INTERVIEW: Mia Wray on her debut album 'hi, it’s nice to meet me': “This is me literally trying to find myself.”

Words: Emma Driver
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Nick Mckk
Published 14 March 2025

Australia’s Mia Wray has talked a lot about self-discovery lately. She’s just released her debut album Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me, and at the core of the album is a personal awakening, ignited by her falling in love with a woman for the first time. In a sense, she says, she met herself for the first time, too.

Wray’s debut is no ordinary first album. Arriving more than a decade after she signed a publishing deal with Mushroom Music as a sixteen-year-old, Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me has a pop sparkle that is deepened by Wray’s experiences writing, recording and touring over the last decade or so. Born in Noosa, Queensland, she began her musical life in a more folk/soul vein; her earliest releases reflected the influence of artists like Laura Marling and Gabrielle Aplin, who had both inspired her. As she gained more exposure, Wray went on to tour with some big names in Aussie indie music (Middle Kids, The Rubens, The Teskey Brothers) and had tracks promoted by Elton John via his Apple Music radio show.

After three EPs and a steady run of singles, Wray’s sound has now more resolutely turned towards pop that is understated but runs deep. It’s not screaming drama she offers on Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me, but something more subtle as her songs explore the turning points and pressures – new love, taking risks, saying goodbye, pasting on a resilient face when you’re dying inside – that can send anyone reeling.

The album is richly coloured by the theme of self-discovery, most obviously in the title track and opener ‘Nice to Meet Me’, the last song Wray wrote for the album, joining forces with G-Flip and producer/writer Aidan Hogg, a regular G-Flip collaborator. “Head hit the floor / I woke up now I know me some more / And now it’s me I adore,” Wray sings, as a kick-and-snare pulse propels the song beneath her into a rolling chorus and catchy singalong syllables. Wray has a gift for turning a difficult feeling into something deceptively easy to listen to and absorb, while the turmoil sits just below the surface.

The album marks a departure from earlier singles, like ‘Monster Brain’ or ‘Needs’, with Wray’s Adele-like vocal power front and centre; on Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me she dials back the vocal delivery while making it clear that she could easily belt out a chorus on cue. But there’s power in her restraint, and it allows her to bring nuances of her stories and songs into the light.

‘Sad But True’ is a case in point: its ascending chords could lend themselves to solo vocal-and-piano track, and you just know that Wray could push it to the edge if she decided to. But paradoxically it’s the lighter pop treatment and Wray’s sky-high voice that really carry the message of loss: “Dead weight feels so heavy,” she sings: “Now you call me selfish, it’s so sad / It’s so sad but true.” So when she lets her voice loose on the final chorus it’s like a thunder crack, descending into a quiet piano and an abrupt ending that matches the emotional peaks and troughs of the song.

‘Only Love’ and ‘The Way She Moves’ are a dance-ready pair of songs about finding a fiery kind of love, and the disco strings on ‘Only Love’ make it clear that hitting the dancefloor is the only way to deal with the feeling: “I feel like my heart is on fire / I think that I could burn this house to the ground.” Then there’s ‘Fake A Smile’, which catches that pressure to publicly act like everything’s fine when you’re cracking under the weight of expectation. Wray sings of getting what she wants – “a stage to speak my mind” – then the struggle she wants to hide: “So I tell myself / To fake a smile, carry on / Head up high like nothing’s wrong.” Again, the deceptively sunny beats and hopeful strings – which lend an optimistic tilt to several tracks – push the song above the distress in the lyric, setting the light alongside the dark.

More uncomplicated and life-affirming is ‘Get Out My Way’, which takes in the view from the high point of self-discovery: “I will take the reins, make mistakes / Remind myself I’ll be OK.” Strings also punctuate ‘Not the Same as Yesterday’, an ode to personal evolution and the cherished details of a new relationship.

