FeaturesRotterdam 2021πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Australia

πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Montaigne: “Music was actually a career path for me” [INTERVIEW]

Ahead of her participation tonight, I had the opportunity to speak to Montaigne, who will be representing Australia in this year’s contest with the song “Technicolour”. On this occasion, we did something different. We instead had a conversation, getting to know Montaigne personally, about her heritage, her musical journey, and gaming.

You can watch our full interview with Montaigne right here:

Talking about Montaigne’s heritage

The first question I asked her is about her heritage. As mentioned in her social media, Montaigne mentioned that her ethnic background is a mixture of Argentinian, Spanish, Filipino, and French. Where I asked her if she’s delved deeper into her roots and what she has done so far to do so.

She mentioned that she’s mostly done this by having conversations with relatives from her mother and father’s side. Especially her grandparents, where she mentioned that there is a lot of ‘war-time trauma’ in her family.

We delved deeper into her Filipino roots. This was the part of the interview, where I mentioned that I am Filipino, and that I read an article (that was published by SBS Filipino), about her mother and that she left the Philippines at a young age. I was mainly curious about her favorite Filipino dish, called ‘Sinigang’. With Montaigne being vegan, I asked her, how do you do a Vegan version of the dish? Montaigne mentioned that she tried to make it once, but the recipes she tried do not match the taste, of creating the same taste. I asked her if she would be interested in making more Vegan versions of Filipino food to which she replied “It’s Really Hard”

In addition to talking about Filipino Food, I went on to mention that Filipino Eurovision fans are excited that she is taking part in the competition, and asked her that when it’s safe to do so, would she be interested in visiting the Philippines and potentially performing for her Filipino fans. Her answer is yes.

Football or Music?

We also went on to talk about Football and Music, and asked her, at which point did she have to choose between her love for Football or Music, going forward, and if it was a difficult decision to make. She mentioned that when realizations hit, she thought about how it wasn’t possible as she doesn’t know anyone in the music industry, know anything about it, and everything that came with it.

When she was 16, she thought she wanted to become a botanist or a zoologist to study science, and that one way she can achieve this was to apply for an Ivy League scholarship in the United States. It was then her mother, who suggested that they use her vocals on her football highlights reel, to show her versatility.

She went on to mention that she has written a song originally, where her parents paid her neighbour’s brother is a ‘bedroom-producer’, for him to produce the track for the reel. When they got the track back, and they were ‘stoked out of their minds’.

Her parents stook it out for Montaigne, financially, where she recorded three more songs, where one of them was included in Triple J, where she became an Unearthed High School finalist in 2012. This is then when she felt that maybe music was a plausible career path for her, and she just followed that.

Musical Inspirations

We also asked her who inspires her musically, where we mentioned that we thought that her sound is a blend of Rina Sawayama, Charli XCX, and Marina Diamandis. Montaigne said that what we have mentioned is fairly accurate and that Rina is a direct reference, whilst she has been compared to Marina pretty much her whole career (which isn’t out of place, cos she loves her), mentioning she referenced her quite a bit in her first EP.

Montaigne mentioned that she grew up listening to Kate Bush, so looking into who she heard, and subconsciously internalised, it would be Kate.

Gaming

To round things off, I also went on about gaming. As we know Montaigne is on Twitch, where she occasionally does live streams. I went on to ask her what’s her favorite game. She couldn’t just name just one, so whenever she gets asked this question she has five. Which are Horizon Zero Dawn, Hades, Kingdom Hearts 2, Final Fantasy X, and Persona 5, with Japanese roleplaying games as her favourite.

We finished off the interview asking if she had a message for the fans. Montaigne said:

Thank You so much for supporting me, and vote for Montaigne, please, give your girl a chance, Gracias!

We would like to thank SBS for giving us an opportunity to talk to this year’s Eurovision representative, and the woman herself; Montaigne, for her time, where were able to get to know her a bit more.

Are you excited to see Montaigne’s performance at this year’s contest? Are you rooting for Australia this year? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter@escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to follow us on Spotify and YouTube to see our live streams in the run-up to Rotterdam!

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