Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About The Stellar Podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and every week I sit down with some of the biggest names in the country because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come
to Something to talk about. Just over twenty years ago, Delta Gudrum found herself at a turning point, not only in her career but also her life, having undergone chemotherapy and radiation after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in two thousand and three, The then teenage pop star was about to unveil a whole new version of herself, as hinted at by the name of the album she would release
a day before her twentieth birthday, Mistaken Identity. On today's episode, Delta joins me in the studio to reflect on that turbulent chapter of her life and how it has brought her to where she is the age of forty, happily engaged touring the world, writing new music, and launching her own record label. Delta Gudrum, Welcome to the Stellar Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. It is lovely to have you here.
You today are marking your eighth appearance on the cover of Stellar, and yet first time in the podcast studio, first time you and I have sat down for an interview. Since you may not remember this, but November two thousand and two was in Melbourne. You were on Neighbors and were just preparing to release a little old song called Born to Try, and I was at a magazine at the time.
So it is really lovely.
And I've seen you around over the years and of course been a privilege have you on the cover of Stella eight times, but first time you and me chatting in a long time.
Well, it's the perfect number. It's an octave, you know, It's like from one chapter to the nair it's an octave on the piano scale. And I'm very honored to have been on the cover that many times with you all and collaborated throughout the years. It's always nice to have another diary, where another journal, a check in point where you say, let's talk about where we're at right now, Where are we at now on the different moments we've
gone through. When I was coming here and i'd seen the eight different covers that we had shared, you know, it's like going back in time where I was going oh that was going on there, that was going on, and it's beautiful to be able to, you know, share share a voice of what's happening when a season is happening in life that you know, my life in the public eye has gone on. It's so true.
They really are little time capsule moments, because obviously the first one was late twenty sixteen, and then we're here in March twenty twenty five, so that's coming up to a decade. I'm not sure how many keys that is inter optive on the piano. I will leave that to the lyricist, but they do represent moments in your life, of course, and then also reflect moments in the wider culture.
For instance, one of those covers, possibly too fell within COVID, and that was reflected that it was a lot more scaled back and the fires.
There was there was we were in Los Angeles and you know, it was twenty twenty in the face just before COVID had happened and the fires had had started in Australia, and I remember we did a cover from there as well together about that. That's right.
So they are these little moments like that, but more times on the cover than anyone else which given the big role call of famous Australians and international superstars that have been on the cover of Stella, there's really should be a prize here, but let's sett off for a sparkling sparkling off of soft drinks.
This is all I need, a lot of sparkle.
It's you mentioned there the bush fires of Australia, and of course you spend a lot of your time in LA and the whole world has been watching from afar the wildfires that absolutely reaked havoc on LA earlier this year. In fact, not long before this episode is going to air, you were due to be headlining the NRL season launch in Las Vegas, neighboring Las Vegas, and even that was impacted by the fallout from the wildfires a couple of
months on. So obviously would love to ask you about how the community is doing and your personal connection to what happened in LA.
Of course, I mean, you know, it was just it really did shake the your central nervous system. That's what we kind of noticed, like you really felt the you felt the gravity in the air, of of course, of just the you know, the devastation of what was happening to families, homes and in the lives, from seeing producers that we knew who had their studios with all their collectible you know, collections of instruments and from you know, it just it was in the air. You could see
the smoke across it. It just was it was it was very unique experience. I'm you know, very grateful that we were you know, our place was fine, but just just to kind of feel that energy in the air was quite unnerving. It felt like you had to had your bags packed at the door and you know, we had our clothes hanging ready to go. And you know, there was one day where there was some alerts that kept going out accidentally, which was shaking.
Once that's good for the nervous system.
And there was one at four a m. That I woke up and I was, you know, you had to just be on guarden, be alert. And you know, I'm grateful that that the rains have come now and it's that you know, that's it'll be on the rebuild.
So that's the thing I think in Australia, because we are a country that is beset by natural disasters and there is a real resilience nature is incredibly resilient, and then we as people are incredibly resilient. I imagine it's going to be so interesting to see that community, which is obviously in a lot of people's minds, it's like a fantastical part of the world. It's something that they see in old movies and on TV during the award season.
It's hard sometimes to relate that there are real people, real lives there, and I think something like this is really brought that home to people.
And like you're saying, there's the you know, it brings out the best and the worst sometimes and you see the butterfly effect of what happens and the knock on of every single aspect of the city in that moment, and yeah, it's just, you know, it is when there's a rhythm. There's a wonderful rhythm of the arts there, you know, and that's why you're there and you able to be with your kindreds in collaborating. I was in the studio in January. I was I was there straight away.
