One of the benefits of being able to interview an artist more than once is that I can not only hear from them about the new things they’re up to but start to see connections between things they might have been doing a while ago and where that activity and those ideas have led them.

Gold Coast rising star Chloe Styler has had a big year, taking home Breakout Artist of the Year at the Gold Coast Music Awards, charting in the CountryTown Hot 50 airplay charts and appearing in CMT’s Top 10, along with Spotify playlists ‘Fresh Country’ and ‘All New Country’. She’s also toured with Nik Kershaw and Go West, Shannon Noll and Karise Eden. This is on top of spending time in Nashville to write and record.

While it might look like a lot has happened ostensibly out of the blue, Styler has been working consistently and diligently over the past few years to create music that has an identifiable and unique style. It is country pop with whimsy and self-awareness, tender and heartfelt.

Style has also crafted a visual presence through her videos and stage attire that make her immediately recognisable.

‘I've really tried to focus on developing a strong visual identity for my music,’ Styler explains in the interview, then adds that working with her sister Amy on her videos in particular ‘has been invaluable in that process, as she has such a great eye for capturing the essence of my sound and style.’

There can be a notion that creativity just happens, that being creative means going with the flow so therefore planning and judicious assessment of your activities aren’t creative. But creativity can’t flow like a river without riverbanks to guide it and contain it, and it’s impossible to build a career without scaffolding. Styler – whether by instinct or design – knows this, and happily has the academic qualifications to support it. By putting those structures in place she can, indeed, make the most of her creative practice, and that’s what we see and hear in the music she releases.

Her latest single is ‘Little Lady’, and the lyric is delivered literally and ironically in the song. It’s about the fear of failure, which, Styler says, ‘eats her up’.

The video was made by Styler in northern New South Wales with Amy, with whom she has collaborated before.

‘Having my sister behind the camera just makes me feel so at ease,’ Styler explains. ‘We can communicate on a level that no one else can, and it allows me to really let my guard down and focus on the performance.’

So we see here too that Styler has the structure in place to let her creativity flourish, and as she continues to create music and build her profile, it will be fascinating to watch.

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