AT EIGHTEEN years of age Ipswich musician Paulina Schuemann already has eight singles and a couple of remixes released and is one of the featured artists at the upcoming Brightdaze event.
“I've been releasing them every two to three months and I’ve done a couple of remixes and other projects with some producers from Germany and Canada in between. It’s been nice just constantly pushing out music,” Paulina says.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Paulina’s family moved to Australia when she was two. Living at Denmark Hill and Newtown and attending Ipswich Girls Grammar School, she says music was always around her.
“I’d grown up with my mum being a huge fan of music and all the classics; Tracey Chapman and The Beatles,” she says.
“My dad played piano and was also quite into music, so music was always around me and I was singing and playing guitar from when I was about five.”
It was a songwriting workshop at Studio 188 and Ipswich Unearthed in 2019 which set Paulina on her way.
“I was only 15 at the time and I just fell in love with it,” she says.
“I released my first song Insane during Covid and ever since I’ve just been making a ton of music, doing remixes and playing live.”
Last year her talent was recognised following her 2021 single Parasite, awarded the Youth Award at the Queensland Music Awards.
Her new single Maybe We’re Running was released this month and a video for the release will be launched this week.
The latest offering is a stark contrast to the upbeat production of Parasite, written about the overturned US abortion laws.
“What’s been really fun about it, is just constantly dabbling in each genre.
“I like being able to write music and go into the studio and not having the pressure of having to stay in one area, folky or country or x, y, z. You can see where the song goes.”
She said the process of creating Maybe We’re Running was inspired by the news around a pregnant woman’s liberty to have an abortion.
“In my childhood I listened to a lot of Tracy Chapman and I always had a big appreciation for what she was doing, giving female voices and black voices a place to be heard.
“When Roe v. Wade was all over social media, I was really affected by it. It evoked such strong emotions that one of the guys that I work with started strumming some guitar chords and we wrote the entire song in about an hour. I remember driving home listening to the demo and I started crying.
“That was the moment where I thought I really have to release this song. If I can make just even one other person feel as seen and heard through that song as I did in my car, that would be perfect, that would be the reason I made it. It feels really good to finally have the song out.”
Paulina will showcase her material in a stripped back set for Brightdaze with a guitarist and keyboard/bass player.
“As one of the openers I thought it would be nice to strip a couple of songs back.”
She will be performing her first shows in Germany and Britain later this year on one of her regular family trips back to Europe.
The trip takes advantage of how accessible music has become globally with streaming.
Paulina points out that getting noticed amidst the masses of new releases on streaming services is the challenge.
“Streaming changed the industry totally, especially since Covid. At the end of 2019 there was something like 5 million artists on Spotify and by the end of 2020, so just within one year, there were about 8 million, so it almost doubled with the amount of artists that were releasing.
“And now with TikTok a big part of making it in music, there are so many artists and so much music dropping every day, like tens of thousands every day, which is just insane.”
Paulina says being persistent is the key to cutting through as an artist.
“I think a big thing is just not letting smaller numbers stop you from releasing music. That’s been a huge thing, just having faith in myself and in my team around me and also being really picky with the people that I work with.
“My time with the people who I work with has been a huge, huge plus, because I have nothing but incredible people around me that create energy and a lot of faith in myself and my future.
“You have to go above and beyond, which is always worth it. Making it in the music industry is super, super hard and I think having that hard work ethic gets you places.
“It’s at the very beginning, nowhere near where I hopefully want to be, but I love it and I am super positive.”
Paulina plays at the inaugural all-ages music festival Brightdaze at the YMCA at Springfield Central Community Centre, on July 8, held from 11am to 6pm.