Interview + Single Feature | Grace Robinson
On being plagued with the overachiever gene and working on unlearning that mindset
From achieving a grammy nominated jazz album when she was just 19 and experiencing much activity with the band Empress, Grace Robinson launches her solo project with the debut single harder than you think bringing her out from behind the curtain to centre stage to confront her personal experience of burnout.
Hello Grace, you have just dropped your brand-new single harder than you think, which is your debut solo release after many years in other projects. How does it feel to have it out in the world?
Hi! Gosh, it feels really inexplicable. It’s such a weird feeling for me, because in the past there was always some kind of curtain I could hide behind after a release. This time there’s no curtain - I’m centre stage and it feels like I’m handing myself over to the public a bit naked. It’s really exposing and terrifying, but at the same time the response has been so supportive and lovely.
I’m really proud of the song, so I’m also really excited to finally have something out in the world that feels so representative of me, who I am and what I do. It sort of feels like a big double edged sword - because the music feels so vulnerable and so organically me sometimes that makes me feel more safe, and sometimes it makes me feel more exposed - depends on my mood at the time ha!
Lyrically harder than you think is about recovering from burnout and trying to do a great job of it, which seems to defeat the purpose. Can you tell us more about the experience and how it turned into a song?
Yeah, for sure. Since I was a kid I’ve always been plagued with the overachiever gene. I’m from a family of professors, doctors, lawyers and engineers, so when I popped up and said I played music, I felt really different. I think, despite no one ever really pressuring me, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure I proved I could be just as “successful” with my different brain - academically, socially, across the board.
This overachiever gene is what led me to pursue academic studies in jazz and really buy into the jazz school ethos that good singers do complicated music, and that only untrained singers do indie rock. Of course, the overachiever in me was like got it! no worries. But the issue was I wasn’t particularly interested in, nor very good at, doing complex music. I grew up on dad rock, Dixie Chicks and Taylor Swift haha - I was never going to be a super hip person.
That left me feeling really lost, which just made me work even harder to find a place. I became a booking agent, toured with Australia’s renowned jazz musicians, toured with neo-soul groups, worked as a teacher, worked as a vocal tech, and all sorts of things — as a way to prove I was successful and knew what I was doing.
But really, I was just very lost and didn’t feel great about myself or anything I was doing really.
It took me a long time to figure that out, and unfortunately it came out in a pretty serious panic episode that left me completely unable to function for the best part of a year.
When I was trying to recover, it’s funny how much that same overachiever gene kept sneaking back in, even though I was actively trying to fight it. I kept trying to be the best at therapy, the best at having panic attacks, the best at healing. My therapist eventually called me out and basically said, “if you don’t stop treating this as a competition you can win, you’re never going to get better.”
That’s when things really shifted. I had to actually do the work, and I’m still working on unlearning that mindset. But writing this song was one of the tools I used to help process it and feel a bit more grounded in it, and hopefully that comes across or is relatable to others too.
I am keen to hear how long you have been working on the solo material and who are your main influences in finding your sound?
I started writing for this project post-panic episode, so that would’ve been the second half of 2023. I started gigging in 2024 and built it up slowly through to 2025, playing some festivals and really fun shows along the way. By that point the band was really solid on the songs and the direction felt super clear, so we jumped into the studio and started recording in mid-2025.
Influence-wise, it’s a pretty big melting pot. I grew up on Taylor Swift, Dad rock, and The Chicks, so I feel like those influences are just kind of sneaking in there as a foundation whether I like it or not.
More recently I’ve been through different era’s of obsessions with Sharon Van Etten, Julia Jacklin, Big Thief, Angie McMahon, Boygenius, Saya Gray, Bruce Springsteen and Wednesday.
I feel like all of those artists blended together in a big soup is basically how I landed on the sound. The rockier elements definitely come from Wednesday, Springsteen and Angie, while the more expansive, textural stuff probably comes from Sharon Van Etten and Saya Gray. Arrangement-wise and guitar-wise I’m really influenced by Big Thief, especially those jangly guitar sounds.
And I think my vocal delivery sits somewhere between Julia Jacklin and Sharon Van Etten - that conversational, close storytelling JJ style mixed with those bigger, more expansive emotional moments from Sharon.
Where and with whom did you record the single?
We recorded with Alex Gorman in his studio in Pakenham, which was a very fun road trip (we stayed in a motel in a car park that backed onto a 24-hour international buffet - absolute vibe). Alex Gorman has built such an incredible space out there, and the gear and atmosphere were just perfect.
Gormie was helping me produce the song, so we all worked together in this beautiful little creative hub. It was such an exciting and warm experience.
It really reminded me of that Beatles documentary footage where they’re just kicking it in the studio, singing ideas at each other and hanging out. That was definitely the atmosphere.
