It is not even a year since Isaiah Firebrace took Australian audiences by storm as a contestant on The X Factor.
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The 17-year-old went on to win the competition and was then selected to sing for his country at the Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine.
Fresh off his top-10 finish and a whirlwind tour of Europe, Isaiah was in Bendigo – not far from his hometown of Moama – to talk about his upcoming concert at Ulumbarra.
He also talks about his burgeoning career as a fashion model and gives young performers some tips of making it big.
How long has it been since you were up in this area?
It’s been a few months. I haven’t been to Bendigo in quite a long time, a few months. But I went to Moama a few weeks ago, only for a few hours, to have just a quick dinner with some of my family when I got back from Eurovision. I certainly have missed the vibe in Bendigo and Echuca.
What have you missed the most about regional Victoria and New South Wales?
I think the whole vibe is a bit more chilled out, I think. Melbourne’s got a good vibe too, but it’s just so much more open and free here in the country towns. I just really like all the gum trees and everything like that. Even though it sounds cheesy, I do like all that stuff.
Do you ever reflect on what you’d be doing today had it not been for the The X Factor and Eurovision?
I think I’d just be in Echuca-Moama, studying at school.
I don’t know what I’d be studying because I always had my eyes on music and singing and performing, so it was kind of hard for me to pick another kind of career path.
So I’m very thankful and I feel very luck that I’m able to do singing.
When I was not much older than you, I was a massive fan of American Idol and especially Adam Lambert. You go to work very closely with him on The X Factor last year. Can you tell us about that experience?
When I went on The X Factor, I wanted either Guy or Iggy Azalea to be my mentor because I didn’t really know much about Adam Lambert. I knew he was on American Idol and I knew some of his songs. But I really thought Iggy was such a cool person and I really liked her songs, and I feel like Guy Sebastian, we share the same singing style and same kind ofd genre.
But I think it was a perfect match to be mentored by Adam because he was just so down to earth and really good to get along with, and really funny, and I just I always felt really comfortable around him. He always encouraged me a lot.
His voice is really quite incredible and he can sing – well, he’s singing all the Queen songs, and they’re some of the hardest songs to sing.
How do you think you’ve changed as a singer since all that began this time last year?
Being on The X Factor was such a big confidence boost for me. Adam always told me my singing didn’t need any work, it was just my performance and having a good stage presence. So I think I’ve really worked on that since The X Factor and throughout Eurovision. Just like the performance side, and showing a bit more showmanship.
There might be aspiring performers watching now. How do they do that? How do they work on their stage presence?
I think everyone has got the ability to go out on stage and just show all of their showmanship. It’s just that some people aren’t comfortable with it. So once you start believing in yourself, and telling yourself that ‘what I do is what makes me special’, that’s when you can get really comfortable and just go out on stage and own it.
That’s good advice, but it takes a lot of work, I imagine.
Trying to get a lot of experience performing on stages and stuff, that really helps. But I think it’s got to do with how much you want it and how much you believe in yourself – that’s what comes through in your performance.
Question from viewer Rikki Pool: What is the atmosphere like at Eurovision? It looks crazy.
The atmosphere feels really like an exciting buzz. It was such a positive atmosphere as well. There wasn’t really any rivalry, and there wasn’t anyone who had a diva attitude or anything like that. Everyone was really supportive. Even all the workers, the security, even the other delegations, we were all there just to have fun and enjoy the moment.
It was a crazy production. Being backstage and seeing the stage and so many lights, so many cameramen and smoke machines, and all the glitz and all the glamour, it was really awesome to be a part of such an massive, crazy thing.
A lot of people here who know Eurovision think it’s just three nights on TV and everybody shoots home. Tell me about the weeks and months beforehand.
When you’re there, it goes for two weeks, the competition. That’s all full of interviews and the media – so many interviews every day. So many rehealrsals, the producers have everything ready for showtime because it’s live.
There were some late nights, but thankfully there weren’t many early mornings, which is good because I like to have a good sleep-in.
Some nights I still had to stay up and do live crosses back to Australia, some of the breakfast TV shows. I’m a person who’s okay with staying up late, just so I get a substantial amount of sleep-in time.
Eurovision is watched by 200 million people. That’s almost 10 times the size of Australia. What’s it like to look down a camera and know there’s that many people glaring back at, and maybe with their phones about to vote for you?
That was something that was always on my mind before going over to Eurovision: ‘Oh my god, there’s so many people watching me, it’s going to be scary.’
But once you’re over there, you just get used to being on the stage, you get used to all the cameras you’ve got to look at. At showtime, the only difference is it feels more electric because you’ve got the audience there. I don’t think there’s time while you’re performing to think of how many people are watching.
Question from viewer Marlene Quay: Why did you choose to sing?
I think it was just a natural thing that I’ve been gifted with. If you look at athletes and all the other professions, they’re gifted in that career. So I think singing was just a part of me, and a part of who I am.
In terms of Eurovision, ever since I started watching – when Jess Mauboy went over and did a guest performance – I was just wowed by it. I always just said to myself, ‘One day I want to be on that show.’
It’s hard to explain how it feels to have your dreams come true that quickly.
You’re in town celebrating the fact you’ll be doing a show on August 6. Tell us more.
I have a show coming up at Ulumbarra Theatre; that’s where we are right now doing this interview. It’s August 6, which is a Sunday, so I’d love for everyone to grab there tickets and come down, because it’s going to feel amazing being back on home soil,
What can we expect?
Don’t Come Easy, my X Factor song It’s Gotta Be You, and some of The X Factor hits as well. And also by then, I should have some new music out, which is really exciting.
Question from viewer Christine Smith: would you consider modelling along with singing?
I have been doing some modelling, and I just recently had a meeting with this modelling agency that’s going to start working on my project and for me to be doing some campaign shoots with some fashion companies with whoever wants me to model for them.
[It’s] exciting because it’s awesome to not only have a profession of music but explore the other arts.
It’s always fun doing modelling and shoots because I always thought you’d just have to stand there and strike poses by yourself. But the photographers tell you what to do, which is good because you get good direction and the photos usually turn out looking pretty good.