Comprised of Felicia Harding, Marina Avros and Jaime Jackett, the trio are all Canadian-born, but have been spread across countries since Jackett moved to Australia with her partner (now husband) in 2009. 

But the long-time friends initially came together musically on our shores, meaning Australia has a special significance in their hearts. 

“I had a duo with Felicia back in Canada, and we thought we would go to Australia, so I organised a little five-week tour,” Jaime Jackett said. 

“And when I say tour, I mean three street musicians in a ute, sleeping in the back and camping.

“Our long-term friend Marina said to us, ‘it’s awesome that you’re going to Australia, I’d love to come along.’ We told her it was sort of a duo thing, and Marina said, ‘no, you don’t understand, you need me on this tour.’

“So she came along as our opening act that first year … and it was a pretty grassroots sort of tour, so we did a lot of busking to make up our income so we could buy food. 

“We would busk in three-part harmony, and people were really drawn to us … so we formed a band.”

Australia is getting the first leg of the tour for new album Powerful Owl, which was released in November. Belle Miners will perform in Ballarat at the Printers Room, Sebastiaans on January 19. 

The self-declared ‘international supergroup’ get much of their inspiration from “life, love and death” according to Jackett, with one experience in particular inspiring music on their new album. 

In 2016, Jackett had a tumour removed from her brain stem, after 11 years of living with the apparently inoperable and benign growth. 

“I had scans again [after a shunt failure] and it was pretty scary, I ended up having double vision from that. I had surgeons say it was in my head and it might eventually kill me, but they can’t do anything about it until it makes the first move.” 

It wasn’t until her mother suggested she reach out to well-known Australian neurosurgeon Charles Teo that Jackett had an option to tackle the tumour that she’d carried around for years. 

“I wrote ‘Night Flight’ after we’d done scans and found that it was indeed growing, and I was faced with the decision of having this surgery I had always been told could never be done,” she said. 

“It wasn’t until it was removed that we discovered it was cancer.

“Life is really fragile, and it’s very important to appreciate where you are and who is around you. 

“I’m in some strange way thankful, because I wouldn’t have gained that perspective otherwise.”

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