and bad, like the Buddhist theory of king and yang. People are people, and people on this earth are entities or spirits or beings that are just as confused as I am and probably have no idea what they're doing. And I think approaching that mentality with my music is that my music is literally helping people survive and that is a great honour to be able to be this being on this planet and sing words and be a channel for whatever's coming through from the elements or from my ancestors. In more of a way where I'm healing, and I'm showing what true healing in community can can look like.
I want to talk to you about, and just thank you for latest single ‘Magic Woman Dancing’. That song is so good, your voice on that is just next level. And the video is incredible! Can you talk to me just a little bit about the creation of this beast?
Firstly, thank you so much for listening and watching the video. I’m feeling all the love this past month since it's been out. It feels really right as the first single of this new era to release. I started writing it in high school, I must admit, I was a little bit salty! It's about this soul I knew who absolutely inspired me, but I was really like, jealous of them. I want to be like her like, I want to be like that. And it got to a point where I was like, ‘I can be like that because that's inspiring’. I shouldn't see that as competition or a threat, I should see that as an inspiration to the potential of woman that I can be. This is who I could be if I just let go and release and have fun.
It is a song about release, and celebrating your own release and freedom of your own expression and the way that you honour yourself and respect and love yourself. Because if you're not setting an example of how to do that, how can others understand that that's what you show up as, that's who you are? That's what you're worth. That's what you deserve. It’s a song to encourage you to just let go.
I just heard that you've got like a surprise headline show coming to Gadigal Country, which is amazing. Talk to me about that.
So I am playing at Waywards in Newtown on the 5th of April, on Gadigal Country and I am so excited. I think it's going to be really special because I do this thing where I love getting to know people and artists, I love the process behind the music, where the artists got their ideas from but also how they feel about music and their their self expression through music. So Kuya James, my bass player and I produced ‘Magic Woman Dancing’ with him, we have yarns on stage about the process behind the songs. I'll be singing songs from the new album, and also my old work, but I'm just really, really excited to to get over there on Gadigal Country. I haven't played a headline show in years and I'm just so ready to go and give it my all and I hope that everyone loves it and has fun and we can just celebrate together.
For more information on Support Act visit supportact.org.au.
The Support Act Wellbeing Helpline is a free phone counselling service for anyone working in Australian music or the arts, easily accessed by calling 1800 959 500. It’s staffed by experienced counsellors that can help with a range of issues, from mental health and wellbeing to career concerns, financial management and conflict resolution.
You don’t have to be in a crisis to call the Helpline. Sometimes you just need to talk it out.
If you want to talk to someone about your own mental health, we encourage you to speak to Lifeline on 13 11 14, Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800 or Headspace 1800 650 890
