Australia looks to have a new pop star on its hands. Born in Borneo before moving Down Under aged 11, estée has been making music for as long as she can remember.
The Chinese-Filipino singer-songwriter is inspired by the likes of Clairo, Billie Eilish, and Ariana Grande, and crafts little pop gems that instantly lodge themselves inside your mind.
Estée’s music all about warmth and happiness, her songs imbued with a real feeling of authentic emotion; you can almost picture a smile beaming across her face as she’s sings the lyrics
Her latest single, ‘twenty eight’, came out on Thursday, November 4th. Yet estée is not 28 but in fact much younger: still only 19, her mature music belies her youth.
She’s already racked up over one million streams after just a few releases, building up a loyal fanbase on Instagram and TikTok. And after supporting Pinkish Blu for their farewell show last month, she’s also set to perform at WOMADelaide 2022, a nice moment for the Adelaide-raised singer.
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“‘twenty eight’ is about the really simple aspects of being in love, and just the feeling of love itself – whether romantic or platonic,” estée revealed. “I’ve always been someone who loves watching the sunset, and this song is totally centred around that image and setting.
In high school, I used to go to lookouts with my friends all the time. We’d get frozen cokes, sit in the car, laugh and talk while watching the sun go down and that’s a really sweet memory of mine, and I tried my best to capture that feeling in this song.”
To celebrate the release of ‘twenty eight’, we caught up with estée to find out more about her life and music as part of our popular Get To Know series, and she gave some great answers.
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How did your artist name come about?
I actually just changed my artist name recently from ‘Estée Evangeline’ to ‘estée’. I think ‘estée’ is just a lot cooler to look at and I love how laidback it seems, but I still try to keep my middle name, Evangeline, across most of my social media. It has a bit of my mum’s name, Angelina, in it which I love.
How would you describe your music to your grandma?
I’d tell her that my music is definitely a comfort sound for people, just super soft and relaxing, something she could totally listen to while she’s in the garden.
Tell us about a few of your tracks; their titles and what they’re about?
My most recent release, ‘twenty eight’, is purely about what it feels like to be around someone you love! Someone who you know won’t judge you and would love you both at your best and at your worst – being fully known and still fully loved.
The first song I ever released, ‘fifth time’ is kind of about that similar feeling in ‘twenty eight’ but the setting that inspired it was super different. While ‘twenty eight’ was inspired by the sunset, ‘fifth time’ was inspired by space and the moon and the stars.
I wrote and released this song in my graduating year of high school. I used to go to lookouts all the time with my friends, and there was this one night I went that I had this really special feeling and I just had to write a song about it. I’m totally glad I did because that song has definitely changed my life!
‘Be my somebody new’ is a song I wrote with American producer Skim.prod which we released in March 2021. This one was really fun to work on because of the challenges that time zones brought! I think our voices blend so perfectly well together and we’ve gotten such an awesome response from people – we’re hoping for the song to hit one million streams on Spotify before the year ends!
What do you love about your hometown?
My hometown is a city in Sabah, Malaysia called Kota Kinabalu; I love and miss so many things about that place. I miss the food SO much, there are so many good food places there. But I mostly miss my family and childhood friends. I grew up there and moved to Australia when I was 11, so I’ve spent almost half my life in two different countries which is so cool!
Career highlight so far?
Definitely the anticipation of hitting a million streams in less than a year! But also the opportunities it’s brought me so far, the people I’ve got to meet and connect within the industry as well as outside of the industry. I feel like I really cherish the people who truly support me and my art, and being able to connect with them online has been really great because they’re all awesome and so funny.
Fave non-music hobby?
Binge-watching TV shows and movies while eating instant noodles. Favourite movies include any Disney movie from my childhood, especially Shrek.
What’s on your dream rider?
Dream rider would definitely include Indomie or Chapagetti noodles, and bottles of Strawberry Ramune. Probably wouldn’t consume any of that before a show because I get really nervous about doing anything to my throat before singing, so it would definitely be like ‘yay, the show is over,’ type of celebration. Also I’d love to just have a room full of all my favourite people.
Dream music collaboration?
Ariana Grande. I love her until I die. I just think she’s amazing and so cool, but also so vocally technical because of her music theatre background so it would just be awesome to learn from her in general. I’d also love to work with Max Martin, Lawrence, or Jon Bellion. Also any of the 88rising artists, like Joji, Rich Brian, and Niki.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I don’t know. I mean I definitely know I’m going to be doing music forever, whether it’s profitable or not. The dream is that I’ve moved forward in my career by then, and I don’t know, I think I just want to be happy and have good people around me and supporting me. Hopefully I’m really good at producing by then, which is what I’m slowly trying to work on now.
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
‘Hero’ by Mariah Carey! I sang that song once in my primary school talent show in Malaysia, and that ended up being my go-to song for a lot of performances since then. I just love how the music I write is really soft and almost whispery, but singing the big belty diva songs is always super fun too!
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
To not overthink things and to be patient. I struggle with a bit of anxiety, so my brain likes to do this thing where it thinks so far ahead and kind of always assumes the worst of every situation. I find myself sometimes feeling like everything I do sucks or something (which I totally know isn’t true!), especially in terms of my career and where I stand in the music industry and just doing music in general.
I’m super grateful to have people in my life who can remind me of what’s real and what’s true, who speak kind words over me when it’s a bit harder to do for myself.
What’s one obsession you have that no one would guess after listening to your music?
I’m like really into psychological thriller movies. I don’t know, I feel like that might be disturbing to some people after hearing something that’s so cute and light and wholesome, and the idea that people would be weirded out by that is just so funny to me.