It was my window to start making the new music before we started the shows, and I was just, you know, I was at my piano writing very different music than I was expecting, because you were writing from a place of just, oh, my goodness, this is just feels so heavy, and you know you that's natural. It was you know, life moments.
Yes, well, you have had many life moments and many moments where you have worked your way through different chapters, and you'll be revisiting one of those on stage soon. You mentioned shows there are the Opera House next month in April, and this is Mistaken Identity concert. So two years ago you toured your debut album, Innocent Eyes. I was a sellout to it around the country. I can't believe that you are here revisiting Mistaken Identity that was
released the day before your twentieth birthday. How is it being my goodness.
And reflecting that goodness? It doesn't right. That doesn't feel like a reality for me, But it feels like it was another lifetime. I found going into these anniversary shows
just so special, like beyond very healing. I think being able to go back in time and listen to the albums from a place of where I am right now has been quite eye opening again to go wow on this particular album, For example, on the second Identity, it's quite intricate in the details of piano, I think after the first album, they just let me run riot on
my piano. When I was revisiting, I'm going, it's a little more complex than I remember going into I'm like, we've got a bit of work cut out for us to put this show together, because it was there's so many chord changes. But I just I think from my life being like songwriting was just my blood and I loved I loved expressing myself that way, and I was very open and I realized when I kind of go into those albums how open hearted and minded I was
when I broke into music. And I think it's kind of going into them is reminding me to work harder to get back to that again, to being able to be as open as that in my you know, sort of having to protect yourself from being you know, sort of in the music in the industry my whole entire life.
And it's been really there's just reasons you go back into it, and getting to play the album from top to bottom and being able to play songs that we didn't get to play back then, and I kind I just it's just really exciting, it's enjoyable, it's a really creative project to do and there's so much in that album and the first album, I can see the journey. So I'm really enjoying this kind of format. The first one was so much fun. In a Snias anniversary we've
done around the whole country. This one is just one off shows in Australia, around in the UK. And Yeah, my heart kind of just smiles and beams when I think of it. It was such a it was everybody else's album as well, and it wasn't just mine, and that was really awesome to sort of experience.
It certainly felt like it really was everyone else's album. And because, as you say, going back to that time capsule, whether it's it's Stella covers or your albums, obviously in some eyes that was your breakthrough in the industry. I was just referencing the first time we met, when you're pivoting from that career as an actor, and then the journey that you had gone on even in those couple of years as still as a teenager.
And then but when you say that, I don't I don't remember ever being a teenager in that time where I kind of go I was because I've always I always had my friends from school and i always still remember having playful, you know, childlike fun throughout the course of my life still, But I also kind of when you say it, I can't. In my mind. I think I always felt a little bit older than what I
was now. I'm reverting back, you know, I think hopefully, But it's hard to fathom when you say that, when my mind goes back to what was happening in my life at that time.
I can completely understand that because so much had happened to you at such a young age, I mean professionally and personally. And that's why I mentioned that the Mistaken Identity album was released the day before your twentieth birthday, because that is a very very young person. You were
literally a teenager up until that moment. So the whole writing and producing the first album, the touring that, the huge success of that, and then recording and writing and releasing the second album, all that happened before you were even to a mo We even got to twenty one.
Yeah, twenty first at the State Theater where my mom got mad at me because I'd missed the harpest that was there before I got there. But you know, I was I remember nineteen twenty and I did my first tour, my first big tour, and it was an arena tour and it was on that album on the Mistaken Identity with Visualize, and I just remember being a Newcastle I think it was, and we'd had this sort of the
KOBOOKI drop. I was learning all the different fun that live aspects, because touring is you know, it was always my dream when I was going through my battle, I would have made these moments on the shows that I would get to do, like what would Predictable be played? Like what would how will we do electric storm on stage?
And I remember being there, you know, being there my first arena show, of my first headline and I was the first Australian to open Kudos Bank Arena and it was twenty thousand people and I just remember shaking like a leaf. I remember standing there, I had my hand up in you know, a high position and just being like my goodness, the feeling of like I was, you know, like a parachute, like I was jumping, like we're on the plane. You got to jump now, you have nowhere
else to go, you have to go. And that was my first like live show, my own show then it was but of course over the course of time, it just even gets more fun. That's the coolest part about starting young is that I still feel like I've only I feel like I'm hitting my stride in my best kind of moments and enjoying everything so much more now. But I love going back in time and sharing those lightning at a bottle moments from a different place of what that was like.
