Less than 12 months ago, Australian music lovers did not know the name G-Flip.
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On February 13, 2018, Georgia Flipo uploaded her first track to triple j’s Unearthed. A section designed for unheard artists to launch their music.
Just 24 hours later, G-Flip’s world had blown up.
Her song, About You, got picked up almost instantly. From there, the day got “chaotic”, she said.
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“Throughout that day there is a video of me sitting there with my track on Unearthed. My brother is in my room and we’re dancing to it and then the next one is me calling everyone in the house to come into my room because a few articles popped up being like ‘everyone needs to check out this song that just got uploaded to Unearthed’,” she said.
“Next minute triple j is playing it live on air and I’m going crazy in my bedroom.”
The night was celebrated with lots of champagne with friends.
Having her song played on the radio station she had grown up listening to was the best day of her life, but it was the 12 months work she had put into it that made it better.
In 2017 G-Flip decided to get serious about going solo.
“I was playing in a band called Empra as a drummer and it’s a crazy story. We went to the US for a month in hope that something would happen and someone would see us play. We had three or four shows booked,” she said.
“We went to a festival called Culture Collide and there was a Sounds of Australia stage with Aussie bands, and we went there to see British India, Tuka from Thundamentals and I’m pretty sure TKay [Maidza] was playing as well.”
British India were unable to play their set and that’s when Empra got tapped on the shoulder.
“One of the guys knew we were from Australia and asked if our whole band was here and we actually filled in for British India’s set,” she said.
“That’s where the promoter for the American college tour saw us playing and asked us if we wanted to go on tour playing at colleges and high schools in America … that’s how I ended up on that American tour.”
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When the band got home from the tour, it split up. G-Flip said she was in a predicament to find another band, or run with the idea that had been in the back of her head; going solo.
She became a self-confessed hermit. She would stay in her room from 9am until 4.30pm every day for a year. From her bed, she learnt how to produce songs.
At 4.30pm, she’d leave her room to go and run a music school, which was how she funded her 2017.
“I’m a very outgoing party type of person. But all my family and friends know that 2017 was the year that I calmed down. I would spend solid hours in my bedroom until I would start teaching kids in the afternoon,” she said.
“I made a plan that I would try and get my best 10 demos together, but write as many songs as I could, then choose the best and send them to all the managers in Australia until someone listened to my shit and liked it.”
At the end of the year, she met with management firm Future Classic who would soon become her representors.
“I’ve been a big fan of triple j and Unearthed and I used to be a super user reviewing bands on Unearthed. Before I even heard back from the managers I knew I wanted to upload it to Unearthed before I put it on Spotify,” she said.
“My management were cool with that even though they were like ‘that’s not the normal way to release a song but if that’s what you want to do …’ and then it just took off from there.”
She wrote the hit song, About You, within a day, but spent the next year perfecting it.
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It is one song set to get the crowd at Thursday’s Party in the Paddock pre-party ready to dance the weekend away.
While G-Flip hasn’t been to Tassie before, and admittedly said she didn’t know much about the festival itself, her excitement about coming here is through the roof.
“I’ve been hassling them on Instagram – every time they post I’m like ‘yeiw paddock!!’,” she said.
“I know some of the people playing, but I’m on the Thursday which is a pre-party. I wish I got to see Yungblud. Dom is a great dude and it would have been cool to see Lily Allen. I’m stoked for everyone who gets to go there and see it.”
From her set, punters are warned to expect a lot of her infamous drum solos and big smiles.
“Because I haven’t played that many big stages yet it’s still all new to me and these are new experiences, so I’m loving it,” she said.
Playing at Splendor was another of the best days of her life, permanently marking the moment with a tattoo.
“Splendor was one of the biggest stages I’ve ever played on, so I’ve just been smiling my ass off,” she said.
“I actually got drunk back stage and I wrote on one of the Splendor Instagram posts ‘if this gets 300 likes I’ll get a splendor tattoo’ and it got 300 likes in three minutes,” she said.
“I should have set a higher bar, but I honestly didn’t mind because I was so stoked about Splendor being one of the best days of my life.”
G-Flip will play at Party in the Paddock on Thursday. She will be on stage at 7.50pm.
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