Australian singer-songwriter Chelsea Warner, 22, talks moving into music production

Three weeks earlier, she was at an invitational in Bali, Indonesia, making music with MNEK, Smoko Ono and Khris Riddick-Tynes in a five-star villa in Ubud. After our chat, she is flying to California.
Warner at a songwriter camp hosted by One Off Traks, which spotlights female, trans, and non-binary music talents in Australia. Photo: Odessa Jones

Before finding herself as a musician with the schedule of a diplomat, Warner was a solo artist with a burgeoning reputation in Australia. Her debut single, “How Come You Don’t Pick Up Your Phone”, released when she was only 18, epitomises her R&B sound and no-nonsense lyrical style.

“I think the option to be an artist will always be there,” she says. “It is in my bones and always something that I’ll come back to. But I wondered what would happen if I just focused on producing at this particular point in time in my life, career and creative journey.”

Warner considers Victoria Monét, the songwriter behind some of Ariana Grande’s biggest hits, to be her role model. In February, Monét won three Grammys for her own releases.

“I found myself incredibly inspired by people in the industry who take more of the behind-the-scenes roles,” she says.

“I am so passionate about and excited by the idea of digging through credits in songs, looking at who worked on what and recognising their contribution to a certain sound.”

She says she could always identify beats produced by Pharrell Williams, whose signature sound can be heard across his work with the biggest names in pop and hip hop, such as Madonna, Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg.

Warner and I first met in Hong Kong a year ago. She was in the city for the Cross Point Songwriting Camp, hosted by Universal Music’s publishing arm.
Partnered with Tia Ray and Kohki from Japan, she wrote “My Little Star”, which has since become a fan favourite.
Born and raised in Sydney, Warner is building a global career in production. Photo: Blake Young

“There’s something really emotional in that song,” says Warner. “It was originally called ‘North Star’. It’s about my inner child and always connecting to and listening to her.”

As a child, Warner trained at Sydney’s Sister2Sister School of Singing, where she was introduced to the music software Ableton, and she began exploring the production side of things.

“I would finish school for the day, then take singing lessons, guitar lessons, piano lessons and learn about performance, production, songwriting and group singing,” says Warner, who went on to study jazz and music theory at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious music schools.

There, she met her “pockets of people and communities”.

“Australia’s music scene is diverse in the sense that, geographically, we are a combination of many sounds and genres from all over the place,” she says. “There isn’t one particular ‘Australian sound’ – we’re very influenced by the US and UK specifically, which gets filtered through the Australian lifestyle.”

Baduizm, the 1997 debut album by neo-soul queen Erykah Badu, has served as a guidebook for Warner as a singer-producer – just listen to her vocals on her 2021 track “Opinions”.

Warner cites Erykah Badu, Victoria Monet and Pharrell Williams as some of her biggest inspirations. Photo: Blake Young

“A big part of me learning how to produce was about hearing sounds, musical ideas and concepts that I loved in other people’s songs, and then trying to replicate it,” she says.

“Through the process of replication, you end up accidentally creating your own variation, because you’re filtering them through your own lens.”

Her recent stints in Asia were also major sources of inspiration, and with Australia being in the Asia-Pacific region, Warner feels that she’s been offered a lot of regional opportunities.

“After the Hong Kong trip, I was so curious about C-pop,” she says. “What I love about the genre the most is how unapologetically complicated it is. I’m like, ‘Yes, bring back complicated music, bring back music theory’ – that, to me, is the essence [of songwriting].”

Warner has no concrete, long-term plan; she wants to be “guided by intuition”, which tells her: “As long as I’m working hard and taking care of myself, everything will flow.

“My personal growth has allowed me to become deeply comfortable with myself and aware of who I am, which makes me a more confident record producer, and more comfortable in any room with any person.”

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