And obviously your fans and the audience when you're there performing are also revisiting where you were at your life at that stage, but also where they were, and that's how art works.
And I always that was you know, that was always something that was a part of how I got into it. I didn't get into it for anything, but I loved connection and storytelling. And I didn't have like a you know this, it's a new culture now with fame and all those kind of things. But my love was seeing that somebody took a song and made it a part of their core memory of their life. They can go
back in time. And when we were doing the Innis and Eyes tour, I could see when we'd like play not min at Eye or something, and you could see people taking their own story and like seeing their own life come back to them as they're sitting there a place of putting the CD player on, and it also happens to me, you know, and with Mistaken Identity, I've been going through the same process, and maybe because it was a complicated time as well, I am enjoying it
as like a listener and dissecting it from a different place.
Can I ask you then a little bit about that complicated time, which was at the height of the success of the release of the previous album, Innocent Eyes in two thousand and three, you were diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and the release of Mistaken Identity came. Really, when again you look at that twenty years ago, what an astounding achievement to have gone through a really grueling treatment of radiation and chemotherapy.
You know, being a feeler and someone who'd come from writing an album from an innocent place, like from a wide eyed writing song about time and life and you know, being born to try or you know those kind of that ethos that in that writing. Then it was I was discovering many different musicians because my household didn't have a lot of like they had. My parents listened to about three albums. It was like Jive Bunny, Joe Cocker
and John Farnham. And so when we hit the second album, you know, I think I'd seen life in a very different way as well, and it had. I'd started to discover Torrier Moss and Stevie Nicks, and all of a sudden I was eye opening to my eyes had opened to Annie Lennox, and all of a sudden there was all these new influences that I just didn't have on
the first album. So I was exploring that sort of intensity from that place, because whilst it was a triumphant moment to obviously stand there as a walking through and being thankful to be a survivor, you know, I had to walk from a different place as well, of what is what do I feel now going into this? How can I be of service now to be able to be able to do good with other people that are
going through it? And even just yesterday I was on the plane and this gentleman behind me had said that he was coming in for a stem cell treatment and he was you know, he'd straight away open and I get to hear everybody's stories throughout the course of my life since that day. Every single day that someone shares a story with me about their own journey about that's what they've gone through or their friend has gone through.
So in that respect, I look at it like that is a triumphant and that I can that so many people have shared, you know, so many beautiful stories with me of their strength that we can kind of come together on and there's no wall of there's no you don't have to there's no wall between us in like talking about what it is to have the courage to walk through when you when you're not feeling as brave as what you you you know you would like to
in those moments. And I think that that's been pretty amazing, and I'm thankful that the last few years we've worked hard at building my foundation now and that came from that moment. So I think in that aspect, yess, that's the triumph that's right.
I mean, initiatives like the Delta Gridron Foundation and the fact that I do know even firsthand that you do spend a lot of time speaking to other survivors and cancer patients. Actually, if you don't mind me telling this story, this was behind the scenes. I mean, this was not anything that played out in public. A good family friend of mine. About eight nine years ago, the daughter was diagnosed with Hodgkins slimphoma. She was a huge fan of yours.
She'd gone to assigning in the shopping centers. I remember that when they were a lot of time today, I absolutely did.
I think I met most of Australia, absolutely.
And I remember this person had reached out to me and said, look, I'm not sure if you know Delta Gudrin, but do you think she might consider talking to my daughter? And you did, and that's what happened on the phone, and you gave her about an hour of your time. And look, a really sad footnote to that story was that she did pass away later that year, and I did actually let you know, and you actually wrote a really beautiful card to her mother. So again, I mean,
I'm telling this story without warning. But the reason I'm saying is because I know that there are things that sometimes you're reluctant because it is authentic and genuine, and I know you don't want people to think that that's something that you're doing for publicity, because we do live in a culture where people always like to assign the
most uncharitable motives to other people. I you must look back and think the empathy and the way that that experience has shaped you and the way that you've wanted to give so much of your time do initiatives like the Delta Goodroom Foundation. Do you think that would have happened without that experience.
