BALLAN singer-songwriter Demi Louise has earned the right to perform on stage at the 2015 Ballarat Beer Festival. Louise was recently announced the winner of the festival’s Home Brewed competition and will perform on stage with artists including Way of the Eagle, Ash Grunwald and Timberwolf next year in Ballarat.
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“It’s going to be amazing to perform with people I have looked up to,” Louise said.
For Louise, a career in music was not something she initially thought she would be doing, instead choosing to study a degree in clinical exercise science.
“I started quite late in terms of the music industry, I was 16-17 when I fi rst started singing.
Before that, I had never sung or had singing lessons,” she said.
“As I started playing at more gigs, everything started falling into place. This year has been amazing for me, it was the first year doing music full time.”
Louise has spent the past year touring in America, Europe and Asia, supporting Dan Kelly and Kodaline, performing at CMJ New York and Seoul’s MU:CON and Zandari Festa, while still fi nding time to release an EP. It has been the biggest year of her life.
“Releasing my fi rst single was a huge highlight, but opening for Gabrielle Aplin was amazing. For me it was surreal,” she said.
“For me it made me realise I could do this and people did like me. I feel so lucky to open for people I idolise.” Louise’s debut single Ruins reached number seven in the iTunes singer-songwriter chart and became a turning point in her career.
“I was in England at the time it reached number seven on Australian iTunes, so it was nice to know I had that support in Australia,” she said. “Being in England, I thought it would be all overseas audiences.” Inspired by her family, Louise said it was the story of her grandparents and their journey with dementia that meant the song was close to her heart.
“It’s about the fact that even while their minds are disintegrating there are still parts of each of them that come out every now and again.
“That’s why it is called Ruins, it’s like a castle, it might fall down and be ruins but it’s still there.” Louise will perform songs from her debut EP as well as a selection of songs from her upcoming album at the Ballarat Beer Festival on Saturday, January 24.