Speaking with Women In Pop ahead of the album release, Wray offered thoughtful insights into the making of Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me, the changes in her life, and how she stays resilient in an uncertain and very public industry.

Hello Mia, and what a beautiful album you’ve made! Hi, It’s Nice to Meet Me is gorgeous. It’s about the arrival of self-discovery, in the title and through the tracks, but it’s self-discovery that comes with a sequinned cape, and it’s about this big moment in your life. Did you plan for it to have this theme running through it?

Honestly, that just happened. There was nothing intentional about any of it. I am a really big fan of letting things be what they want to be, instead of desperately trying to be like, “Oh, well, I’m a pop artist, so I need to fit into this.” I just have no interest in that at all. I happened to be on a writing trip as I was going through it, which was a perfect situation for my career. Then there were some other songs that had already existed, pre-“self-discovery” era, that really made sense with the theme of the album. And then all of a sudden, there was a record.

I like to let things be what they are and what felt good in the moment, which is why there are songs like ‘Not Enough’ and also ‘The Way She Moves’ on the same album. Those don’t make sense together. ‘The Way She Moves’ is like a club track, and then ‘Not Enough’ is a country-folk-pop thing. It keeps things exciting for me, and I feel quite liberated to be able to dip into these different things.

It sounds like you were confident that all these tracks could come together to create something bigger. Is that how it felt? Or did you have to learn that confidence along the way?

Well, I signed a label deal in 2019 and it was hard to navigate because of Covid. I think the first single I released for that project was in March 2020, when we were in lockdown. Then, when we came out of lockdown, Michael Gudinski [founder of Mushroom Records, Wray’s record label] passed away. Those were the two really big things that came out from underneath me, and I lost a lot of confidence. I think I forgot how to be a leader. There was nothing in me that had the confidence to say, “I want to make a record. This is the record.” I needed somebody else with some authority to tell me and validate that I could do something like that.

So now I’m slowly getting that back, and not waiting for other people to believe in me, so I can believe in myself.

It’s great that you can share that. I imagine being a young woman solo artist in the industry, there’s a fear attached to it: “I can sing, I can write songs, but surely someone needs to tell me what to do!” Because that’s the story we’ve been told about how that success happens, isn’t it?

I think when Michael [Gudinski] got involved, I almost was like, “Oh, sweet. Powerful white men with lots of influence – great, I can relax. He’ll tell me what to do. Everything’s taken care of.” And then when he passed away, I was like, “Fuck, I need to step into my own power again.” That was really scary. That’s a scary place to be as an artist, to have to believe in yourself that much because no one else is going to do it for you. No one else has the time to do it for you.

I remember being really in my power when I met Michael, and then once I was taken under his wing, I gave it up – not just because he was a man of great influence and power within the Australian music scene, but also because I had finally found someone who truly understood what I was going for, and truly understood what my potential was. He understood that it wasn’t important to put me on the biggest support tour. Instead, I remember him being like, “It’s about getting you in front of a crowd that understands what you’re doing.” And he pointed to a Neil Young book on the coffee table, and he said, “These are the kind of people – that fan base – who will understand what you’re doing.” And that was at the start of everything.

I think somewhere along the way – after he passed away, after the pandemic, as I was finding my feet again, uncovering a lot of big things in me – I lost my leadership confidence, or the ability to really hear my gut, and the album kind of turned into this pop thing.

But it’s pop with so many different little heartstrings – I don’t want to say “genres”. And there’s something very joyous about that, and a tenderness there too. But had you thought the album would sound different?

You know, I’m proud of this record, but I certainly don’t think it’s incredible. I think that it’s a good pop record, and it tells an important narrative that is authentic to me. And I am proud of it, genuinely. But I don’t think it’s going to change lives! I think I forgot to hear my voice among all of the voices, somewhere along the way, and I didn’t know how to get it back. I needed someone else’s permission. So, to me, that’s what this record sounds like.