I think I think my heart would have always wanted to, you know, something's come into your life to make good of it for other people as well, like that that was a part of me. But no, it wouldn't have been I wouldn't have been in this moment of the Delta Goodom Foundation or have had that experience to talk from a place. So you're right, I would I So I look at it like, you know, like much like when Olivia had sent me a note saying, one day you'll understand it is a gift to be able to
have this understanding for people. And at the same time, you know, it's it's been a lot of conversations, but people go through so much every single day, and I it's a long time ago for me now, but I I and I've had so many different trials, what's trials by firearms different over the years, but the you know, that sort of connection that bonded a lot of people with me and me with them. That music and life was. You know, cancer dos' discriminate, and it's it can just
you have to stay on top of your health. It's
number one. All those life messages that might at times feel cliche or earnest in songs or in conversation, they're not because when someone's going through something really real and going through a moment in their life, those are those those simple messages like fighter Christina Aguilera was on my playlist, Like it's as obvious as that sometimes and so in that respect, I'm really proud to be able to work with like Saint Vincent's and from that day I'm a
very loyal person. So hence we're here, we are, He covers later, I'm very I'm very right or die as a character as it is. And once I love people, I very much love people, and like that, I would do anything for the people I love. But you know, the second that they had they had saved my life, I of course forever more was like what can I do?
How can I be of service? And when COVID happened, it finally gave us the time to be able to go okay, So how do I set this up properly because I'm a big believer in if it's worth doing,
it's worth doing well. And I don't like to do anything without a purposeful reason or without a meaning of doing it the best way I can, because I think to be in this spot even twenty or more years later, it's because I think the people who are a part of my community or they know that I would never not put my heart and soul into anything I'm involved in. I just wouldn't do it otherwise.
It's nice to know. That was another silver lining of COVID. We're getting a few silver linings that came out. The birth of the Foundation was one of them. Delta, I wanted to talk to you about the release of Mistaken Identity and what your memories are of that time. Out of the Blue was their debut single, and as we've touched upon, there was so much interest and fascination and everyone really did feel like they were rallying for you. And that is not hyperbole. No, when you would even
be walking red Cup of people would stop. It was like people were talking to Australia's daughter.
Or something like that.
You know, and of course, no one person can actually be the aunt or the daughter or the son.
But do you know what that's that can I share with you my mom? My mom had lost her parents young and so we didn't get to grow up with them same And one day my mother said she had like a moment and she got a bit teary, and she said, I wish that my you know, my mom and dad were here to be able to share you know, life life moments together. And I said, don't worry, mom, I've said, besides them being above watching, we've got You've
got many aunties and uncles in Australia. Here, we look like we can look at that two woman that came and chatted to us there, he's let's consider him an uncle and auntie your sister or brother. And I have felt that connection and I don't take it for granted that that is I feel like that I don't know whose. I don't know when I feel like sometimes my space invading. Sometimes when people like just jump into conversation with me
and go delta. So at this time did it And I just jumped straight in And I'm like, is it me who's like a bit out there where? I'm like, yes, I know. Let's just I feel like I know everyone as much as they feel me in those energies. Not everybody, because obviously there's not going to be there's everyone has their own worlds going on, but people who have chosen maybe and we've had a connection in some moment or another. When we have that interaction, I normally feel just as
connected as if I've watched their life too. It's a very strange feeling, and I'm not sure if that I may not explain that.
That actually makes perfect sense. It really does because and it's such a great insight into what I think, in current parlance would be the parasocial relationship, which is where a person really identifies or feels like they know someone a public figure or someone that they know.
But it also I feel that I know that.
But as I said, when the album came out, there was a lot of expectation, a lot of love, a lot of people really rallying behind you as you talked about the whole country of extended family for you and for your mum and your own family. And then did that also then bring with it a sense of pressure because the expectation on any follow up album, when it's on the heels of something super nova as innocent eyes was already brings a cute pressure and expectation. But then,
as discussed, you're only nineteen about to turn twenty. You've been through this incredibly confronting, life challenging experience at every single level. Physically you obviously temporarily lost your hair as a result of the chemotherapy treatment, So all of that. Can I ask you about that side of the experience when Mistaken Identity was released?
