Kate Miller-Heidke on coming back down-to-earth after her Zero Gravity performance at Eurovision in 2019

A classically trained vocalist whose songs dance between Top 40 pop and operatic runs, it’s these qualities that saw Kate Miller-Heidke fixate international crowds when she belted out Zero Gravity at Eurovision in 2019. The Brisbane-raised singer-songwriter was at the top of her game, quite literally — she performed on a giant bendy pole — and once described it as “one of those sweet career windows that often only happen once in a lifetime”, but she was in the depths of personal upheaval that she could no longer bear. In March this year, the 40-year-old revealed she was sexually abused as a child by her great-grandfather, Archibald Barnes, whom her family later discovered was a serial paedophile. In an emotional post on Instagram, she wrote that the actions of activists Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and fellow Australian musician Jaguar Jonze gave her the strength to tell her story. “One of the hardest things at a time, it wasn’t just the abuse, it was that the weight of carrying a secret and feeling that these things weren’t spoken about and they were shameful,” she said. “Watching the tide turn publicly around these issues, I think if that public consciousness had been there when I was a kid, it would have saved me a lot of heartache.” The post came during one of these “f... it” moments that Miller-Heidke isn’t afraid to frequent more often as she gets older. It was also to announce the rerelease of You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore, which was first released in October 2020 as part of her fifth studio album, Child in Reverse. She decided to rerecord in collaboration with abuse survivor and outspoken campaigner against sexual misconduct Jonze, real name Deena Lynch, in late 2021 and release it as a single on March 9. “When it was coming out, I imagined people asking me what it was about, and at that point, I just thought, well, I just can’t be bothered obscuring what this song is about,” she said. “I’m just going to tell people what it’s about.” The heartfelt lyrics describe old wounds that not even time can heal, but Miller-Heidke says the song is her favourite on the record, which she and her six-piece band finally get to tour with after COVID-related cancellations, starting on July 6 at Perth Concert Hall. “I can’t describe how long I’ve been looking forward to this,” she said. “It’s been years. “When it (COVID) first happened, we heard all these things about how Shakespeare wrote some of his masterpieces during quarantine for the black plague (Black Death),” she said. However, Miller-Heidke, who lives in Melbourne with her husband, Keir Nuttall, and their five-year-old son, Ernie, said no lockdown, not even in the Victorian capital that suffered the longest lockdowns in the world, could compare to the real deal of seeing and performing live music. “It’s a constant state of hypervigilance and this constant rumble of anxiety. It just made it very hard to lose myself in creative work. It felt more like just a matter of survival, really, and focusing on my young son and making sure he was OK,” she said. “I’ve sat in a few audiences myself over just the last few months, and there’s this undeniable electricity. I think it’s just like almost a group catharsis, a group therapy session after what everyone’s been through the last few years. “It’s something for me that has been really important to my mental health. Going to see live art, I didn’t realise how important it was until it was all taken away.” Her love of music was fostered at a young age — she would charge her family 5¢ for household performances. “(Performing) forces me to be in the moment. It forces me to lose my everyday self in a way that is just really liberating. “Connecting with other musicians on stage is a really powerful thing. We have this chemistry together.” Apart from the obvious chemistry in the form of a fleeting glance across the stage towards Nuttall, who is in her band, the pair share an intimate understanding of one another musically. With her husband, she wrote the music and lyrics to Muriel’s Wedding The Musical, which premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company and played throughout 2019 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. “That was a dream. Total dream gig,” she said. “I’ve always been absolutely obsessed with musical theatre. Having studied opera, I always felt like I have a decent sense of how to tell a story with music.” She’s being modest. It won five Helpmann Awards, including Best Original Score and will be up for more awards after its Broadway run. “Straight after this tour, we’re off to New York to get the show ready for Broadway . . . to make sure that the Americans can get the jokes,” she said. Working with other musicians and collaborators is something Miller-Heidke has grown fond of in recent years. She composed the opera for The Rabbits, based on John Marsden’s children’s novel of the name, which premiered at the Perth Festival in February 2015, to critical acclaim and won four Helpmanns, and more recently Aussie singer Mallrat featured on her song, Simpatico, from her 2020 album. “When I was younger, I was scared of collaboration. I felt it was too exposing or I was too nervous. I felt inadequate and felt like if I worked too closely with anyone, they’d discover what a fraud I was,” she said. “And as I got older, I just sort of give less of a s..., suddenly had an epiphany that that’s actually where it’s at. Collaboration, it’s where the magic happens.” The Child in Reverse national tour begins in Perth on July 6 at Perth Concert Hall. Crisis support services: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636; 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732.