INTERVIEW: ILUKA talks new single 'Get Free' and being a role model for female artists

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Dan Knott

Australian singer-songwriter ILUKA has been releasing music since 2014 and recently released the single ‘Get Free’. An uplifting, enthralling pop track filled with synths, solid beats and irresistible melodies the song celebrates ILUKA’s journey on music over the years - sometimes messy, sometimes long winded, but finding the joy in the path as opposed to frustration.

The single comes off the back of ILUKA’s biggest hit to date, the single ‘Mess’ which features duo Lime Cordiale and has accumulated over half a million streams to date. With her debut album soon to be released, ILUKA is reaching new creative peaks and her music is something to get excited about. We recently caught up with her to find out more.

Hi ILUKA, it’s lovely to speak to you today. You've recently released a divine pop mantra 'Get Free', which is ridiculous amounts of lovely and what we all need to hear right now. Talk me through it.
It’s funny, the plan wasn't to release it in the middle of a lockdown, it was just this really strange timing. For a while we were like, ‘do we release it?’ Because no one really wants to hear upbeat pop songs in the middle of a lockdown. But it just felt right, maybe people do need something a little bit sunny. The music video was this whole idea of expansive spaces and bright colours and I was like, ‘you know what, maybe people do need this’. It's kind of respite from a bit of a heavier time. To be able to gather and get creative and work on something was just really fun and uplifting. I wrote the song as my own mantra, how I've always had a bit of a weird, messy roller coaster ride it and when I came to write it with my collaborator, it was almost a celebration of something that maybe was a bit frustrating, and a little bit difficult at times. It was this way of saying ‘fuck it this has been my journey and it's been weird and messy, and all those things but I'm gonna find joy in that and express that to other people’. So hopefully they can find their own joy [in it] as well.

Absolutely. And on that mess, do you think that's just with regards to work and relationships? The whole lot of how you've lived your life?
Yeah, definitely. Definitely with music. From a very young age, I've always been restless, not in an anxious way because I've always been able to have an outlet to put my energy into. I'm sure I'd probably be anxious if I didn't have that! I've always been quite restless and I've always needed to put a lot of myself into creative projects and push boundaries. I'm always pushing in some way and even in terms of social justice or political stuff. I always feel like I need to be stimulated in some way, and I feel a lot and I need to express a lot so if I don't have something that I'm putting all that energy into whether it is music or social justice activist stuff it can be quite difficult for me. With music, it's been messy the way that I've gone about it and it's never been one straight path, it's always been quite winding but I'm at this stage with my journey where I'm like I guess I just going to try and put all of my little bits and pieces and things that I've learnt along this weird path that I've been on and make music out of it and find something fun and cheeky about it.

I'm so glad you talked about your fight and your political platform and your passions, because we've always watched artists, but we ‘watched’ them in magazines and we watched them on Rage but now we watch them online as well. We watch them speak, and they speak their own words and opinions and particularly in this climate there's been quite a few artists that have had a lot of backlash for that. I wanted to know from your perspective, being someone who puts the fight out in their personal life how imperative is that platform that you have as a public figure as an artist to initiate a conversation around change?
I think everyone has their own platform in some sense, even if it's at work or to their parents at home but it’s definitely a feeling of duty for me. I have always felt very passionately about issues around women because I'm a female identifying human. I've always been very interested in and had a lot of energy to give in that area. Now. there's so much stuff coming from influencer culture, spreading misinformation and there's a danger that suddenly people who are not experienced in certain areas are speaking about it to a massive following. You do wield a certain influence especially with fans who follow you and love your work. When people end up following me and coming along with me on this journey, they are people that also feel passionately about certain things and so it's important to be transparent and authentic about what you believe and to try and speak up about things. What you're trying to do as an artist is you're just trying to attract your tribe, people that buy into what you're saying and creating. I have always thought it was this duty and I’ve always had a lot of time and energy for it. I actually also write articles on feminism and also the environmental justice movement,, I've always had a lot of energy for doing that and it's definitely a big part of what I do.