I mean, which part would you like to dive into, because there's so much in that chapter, And there was you know, we had just broken in the UK, you know, you know, Elton John had called me on the first day of my chemo. It was then I was back out in the world and just trying to kind of
as a teenager, try to navigate. And you I think everyone cared so as in like our team and my you know, I was with the record labels and it was a totally different time of life and as a culturally speaking as well when it came to how music was going or how music was run. And I mean I just remember it being you know, it was I guess the words that come to mind, and I'll keep exploring it as I'm putting the show together because it's
definitely a deep dive. But I still remember being able to be an artist in the sense that I would sort of go and escape to songwriting, like songs like Fragile and you can hear what's happening in my mind on that album. That's how I can That's how I can kind of go back in time as well, because a lot of it I also block out to kind of move on from, because I had become intense tabloid conversation and that's something that nobody teaches you when you
first get into it. That was my first intense tabloid. I mean, you know, paparazzi were chasing on the street. It was I was being the UK and it was you know, the bikes on the side and people were everywhere. And when it came to the music side, I can hear how expressive I was on It's a full bodied musical like me and Guy Chambers in London then Billy Mann, and we'd done like big orchestras in it, so I
can feel the want to just be. Its mood is intense, Like the analyst, I go into that song and I'm like free her mind She's always the analyst, silence space, the corporate, the catalyst trying to make sense of this life. And I can hear my analytical side kind of stepping in. And that's why I put it a track to Is it the best pop song on the album? No, But
it had a message of what I was experiencing. And you go from the long haired, no shoed piano playing to all of a sudden, a totally different identity, which is where that sort of the title came from. And you're questioning just everything, and I think putting the pieces together from like a family side, from a music side, and choices and I I'm I'm yeah, I'm still I think that it was. It was a pretty There was
a lot of pressure to answer. In my roundabout way, there was a lot of pressure, and I think I cried a lot during that chapter. I think that I was doing the best I could, and but it was it was intense. It was an intense time.
It must be such an intense experience to use the same word to go back and revisit that particular chapter, I imagine doing so with innocent eyes was really eye opening.
I'm scape and you know very then, but again, I you know, I am. I'm sitting here with a with going Wow, what an experience of life. You know, that was another true experience to the colors of the rainbow. There is a depth and gravity that I can understand from a place. I'm always somebody who when they go through anything, I will take with me what I need to learn from and continue to try to learn, and
I will discard and just keep moving forward. I'm on the train going over this way, and I will continue on my path to be the best version of myself every day. And that that might have been an intense album, but I think in rediscovering and going to and again, I say that as an album as a life moment, but it was there was there was a lot of
amazing moments. I was there doing Top of the Pops and we were in New York and we were doing the Today Show, and we were doing you know, there was there was a lot of amazing moments that were happening with Out of the Blue Almost here had taken off in Europe and we were flying from country to country. But it was still just you know, I was just a nineteen year old, twenty year old, and a lot of it I'm still trying to remember.
That's why I'm here to give you a little specific Oh wow.
Look, I remember some bad fashion choices. I'm going to be honest with you on that.
Oh no, never, How could you possibly be in the public eye ephid twenty two years and had bad fashion choices?
Never happened before. I can safely say to you that there's I remember when I think it was a couple of years ago when we were one of my girlfriends said, and I said, I really didn't like this outfit I was wearying, and that I got papped out there before Now phones were a little bit more of the prevalent. Now I've just given up.
In any.
Here I am. But but I was like, oh, I just disliked the outfit. She said, Oh babe, don't worry. It can't be anything as bad as what you were wearing in two thousand and four and five. And I was like, well, I guess you're right there, you go. I love that supporting feedback. Yeah, the outfit's are that bad? Well, it's true as it goes to the.
Theme of resilience, doing it, you learn, you go, Okay, I can get back from this bad outfits whatever it is, and then you learn.
I done good ones, but just some.
I certainly had a few. It wouldn't be a life if there weren't, like a few bad wardrobe choices. I think I speak for all of us when I say that part of the reason that a second album brings all of that weight of expectation I was talking about is because really, and we can. I think we can talk about this twenty years later. I wouldn't if I was sitting in the studio, I wouldn't say it now, right, Okay, Delta, this is make or break. So right now you've got
this massive career. But if this one's a fizzer, people are going to go, oh, that was a one hit wonder. So that's the spoiler alert. I think twenty years later we can say, well, that was the next step, the next chapter in what has clearly been not only very successful career, but a career with longevity in it.
I can safely say that even I didn't feel that, I didn't have that kind of feeling when it came to I wasn't sort of and I still don't when it comes to, oh, if this doesn't you know work or my pursuit is to do great work, great projects, great people. I don't have a I didn't have that feeling on album too, like if this doesn't work anything, No, I would just sort of pick up and keep going and find Okay, we'll let me dive deeper into sitting at my piano and you know, finding what I want
to share and talk about. But again, it's for people to pick up a part of them so as well. I wouldn't have felt I wouldn't. I didn't feel that kind of pressure. It was more that there was just an enormity going on around me and a lot of people just just everybody. It It was just there was just it was a coming from minnison and eye into that record when you're doing I think for some reason comes to mind at the areas and singing out of the Blue and just the amount of production and just
things that were going on. Was that was kind of what had happened next.
