Country girl hits the mega stage interstate after winning scholarship

Seventeen-year-old singer/song-writer Gemma Tiller, Halbury, has a passion for agriculture, after growing up as the fifth generation on a Merino and cropping enterprise.

"I've been (singing) since I was pretty young," she said.

"I've always had a connection with music and when I was younger I used to go to all the rodeos and beg Mum and Dad to stay for the after bands - of course they'd always say no.

"My Mum's side of the family's pretty musical as well and involved in the country music scene interstate.

"It was a good kickstart into the industry and I am very fortunate to have those connections."

Gemma said she has hundreds of voice memos on her phone, which she records after she finds inspiration for a song.

"I just get ideas everywhere, especially at work. Sometimes in the shearing sheds the shearers will say something really out of pocket and I'm like, 'right, I need to record that - that's a song'," she said.

"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and record a voice memo because I had a dream about something and then I wake up in the morning and can't even understand what it was.

"But I just get inspiration from everywhere - I used to carry around a hookbook with me, where I would just write what people say, which I find a song in.

"But it's since became my phone voice memos where my phone is just full of ideas I get from everywhere."

She said she wrote a lot of her songs about her experiences living on the land.

"The most recent one I wrote with Golden Guitar winner Ashleigh Dallas and I started writing it when I was at a station in Broken Hill, NSW, and I was feeling a little bit lonely in the shearers quarters at the end of the day, just isolated from everything," she said.

"I wrote a song about the ups and downs of living on the land, but how blessed we are to be able to live here and work here, so I write a lot about my experiences being on the land."

She said agriculture was definitely a big part of her life and she couldn't see herself without music or without agriculture.

At 13, Gemma was registered into a talent quest where she felt she had a disadvantage in singing to a backing track, so she picked up an instrument she didn't know how to play.

"I was at a talent quest in Tamworth and I was the only kid that was using a backing track for their spot," she said.

"I said 'oh, this is not fair, I want to learn how to play guitar' so in the lunch break, I went sat in the car and got Mums guitar and taught myself how to play one song on YouTube.

"And then I went up there and played it for the talent quest and that's how I learnt and then from there, I just taught myself off YouTube."

Gemma has also been writing songs and playing the piano in the past couple of years.

"In January I graduated from the CMAA senior Academy of Country Music, which is pretty cool," she said.

"I attended on the Keith Urban scholarship this year as well, which is really cool and a bit of a pinch me moment, getting the phone call to say I won that.

"Every year he chooses a kid to sponsor and this year it was me."

She said her uncles, Sean and Simon Wegener, were heavily involved with the country music scene in Queensland so it helped get a foot in the door.

"They have played with Travis Collins and Liam de Bruin, so they've played with some pretty cool people," she said.

"They're session muso's so they just play around for all of the artists interstate.

"They've worked their ways up in the industry so that when the bigger artists come to Australia, they book them for their bands."

Gemma said her uncles within the scene inspired her to take up singing.

"They've been a big influence," she said.

"I always tell people the vocal side came from Dad (Jeremy) singing in the shower."

Gemma said her music was also influenced by many country singers.

"I've always listened to the older country music and in the shearing sheds and the radios on the farm, that's all we're listening to - the older country," she said.

"And then I worked my way up to Alan Jackson and the 90s country and I've always loved the 90s country and now I'm starting to poke my fingers into the newer country like Chris Stapleton's stuff has been a pretty big influence on me the last couple of years."

Gemma began as a cover artist and has since made and released her own music.

Last year she produced an EP of four songs, which will be released throughout this year as singles.

"I just want people to hear my songs and be able to relate to my songs and make people feel something - whether that be sad or happy," she said.

"I just want to make people feel something and connect with them."