Today we were lucky enough to have a quick chat with Montaigne ahead of her participation in Eurovision 2021.
Naturally we touched base with her about not travelling to Europe and she wanted to assure us and fans that she was doing ok, saying,
"I feel enough time has passed that I have accepted the situation and just want to move forward with whatever the process is. I'm not too stressed about it now. I feel ok."
With a lot of commentary about the cancellation we spoke about the passionate fanbase and the positive and negative comments she received.
"I breeze past any of the negativity. With Twitter especially.... (but) you can glimpse key words and be able to determine whether or not you want to read something. And I don't get a big head from reading all the positive ones!"
Many fans have connected to Montaigne through her openness including talking about being an introvert in an industry and competition that appears to be more suited to extroverts. We asked her about overcoming that challenge.
"The thing that made it easy for me throughout the last few years is accepting that's the truth and being ok and unashamed of it. For a long time I felt like an outsider, felt like I was programmed wrong, because I didn't want to do all the things that other people my age wanted to do, like go out and go to parties.... Sometimes I still grapple with that because I am a singer, but ultimately you have to be true to your nature."
Since first signing up to do Australia Decides back in late 2019, it has been a rollercoaster for Montaigne with a lot quiet periods after last year's cancellation. But once she reengaged with creating music, she didn't feel the pressure of coming up with a Eurovision song again, saying,
"Honestly, I did have a lot of faith in my talent as a songwriter, I wasn't too worried about having a good song for Eurovision, especially after I met Dave Hammer. Then I was like "oh it's going to be fine!". Dave just so happened to be situated across the road from my house. Literally across the road. It was all very fortunate!"
During that process, a song called 'JC Ultra' was on the table which was inspired by brainwashing music celebrities and spout pro-alien propaganda. It's an entry that we became a bit obsessed with at Aussievision and after declaring our love for a song we've never heard, we asked Montaigne if it was going to be released at some point. After laughing at us, she said,
"I think so, I still think it could be a single but everyone thinks it's a bit challenging and I don't really get it but it doesn't really have an aesthetic that is popular on radio at the moment. It will come out at some point."
Good news for us JC Ultra fans!
Australian national radio station Triple J has been supportive of Montaigne and 'Technicolour' and she touched on why that was so important,
"It's really great, because I think there's an increasing overlap between Eurovision fans and Triple J listeners it's slowly growing. The fact that I was able to write a song that could cross the bridge between Eurovision and Triple J is pretty good... and it brings those Triple J listeners who may not have watched Eurovision before to Eurovision as well. Which is cool."
With no live performances ahead, we asked her how prepared she was for the 5:00am appearance for the shows in Rotterdam.
"At heart I'm a morning person physiologically, but not lately! I've been getting up around 9:30am.... The earliest thing I have to do is the day of my performance, I'll have to be at the SBS studios for 5:00am to do the Green Room crossover, and I'll have to do my makeup before that so it's going to be a bit of an early start. But whatever I'll do it! Maybe I can adjust my body clock by then."
And in good news for Montaigne fans, new music and an album is on the cards.
"New music an album is probably on the cards, haven't finished making the album but started on the process of actually working towards it. I wrote a bunch of songs with Dave Hammer last year and I think a bunch of them will end up on the album.
We'll be featuring portions of the interview in a Eurovision update podcast this weekend.
Make sure you subscribe at https://linktr.ee/aussievisionnet
You can also listen to our interview with the Australian Delegation about the cancelled trip to Rotterdam plus Montaigne's live-on-tape performance below:
Apple
Spotify