The scale. The scale, as you say, you're traveling the world and you're doing live TV in New York and you.
Don't look the same or you don't feel the same, so you're trying to navigate that whilst a lot of people are dissecting you and trying to put observations or but again I I I that was that was then, and I kind of I appreciate that that's what was going on at that moment.
As you said, there were some parts of that chapter then, were your first experience of that really unrelenting paparazzi interest and everyone following everything that you did, And then you've already touched upon it. I think before you said trial by Fire, and I wanted to ask you a little bit about you have really ridden the roller coaster of the public like the highest of highs and then inevitably
the lowest of lows. Everyone that has got any career that probably even honestly goes longer than a week is going to feel the absolute love and then the absolute venom. And you have really experienced the absolute extremities of it. How do you feel about that? Looking back now? Do you feel I could anything shock you in terms of people saying bad things about you because you have not
weathered it. But also those things would must presumably sting when you're younger, but also when it's your first time being exposed to that.
Well, that's the thing I think, when you're first exposed to it and then you're sort of getting the muscles of understanding of how to how to put the umbrella up and walk through it and then put it down, but again with a true intention and a clear And then I knew that this too will pass. And then you also have to understand that's a career. You can't always be one thing to everybody, or one or a
hero or a villain. You will in a career go through different ebbs and flows, and it's up to you to what you do next.
Absolutely, and that's the thing. And you learn that each time that you do, get back up and get on with it. And then you learn that I don't.
Really read or look at anything though anymore now like I definitely like when I was younger, I would see a lot more. I probably have to be. If something comes up, I might say, you show me, but I don't know. I don't read or look at anything about myself. I live my life. I have an amazing partner in my life, and we live a good life, and we get to tour of the world doing what we love to do and meeting great people.
And coming up Delta on how she and her fiance celebrated their engagement. I was going to ask you about turning forty. Actually, you have obviously gone and revisited two albums on a successful tour. Is this something that you think you might do for every single album that you're going to do. Do you think you might put them all together at some point.
An anniversary of every album? Yes? Yes, well I'm really enjoying it. But it is about the new music I am. I am absolutely in the studio at the moment. Hence why I didn't do the tour, because I was like, I need to keep writing the new music. I feel like I just love the new songs so much so I'm definitely very ready for the new songs to start to make their way out into the world soon. But first steps first, right now with these shows, committing and
heading to London with them. So but yes, I you know, if it's a it's so much fun playing an album from top to bottom from a time where now you skip a lot more and you might have singles, but in you know, having each album playing top to bottom, who knows. I mean, I hadn't thought about the next one yet. We've had so many projects go on. I haven't got to that one day at a time.
Do you got to love journees, don't you. I was sitting here going, well, what's the next what's the next time? Are you thinking? I haven't even done the current one. I obviously would love to ask you about your record label. You have your own record label, now.
Tell me about that.
What inspired you to do that and what are your plans for it as a record label?
Well, I think I mean if i'd been in a signed to a record label for longer than I hadn't in life. So if I was signed when I was fourteen, fifteen years old, so I only knew label life more than I didn't know being signed to a label, and then COVID really did change a lot. I think it had like that sort of propeller on people with different
life moments. We just had Bridge Over Trouble Dreams, the album go number one, and we worked really hard as a team, and I just I just remember feeling that sense of understanding how much the world was changing and
how much I'd learned. I was doing these bunk annowned sessions on my socials and just you know, obviously because when we were at home and we kept doing the music, but we started to see how much just how much the communication was happening now, and I was learning how to use my phone, how to be connected through our phones and be able to and I understood how quick
everything was. And I think that I started starting to see that there was a new model that was out there in a different way, rather than just accepting an old path that had sort of been now there was an evolution, and I enjoyed the creative aspect of that. We were starting to have a lot of fun with my creativity, being able to be out of the box with doing projects, making Christmas shows and doing and I
really relish in sort of creating a project. And I just had a feeling in my heart that, you know, things were changing, and I felt like I wanted to be able to move into the new era a new way and see how I could efficiently be able to
create and be with a core team. And that kind of just that evolution, and I think there was an opening there where there was a change of guards and change of season when it came to even with the voice and with the label and everything, and I just sort of said, I'm gonna I want to go over here. And I have been walking a path that you know, for me has been less troubled, but it's been exciting. We've been able to tour the world with Backshitt Boys and Shanaia and it just Yeah, I'm really proud of
the last four years. And starting the label felt like a natural thing when you've been in label your whole life and now there's a new version of that that I feel strong about being able to create for the next gym as well.
