What was it like being in the top 20 on X Factor NZ? It was really fun. It was really interesting. I didn’t really learn much about music or anything that I thought I was gonna learn when I went into it because I genuinely thought it was just about the songs and your voice and your portrayal of you as a musician. But I didn’t really learn any of that, it was more to do with the crew, getting to know the crew, they were such awesome people, meeting the other contestants. Just building some really cool friendships with them, that was more of the fun side to be honest, rather than the actual doing the show. You got selected to go to Japan for a couple months, how did you get involved in that? So there’s an incredible youth singer/ songwriter competition in New Zealand called Play It Strange. And I’ve entered it for the past couple years ‘cause it’s incredible. Just so much fun and gives everyone a chance to just write a few songs and enter and see how you go, and get professional opinions on what they feel about it. I entered the Peace song which is run by the Lions Foundation which runs Play It Strange and I won the New Zealand division. They selected me to go to Japan for seven weeks to just be an exchange student at an international school. It was awesome. What was it like to play on Japanese TV? That was also so interesting. The way that their film crew work in Japan is so different to how they work in New Zealand so that was so cool to see the contrast. And it was really crazy because we got there and they were just so interested, ‘cause I was with another Kiwi girl that won the Auckland division and we got there and they were so interested in knowing about our songs, what the lyrics were about, why we were songwriters. And I don’t think they really get that in Japan, like not many students our age really branch out and do that sort of thing. So they were really interested so I think that’s why we got on the TV and newspapers and stuff.
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