There are parts where I’m like, “Ah, there she is. There’s Mia.” And then there are parts where I’m like, “Oh, this sounds like everything else,” because I was scared of taking a risk. There’s a really funny interview with Billie Eilish and Finneas where they categorise albums into either “fart” or “fear”. “Fart” is when an album sounds like the artist liked the smell of their own fart when they were making the album – they didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought, they were just digging their own thing. Or an album can be “fear”, when an artist is making it out of a fear-based energy. And I think that my record stinks of fear. There are parts that are a bit farty. I just hope to one day really unlock that part, which I think is exciting.

So you feel you’ve got more to do? It can be thrilling to leap into that feeling …

Yeah, I’m so excited to continue to create and unlock all of the parts of me. I feel like I’ve touched the tip of an iceberg. And I’m so excited to uncover the rest of it. But if I’m being really honest, this album does feel genuine because I didn’t try to make it something. It wasn’t, like, “Oh, this sounds too pop. I need to make it credible and weird for the sake of trying to be cool.” But if I ever get to [make an album] again, which I hope to, I really hope that I can hear people’s opinions but not let that instil a fear or an insecurity or a lack of confidence.

I need to step into my power and just remember the things about me that Michael and Bill Page – who signed me to publishing when I was sixteen – saw in me. I just need to remember to see those things in myself. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – you can just lose yourself along the way. Things get noisy, and then you find yourself again.

I feel like I sound like I don’t like this record! But I’m really proud of it, considering everything.

This feels very much part of the title of the album, and the title track, and the theme of getting to know yourself again. You’ve said that writing this album felt like a discussion you were having with yourself that you hadn’t for a long time. And it sounds like you are actually appreciating who you are now – even when you feel like you’re forcing it?

A hundred per cent. The theme is on point with how this album sounds. And I don’t expect people to think about it too hard. I think a lot of people are going to listen to this, if they listen to it, and go, “Cool, pop record, whatever.” But to me, I’m like, “No, this is me literally trying to find myself.” And that’s why some of this sounds really commercial, because I’m scared. I’m scared of being myself. And then there’s parts of this album where there’s a fucking dance-club gay track, which is such uncharted waters for me, which is exactly like what being intimate with a woman for the first time was – uncharted and so foreign. But it also felt so natural and fun and good, and what I felt like doing in the moment.

Can we talk a bit about ‘Fake A Smile’? It’s so beautifully done. It seems to be written from the other side of the curtain, almost – about the mental health challenge that comes with keeping up the facade, that surprising unhappiness that comes with “living the dream”, when you feel like you’re not allowed to be upset.

Yeah, you have to be grateful. I struggle with being the face of my product. And, you know, in a perfect world, I wish I could just be the voice and sound. But I have found the beauty in being the visual thing, because with that you’ve got to really, genuinely love yourself, which is hard. I struggle with body image and being up on a stage, under lights. It’s very confronting. But when I’m met with so many people who look up to you or are encouraging, that makes me feel good about my body. That’s the beauty that I’ve found in it.

And, you know, when I get up on stage, I’d say fifty per cent of it is genuine confidence, and the other fifty per cent is just “Do the act, act confident, get off stage, sink into the couch and feel shit.” And when you’re doing that on tour, consistently reopening wounds and singing about things and being vulnerable every single night, you do start to become a little bit of a character of yourself. And that’s where the whole “fake a smile” thing came from. It’s hard to be genuinely confident all the time. It’s just not true. It’s not real.

The song talks about trying to do the thing that I love and trying to be grateful for it, but not feeling guilty for taking it for granted. It’s multilayered, the whole thing, but sometimes you just gotta do the dance, you know?

That’s so true: you just gotta do the dance. Congratulations again Mia, and thank you so much for your time today. I hope we get to do it again.

A hundred per cent! Thank you so much.

hi, it’s nice to meet me is out now via Mushroom Music. You can buy and stream here.
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