It must be quite an adjustment then, going from being part of a label for as you say, most of your conscious life and then all of a sudden not hadn't really thought about it from that outside of the work aspect, just part of the identity. So yes, turning forty. So I did want to ask you about that. Something that we talk about a lot women on this podcast is the changing nature of visibility of women and just the options that are open to women as they get older.
If you look back, you know, even only ten twenty years ago, I was like, right, in this age, that's what it means. Certain I've had women in here in
their fifties and sixties. For you, only being forty is obviously a younger lens on it, but it's the same thing I would imagine when you look at the women that you were looking to in the public eye when you were growing up, and also just personally your mum's generation, the old labels and barriers that were so commonplace don't seem to be in place anymore.
I know, what an exciting time for us to be able to have that. I recognize that. That's just it's so fantastic. It's so wonderful to be able to you know, it's time. There's no timeless you know, where whenever your time is, there's no you know, I wrote a song on my first record in my own time, and I do truly believe that your timing is right for you. And you know, I have things that I would have thought on different times in my life, but I love
that my time is on my own time. And I think that how fantastic that society has shifted to where you know, there is there is no limit on you. You can be whatever you want to be at any age you go for it, you know, and lifting each other up in that space and and celebrating that they're different chapters of your life and being able that's so cool. That's really awesome.
Can I ask Delta when going back to your treatment, and we just talked about that period of your life after the diagnosis with Hodgkins slim foma, A question that all women in the public eye is also asked about. So what are you doing to look good? And how are you feeling today? And are you looking? Do you want to wear this dress? And that scrutiny and pressure
at the physical appearance. I mean, obviously you look amazing, and those questions probably will come one day, but I'm sure were even when you were twenty, people were saying, oh, you know, well, maybe we're this dress instead of that dress. Going through that life challenging experience, did that put the physical side of things into perspective a little bit for you in terms of the mortality aspect of this conversation that again I think all of us grapple with as we're going through life.
I never had it as my forward like my first step. I didn't. Whilst I'm so grateful to have hair and makeup when it came to doing my job or feeling the best I could, it wasn't. I really I think that that, you know, I I was pretty, you know,
I didn't. I loved coming up with like what outfit of my wearing on stage that would be a passion, but it wasn't a I've never really had that passion for like day to day, where I think that might be a misconception maybe for me, like I don't really I don't have like a excitement of what I'm going to wear for this today, like as in day to day. But I love when it's like theatrical or stage or you know, what we're going to do that meets that
performance or that's that's a passion of mine. But when it comes to no one ever really, I don't think for me in my journey when when people talk about you know, did someone say where this or where that? I've always been very strong minded as well. I never really I've always been I'm not that person that whilst I'm open and I'm always like, best best idea in the room wins best like thought process and our friction
makes motion. Best best thought that we move forward to be able to get the best solution wins when including like does this look great? But this is this look great?
I love that aspect, but I'm not as I'm not, I guess I sort of it's a lot more prevalent now with people with their social media and their phones and that sort of but that wasn't really a passion, and you'd see for me, I, you know, I'm a little more shy when it comes to you know, I want to look my best the best I can, and at times I'll notice, So I better get better, get
running a bit more, I bet, you know. But I'm a lot more driven from a different place that's not Yeah, I don't know if that's makes sense, and I'm not sure if I'm quite tired today. So if I'm articulating anything and if don't make any sense, this would be a miracle.
Well it's a miracle. It makes It makes a lot of sense, And I think it's a really fascinating answer, because really the question was me queering whether your attitude to the sea that we all swim in, whether you're in the public eye or not totally, whether you are twenty, whether you're forty, whether you.
What school, whether you're like all women know, yeah, there's that moment where everone goes, so what are you wearing or what do you look like?
Or oh you look too young, or you look too old, or you need to put on weight. Oh no, they know you've lost too much weighted. It's it is a very general cultural part I would argue of being a woman. And I was curious whether that experience of losing your hair temporarily at twenty, whether that had shaped it. But what I'm hearing is that for you, it was always more the physicality and fashion was more part of storytelling for you.