And it I mean, what a platform but I also I always feel for artists too because it's it was suddenly just handed to them, this role modelling and how you express an opinion because once it's out there, it's out there. So, you are singing about the celebration of mess and a celebration of chaos, I love it because of course you released ‘Mess’ with Lime Cordiale, which is absolutely delicious. It's about reckless abandonment in youth, which goes deliciously with 'Get Free'. I know you've got an album on the way, are we tapping into a similar theme here? Is there a theme of hectic?
Definitely! I guess all you can do as an artist is reflect upon your own journey and try to put that in a way that other people can relate to. And that's definitely been my path. Being my first album, it's just a diary entry of my life for the past however many years. As a creative, you are always searching for that inspiration, and kind of the job of an artist is to tap into the unconscious world and bring it back to the physical world, whereby you have to take what you learnt and put it into a way that people resonate with. I think that's a really beautiful way of looking at it because you're always searching for those ethereal worlds or indulging in those feelings of loneliness, reckless abandonment and you get to really sit in those feelings and emotions and try to take as much as you can from those emotions and put them into a song. My journey is not necessarily unique in any way, it's just how I've experienced the world as someone who's always trying to crave that depth. i've never resonated with the surface level way of living, and I think that probably adds to this whole restless thing, when you're constantly searching for that in a world that really does reward a consumerist, materialist mentality, from the start the odds are kind of stacked against you. And it's just kind of the messiness of trying to do that and which isn't always easy.

It's not always easy and it's also filtering through with a smile on your face which you do so beautifully. You're clearly one for just picking yourself up, shaking off the sequins and just moving on, which is really an incredible role model for anyone in this day and age. You're a Sydney woman; Australia is predominantly just guys with guitars. As a female Australian solo artist have you ever felt you needed to push harder, be louder, be better than anyone to be taken even slightly seriously within the industry?
100% I'm so glad you asked that. I've always felt like that and that also probably has to do with why I've always felt like I couldn't just ‘fit’, I always have felt I've had to push boundaries constantly. Growing up playing music with guys in a lot of bands who are now doing really well in all guy bands and seeing them you know, filling up a Hordern Pavilion, I do wonder - and I hate when I think of this - but I wonder if I had a penis or went down a different path would I be at that level as well? I'm constantly thinking about that and I try to give myself a little hit on the wrist when I do think about that because it's a really horrible path to go down. You've really got to own your own path in your own journey, but I've got countless countless countless stories of dumb shit people say to me from people constantly assuming when I rock up at soundcheck that I'm somebody's girlfriend, or worse a groupie of the band that I'm the head of. Constant comments of ‘Wow I didn't expect you to actually play the guitar like that or sing like’ coming from dudes that are not meaning to be assholes, that's just how they've been socialised to think. I kind of laugh at it now, but I look back and I wonder how much that has shaped me and shaped who I am. In many ways it's made me realise how small Australia is. I've gone back and forth from LA quite a bit over the years and I think that probably has a lot to do with it. I’ve been very aware of the small pond that Australia is in and perhaps the dudes are the ones that tend to be taking up the most space in the Australian pond. That's definitely pushed me to think outside of Australia. And it's exhausting. On my bad days, I indulge in those frustrations, but it's changing. I want to be a part of that of that change.

I always go back to this messy road I've always taken, it has been full of so much failure, whether that's being dropped by a record label or management, you know, everything that could have happened in terms of what a failure is in the music industry has happened to me. What I wanted be really open about for young female artists coming up now is that it’s okay and that's a part of it, that failure. We don't ever hear about the uglier sides of it, and the failure. How many times I've had to pick myself up and be like 'no one else believes in me right now but I'm going to believe in myself because I believe in the project and what I'm doing' and having that strength to be able to get up after those things happen. Men have been given a more easy path when it comes to that stuff. Men able are able to fuck up more and just not feel anything afterwards. They're like 'ah fuck it' and they're onto the next thing. As women we're really socialised to to indulge in that failure and not have as much energy then to get up and keep trying. Which is definitely what I've learned over the years and what I want to be super open about - talking about the failure and the messy stuff and the ugly parts of this which there's been so much of. Hopefully what that album taps in.

Oh I hope there's a song about that and you're so right I'm so tired of hearing of overnight success stories which are never true. it just makes people feel like absolute failures because they didn’t succeed immediately.
I know, never ever true. It's really toxic because again it's women that really bear the brunt of that and I've spoken to so many female artists who stop when something bad happened, they feel like they have to move on and give up and it's like no that's just the beginning.

Before I leave you, what's coming up for you?
Basically getting the album pieces together, which is happening right now. My collaborator’s in LA so he's actually just starting to send through final mixes, so it's all happening now. I’m heading back to LA early next year and then I'll be back here for the Lime Cordiale tour. And hopefully next single on the way. New single, album…all the good stuff.

‘Get Free’ is out now, You can buy and download here.

To keep up with all things ILUKA you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.