CHILLAGOE born starlet Becci Nethery might be a rising star on the country music scene, but it is her strong ties to her remote hometown in Far North Queensland that keeps her grounded.
Becci, 20, is on the up and up after taking out three major awards at the 2018 Tamworth Country Music Festival.
She won a Tamworth Songwriters Association Award for her original, yet to be released song “Just Not Today, and two Gold Medallion Media Awards for Queensland female vocalist and National female artist.
Becci said she was honoured and overwhelmed to win the awards.
“I’m so excited about it, I expected to walk away with nothing,” she said.
“The TSA is a huge deal for me, and to be chosen out of all of Queensland for female vocalist and all of Australia for national female artist means so much and I’m really proud.
”It feels like getting recognition for working hard for such a long time.”
Becci said music was in her blood and she knew from a young age growing up in Chillagoe that it would play a huge part in her life.
“It was definitely a nice and peaceful childhood, I recognise it more now I live in a big city,” she said.
“It was very calm, running around the streets with no troubles and I grew up around a really musical family, I was always going to do music as it was my whole family, I was surrounded by such amazing talent from a very young age.”
Becci said she did her first competition with her Aunt backing her at about 6 or 7. At age 8 she forced her grandfather to teach her to play the guitar and at 9 she wrote her first song.
“It was all about Chillagoe, I still remember how to play it and occasionally people ask for it, and I try to get out of it but they beg,” she said.
”I still play at the pub every time I go home, not a real gig as such, but I sit around and have a bit of jam session. Up there they’re all extended family really.
“My whole family was really into country, so country was my first love and for a while the only genre I knew so it’s always been a big part, When I write songs it always has that story telling background learned from years of listening to country.”
Becci left Chillagoe for boarding school in Cairns, then moved to Sydney to undertake a Bachelor of Contemporary Performance, which she completed in 2016.
Becci said this year would be another big one as she plans to work on a new album, writing the majority of her songs herself.
“I want to make sure it’s a reflection of myself, so I really want the majority to be my songs and what matters to me.
“I can’t say when the whole album will be done, but hopefully this year I’ll release a new single or two.”