Now and then a new local artist drops in our laps, seemingly out of nowhere. We love these little surprise packages of talent, and newcomer Greyson Vaughn has definitely given us a couple of earworms from his five-track debut EP ‘Her’.

Self-produced, vulnerable and packed with solid songcraft, ‘Her’ is an impressive debut from this emerging Gold Coast talent, and we’re excited to see where he goes from here.

We thought we’d get to know Greyson a little better by shooting him a few questions.

So your debut EP ‘Her’ seems to have dropped out of nowhere! Tell Gold Coast audiences a bit about you as an artist. 

Me as an artist? Nothing much to say except I’m nineteen years old and I've loved music since a very young age and I am pretty sure I learnt to sing before I learnt to talk. 

Being raised in a family full of talented singers and performers, I've always had an infatuation with music and performing so I pursued it in my schooling life and decided to continue pursuing the arts after school in whatever way felt right. 

I got a job in entertainment and in my spare time wrote music when it came to me. I didn't have much intention of releasing the music I wrote but figured why not, and I am so glad I did. 

Are you happy to tell us who the ‘Her’ is? Is she a real person, or an imaginary muse?

I won't name any names but I actually had two ‘Her’s in mind in the writing process. The song ‘Butterflies’ was heavily inspired by my mother who has dealt with plenty of hardships with life and love, and ‘Butterflies’ was me imagining the feeling she felt when life and love took a turn for the worst, you know? 

The other ‘Her’ was definitely my muse for ‘Closer’ and ‘You're Gonna Be There’. Simply put, they are a person that I fell for…hard. In fact ‘Closer’ depicts the night we first kissed and all the emotion that came with it and has quite a significance to me as a story and a song. ‘You're Gonna Be There’ was a song I wrote for them as a birthday gift based on a prior conversation we had. “Whatever happens with us I want you in my life, you're gonna be there no matter what.” 

What’s the plan for live performances? Are you hoping to be more of a recording artist or are you keen to incorporate live elements into your practice? 

For now I'm happy just being a recording artist but once I have some more songs and maybe some more variety in my repertoire I would love to look into performing them to and audience.

Tell us about one of your favourite lyrics in ‘Her’, and why you love it.

Lyric wise, I think there are gems in each song in ‘Her’ but the line I was most proud of and resonates with me most is: “Because the world keeps spinning when you are feeling like you just need it to stop for a minute. Your heart is breaking, your tummy’s aching cause all the Butterflies are gone, gone, gone.” from ‘Butterflies’. I know I've felt like I just needed the world to stop for a moment because everything is overwhelming and it’s a feeling I’d say everyone has felt at least once and I'm sure for a lot of people that has come when you lose someone you love so I wanted to incorporate the feeling of “butterflies in your stomach” disappearing when that happens.  

What was the creation process of the album? Was it mostly a solo effort, or was anyone else involved?

It was mostly a solo effort! I did have some help along the way with any questions I had about making music and the wonderful Angelina Marchant featuring at the end of ‘Closer’, however, I wrote, recorded, produced and mastered all the songs by myself in my little makeshift studio at home. 

Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and who’s on your playlist right now?

A lot of my musical influences came from various young and upcoming artists I've seen and heard on social media for example Stacey Ryan and Braden Bales, both of whom are around my age and went viral on TikTok for their music, they kind of inspired me to give it a try. 

Along the same lines however he’s been around for a few years now and is very well known is Ruel who is an Australian artist and his music is something I listen to on the daily. 

One more artist who influenced my music quite a lot is Harry Styles. I just love his lyrics and creativity with the sounds in his music. All of the aforementioned artists are on my “On Repeat” playlist along with Masie Peters, Ben Platt, Wallows and of course various musical theatre numbers.

Is there anything else you’d like people to know?

I would just like everyone to know how much I appreciate the support and love I’ve received and I would like to thank anyone and everyone who's taken time out of their days to listen to my music. It really does mean the world to me that I’ve had the opportunity to do something like this and have such a good response in return, so thank you to everyone!

‘Her’ is available now on the usual platforms.