The band was made up of my beautiful partner Robbie Belchamber on guitars, Noah Hutchinson on bass, Ben Fleming on drums, and Christy Wositzky-Jones on keys and synths. These people are basically my family - we’re all so close (many of us were living together at the time) and they’re just the greatest humans. I feel like that connection is almost audible in the final song.
I was then very lucky to get to work on post-production and mixing with Marcus Paquin, who has been a dream collaborator of mine for years. He’s produced and mixed records like Julia Jacklin’s Pre Pleasure, as well as work by Arcade Fire, The National and Saya Gray - basically some of the best-sounding records of all time.
He lives in Montreal, and once I had the songs in a good place with Gormie, I decided to shoot my shot and send them over. Not only was he keen to work on them, but he actually came on board as a producer too and really loved the music. I still can’t quite believe it.
His mixing is really what you hear in the final clarity of the recording - he has such an expertly fine-tuned ear, and his approach is so specific. You can hear that everything has been raked through with a fine-toothed comb.
All of these people were so incredible in making this song. I’m really grateful to all of them.
Before going solo, you have spent years as the lead vocalist of Naarm-based electro-soul outfit Empress and played alongside Hiatus Kaiyote and Sampa the Great, headlined The Night Cat, and earned slots at Beyond the Valley, Strawberry Fields, and Dark Mofo. That’s all impressive and I am wondering how this project is going now, and will you still be balancing being a part of that with what you are doing now?
Empress is still doing lots of fun stuff! We’re fresh off the back of playing Strawberry Fields, and this year we’re headlining Meadow Festival and Cairns Festival. We’ve also got a new record in the works and it sounds pretty damn cool.
I think the nature of being in a collaborative project and then doing solo work is that there’s always going to be crossover and balancing required, but I get so much out of both that it’s absolutely worth it. Empress gets to play the funnest festivals and big late-night shows and touring with them is so fun, and we really get to play these “pop star” moments - getting the outfits on and shakin’ ass on stage.
I think it was always going to be my Boygenius - I needed another outlet where I could just be me and speak only on behalf of myself, not six others.
At the same time, everyone in Empress is doing multiple things, and that’s part of what makes the band so strong when we come together. It’s this big amalgamation of strengths and experience, and it becomes something really powerful when we all lock in together.
I was definitely the one doing most of the admin side of Empress, so balancing both roles alongside my solo project is probably a bit trickier for me than for some of the others. But they function in such different worlds and landscapes that I find it quite easy to compartmentalise them and work on them concurrently.
Before Empress, you co-wrote on an ARIA-nominated jazz record at nineteen which is fascinating. Can you tell us all about that?
Yes! In fact I recently found out it’s actually Grammy-nominated, which is pretty crazy.
When I was 19 and at jazz school at VCA, Barney McAll really took me under his wing. He’s probably one of our biggest claims to fame in the jazz world in Australia - he really made it in New York with the jazz greats and played with Miles Davis’ band. I was in first year, and he realised I could read music pretty well and was really down to do hard, tricky stuff. He just kept throwing things at me, and because of my overachiever gene, whenever he said jump I was like how high?
That became the start of this really amazing collaboration. We wrote these wild choral arrangements, recorded them together, and made a record called An Extra Celestial Christmas, which is kind of a Christmas album, but we didn’t want it to mention God or Jesus so we changed a lot of words. It was really fun!
From there we just became close friends and collaborators, and I helped him arrange and sang on the Grammy-nominated album Precious Energy. We toured that around as well and played some really fun shows, and I got to collaborate and perform with some of the best musicians in Australia.
Barney and I are still musically connected, and he’s always been so supportive of me. I got to have so much experience with incredible people at such a young age, so I’m very grateful for it.
Do you have any plans to launch the single at this stage?
Yes! We’ve just announced the single launch and a little single tour.
The Melbourne show is at Shotkickers on 17 July with Elena Jones and Indigo King. I’m so excited to watch them both, they’re incredible and very special and beautiful friends. It’s also just the best sounding room in Melbourne for rock bands, so I can’t wait. It’s our first full band headliner show in over a year and we’re cooking up some really fun stuff.
We’re also heading to Dark Mofo this week, which will be amazing, and then playing Music On The Hill in Red Hill. All of these shows feel really cosy, winter-vibe, so it feels like a really nice little winter tour to celebrate the song.
Finally, who are your favourite local Melb/Naarm bands right now and who would you like to see interviewed for Tempo?
Ooft favourite local Naarm/Melbourne bands right now… my god, there are so many.
Planet Pain is the best band in Melbourne and I’m really serious about it, watch closely for music from them. Norwood are absolutely brilliant. I’m a huge fan. Yours Georgina has just released the first single with lots of special stuff coming, her new music is going to blow everyone’s socks off. Stella Dunai is my bestie and the best songwriter I know. Indigo King is the coolest person ever and her new music is the same.
Grace Robinson - ‘Harder Than You Think’ Single Launch
Friday, 17 July 8pm
w/ Elena Jones and Indigo King
For Tix and Info