Yeah, I mean that was it was hard being that moment feeling good. Of course that wasn't and you know I it definitely you know what we're hitting on a call is actually prior to that, I was very naturally just you know, it wasn't my emphasis. I'd be like, oh, yeah, that looks great. I love that dress over jeans. I was very casual about the way I approached I loved something that I looked nice, or this looks nice. It
was very natural organically. I didn't use it as my sort of number one thought process of what am I
going to wear for this? But then when I went through losing my hair and losing a you know, you you are inflames from the different steroids or all those kind of things that are going on, or your eyebells have gone gray, because that's just what happens, so yes, and then I had braces at the time too because my teeth maybe, so it was definitely I definitely then got you know, definitely wanted to sort of hermit a
little bit more. But I think I have hermited a lot when I just need to kind of recover or but then sort of you know, then i'd my hair was coming back, and I just you know, it was just not I wasn't rocking it at all. And I appreciate, you know, when we get to get dressed up and play, but if you caught me at home, I'm very much very track suits at home.
You are engaged and you share parts of your life, like your engagement on social media, but then also very private. And again from an outsider perspective, it doesn't look like there's any tussle about that. I'm sure people are asking you questions or fans all the time, but from a public perspective, it looks like people give you the space at this point in your life to live your life, but then you're also not it's not a secret. Is that a fair observation?
One hundred percent? I think that's exactly what it is. I feel when we got engaged. We were. It was the day before that we shared the photo before we were on stage, and I was tussling so bad in that moment, but I was like, you know, it's we just share it, share it, you know. And then it was kind of like during that tour, it was so beautiful because each place is saying, you know, have the engagement. It felt like we've done an engagement party in every
single city while we were doing those shows. And I thought that was just so beautiful in the way that we got to kind of share that in our own way, which was we're open on stage, we're on stage together, we are there, and it is you know, it is also a love language for us as being up there. But I do love keeping us as a sacred house too, and that's important for me, and I choose. It's like
the same with my family. I choose to to stand in my authentic self with my love for music and my love for the arts or doing shows and you know and projects. But you know, you know, he chooses music as well, so that's a form. But he doesn't choose this, or my brother doesn't, my mom, dad don't. And I kind of have learned that from over time, and that that's what works for.
Me absolutely, and I think it's obvious that that has been learned because there are some things in life that you can only get that balance when.
You've lived through it. There's no real book to that, but that's what I'm saying about life. You know, I really this is such a wonderful chapter because all those different moments that leads you to where you are, where you go, you can kind of find those boundaries which are right for you. And you know that doesn't mean things won't change over time, but I feel, you know, I enjoy where we're at with sharing my other parts of me.
Final question, can I just go back where we started when I was talking about the eight stellar covers and the first time that you and I met, which was Melbourne, November two thousand and two. You were only so young at the time. I mean, if you hadn't been in the industry, you would have still been possibly at school, maybe like you might have been finishing up year twelve in that night.
I would have been in year twelve. I didn't do Year eleven and twelve. Yep, I was on neighbors.
I've taken you back a lot, but I would like just to end on that moment. If you look back to that Delta Good Room back then end of two thousand and two, before publicly at least everything changed with Born to Try being released. What would you say to her is if you had to give her one piece of advice or one observation, or one joke or something.
One time we say this, it's very funny. How would you.
Tell it a fob off that annoying futures della editor that you'll be sitting opposite in March twenty twenty five, so going back to that studio obviously in Melbourne because you were filming Neighbors at the time, what do you think would be your message to her if you had that opportunity to go back in the little time?
I mean, I think it's just I would also say staying strong in you know what's important as you I don't know if what I find is that to separate from so much noise, you have to have those quiet moments to be able to really hear your the voice within, to be able to stay strong. And I think in the moments of when you have maybe not the best people around you, or you know there's there can be different so much influences and you know, noises and this
and this and this. I think always removing yourself and taking a moment to really sit in what is what is the You are the sort of north star of this whole ship. How do you kind of go forward in the right way? I think just I would always just say just keep you know. If a reflective side, I'd say just always keep you know, making sure you find those quiet times by yourself to be able to
always step back into that. But otherwise I just also tell her that it just gets even more fun as time goes on and you're about to experience a wild ride, but always what you got into it for in the attention and the thoss of the love and light through song and shared experience as humans.
Well, Delta, it's been really lovely to chat to you. Happy belated fortieth birthday by the way, Thank you and looking forward to seeing you on stage. You can see Delta Gudrum Mistaken Identity, a night of celebration, is on the fourteenth of April at the Sydney Opera House. Tickets are available through deltagudroom dot com and you'll find the link in our show notes. You'll also find a link in our show notes if you'd like to watch this interview or any others of the Stellar Podcast on YouTube.
Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and make sure you're following us because we'll be back with another exclusive guest on Something to Talk About next week