New Release – Bones by Gretta Ziller
Hailing from Melbourne (Australia), Gretta Ziller started her music career playing Bagpipes and singing Opera. Gretta Ziller’s current sound may bear the hallmarks of classic Americana music, but its essence is far more diverse. Her eclectic sonic palette also draws from the jazz and classical worlds, and while Gretta’s favourite artists and influences – including but not limited to HAIM, Rag’n’Bone Man, Bishop Briggs, Steve Earle and Paul Kelly – filter through her work, she defies comparison and instead chooses to forge her own musical path.
“I am this weird person that doesn’t sound like anyone,” says Gretta.
The token musician in a family of farmers, Gretta shares, her grandmother played violin and encouraged Gretta’s parents to take their musically talented child to violin lessons. Gretta also played a few other musical instruments at school before picking up guitar while completing her Bachelor of Music degree at Melbourne University, where she majored in voice.
“I’ve always played and sung because it makes my heart happy,” Gretta enthuses. “Music has always been my joy; creating, especially. I can connect and sing the songs that were a part of my life and then they can become a part of somebody else’s life; I think that’s pretty damn special.
Her 2017 debut album ‘Queen of Boomtown’ received critical acclaim which included Golden Guitar Nominations. Her new single ‘Bones’ is out 16th June. A pre-save is available here.
What’s ‘Bones’ about?
“It is about my love of music. Playing instruments, songwriting and singing isn’t something I have chosen to do. It was never one of many options for my life. It is the only thing I have ever planned, dreamed and wished to do in my life. From a kid with a violin, that loved to create. To a teenager who played any instrument she could and sung all the time in all the choirs and musicals and everywhere else. To releasing my first EP to now, where I’m touring and performing my own music all over Australia…. Music is in my bones.”
When did you write it?
“Living in Melbourne, Australia, we had a lot of time on our hands a few years ago – we were the most locked down city in the world during the pandemic. So I joined a song club, started by one of my Aussie friends, Sam Hawksley living in Nashville. He would send us a prompt every week and we would write a song from that and send it back to the group within the week. The original first draft of the song came from that. Then I reached out to another Aussie living in Nashville, Phil Barton, to help me rewrite and edit the song.”
What movie or tv series should feature your song and why?
“I love this question! I recently wrote and performed two tracks for an indie action/horror film, that was so much fun but I have always dreamed to get my music on a HBO style series! I am a big fan of the fantasy and American gothic genres, while it was running I dreamed of having a songs on ‘True Blood’ or ‘Banshee’ … obviously that’s not possible now so maybe a show like ‘The Last of Us’ or ‘The Mayor of Kingstown’!”
Gretta is heading over to the United States this September to play Nashville’s Americana Fest just after she releases her third album ‘All These Walls’ August 25th.
