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Interview with
PAULINI

(19th February 2022)

Interview by Paul Dwyer

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A week out from performing on Eurovision – Australia Decides 2022, Australian Pop Princess Paulini has a strong message for the world and she’s delivering it via her new song “We Are One.” The songstress made time during rehearsals to sit down and chat with Paul Dwyer about Eurovision, the song and what her next album might look like.

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Paul: Only one more week to go until Eurovision – Australia decides! How are you, Paulini? Are you excited? Are you nervous
Paulini: Im excited, nervous, thrilled, all of the above! Freaking out a little, but it’s going to be fine, I’ve got a week to get myself ready and feel like I’m completely ready for the performance & I think a week’s enough.

Well don’t feel nervous because I did a bit of research and wanted to let you know that compared to last week’s Superbowl’s measly 112 million world-wide viewers, Eurovision gets around 183 million worldwide viewers! So just don’t think about that!
Hahaha Oh My God! Thanks for that!

So are you rehearsing?
I am! I’m getting myself show-fit! I like to use that word because its exactly what Im doing for the performance on the 25th Feb. Because of Covid, and Im sure a lot of the other artists would agree, that we haven’t really had a lot of opportunity to perform live. Everything’s been shut down or postponed or cancelled, so for the last week I’ve just been trying to get myself into the gym, running, doing a lot of cardio because that really helps me in my performances and just getting the whole imagery of what I want to represent on stage. It’s been amazing, Ive been working with all the guys from Eurovision, Marko Panzic and we’re just trying to make the performance stand out and I really want to get my message across to everyone that’s going to be watching. I think it’s going to be amazing; it’s going to be epic, that’s all I can say!

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That sounds like there’s going to be a lot of choreography and dancing going on. Is that right?
Yeah, you know I’m not a dancer, by any means, but I like to push myself and that’s definitely what Im going to be doing! I’ll be doing a lot of movement, a lot of choreo here and there, but the whole performance is just going to be a representative of different types of people coming together and unifying and just reminding people that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what we look like or where we’ve come from, we are all one people.

Yeah lets talk about the song “We Are One” what a banger! Ive been playing it all week!
Haha Ive been playing it too!

And you don’t get sick of it like other songs. Well, I haven’t anyway!
I hope so! I actually have been playing it too! Its funny because sometimes when I listen back to some of my songs, I get a bit like “I’m over it now,” or I want to listen to other things, but this song has really sort of stayed with me and I guess that’s a good sign and the feedback I’ve been getting so far has been great. It’s a great song, it really is. The lyrics are amazing, the melodic lines are beautiful, it stands for everything I believe in and we’ve created something amazing. Its very different to what the original was, so what you hear right now is completely different to what the original was and I’m proud of it.
Paul Mac and his brother produced the new track and I’m just really proud of it.

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The original was written by Rick Price and John Capek, right?
Yeah.

So when you make changes to their song, do you have to go back to them and sort of get their opinion or approval?
Yeah 100%. So out of the 6 tracks they sent me, I knew straight away that this was the song for me, I was like “Ok, that’s the one” but there were some lyrics in there, the old version, that I thought didn’t quite fit in to my character and the message that I wanted to put out there, so I got on a zoom call with Rick Price and met for the first time, I said “Hi, Im a big fan, I think you’re an amazing song-writer, but can we just change a few lyrics!” Hahaha and he was like “Sure, absolutely,” so we had a conversation about what I thought we could change and he was so open to it. He had to go back to John Capek, and they came back to me and said they were totally fine with it and we can change it and can do whatever we want with the track, so that’s what we did and it was just such a pleasant process, there was nothing about it that was difficult and that’s why I knew straight away that this was the song.

The song has such a great message of unity and love and what better way to share the message than the worldwide stage of Eurovision, right?
Absolutely. That’s why it stood out to me, I thought this is something we all need to hear right now, and even though people are like “yeah we know we have to show kindness to people,” it always makes a difference when you can put it in peoples faces to really remind them. I just want to remind people that there’s no room for selfishness or racial discrimination or any of that type of stuff. At the end of the day, we’re all the same and that’s why I love this song!

If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s exactly that!
100%

You teased us with a little tiktok video of the song, are we going to see a full video for it?
I might do a lyric video, but I’m not sure about a full video. You never know, if the people want that then we’ve got to give the people what they want! hahaha

I want that Paulini! There’s one vote!
Hahaha Ok!

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And speaking of voting, do you want to let the people out there know how to vote for you in Australia decides?
Everyone needs to tune in to SBS on the 25th of February and the link will be on the TV and that’s how you vote. I think you have 24 hours to vote for your favourite act.

Yeah there’ll be phone numbers to text or call that’ll come on to the TV from Friday night until Saturday night.
It’s just like Australia Idol and all that type of stuff.

And Im a celebrity Get Me Out of Here?
Hahaha YES! EXACTLY! Hahaha Everything I’ve done is exactly like that where you have to call or text or vote for your favourite!

Well I’ll be calling and texting and voting for YOU my dear 100%
Thank you

Hey it’s been 7 years since your last studio album “Come Alive”, can you believe that?
I actually can’t, I was talking to someone before about idol and that was 20 years ago and Come Alive 7 years – Wow! I feel like a bit of an oldie in the biz!

Haha compared to some of these other guys performing at Australia Decides, you would be!
I’m probably the oldest one in the group!

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We can just say more experienced!
yeah more experienced, but still the oldest one! Hahaha!

So 7 years… have you got some more music for us? Have you been writing and recording over those 7 years?
Yeah look I’m always in the studio writing and recording, I’d like to come out with an album soon, but I just don’t know if it’d be an album of originals, I feel like it could maybe be a covers album of old school divas. I’m still trying to decide that, but I’m always in the studio, I love writing, I love getting creative, I think that’s something I wish I had more time to do, because when you perform live a lot, that takes up a lot of your time, so you don’t always get time to sit down and go through your thoughts and think about the things you’d actually like to get down on paper. Covid kind of gave me that opportunity to have a bit of a break and get in the studio, so I did that, I was in the studio most of the time, writing with other artists and producers so yeah I’m always writing and trying to create, but I’m not sure if the next album will be an album or originals or covers.

OK and I know every time we chat I ask you the same thing about new music, so I’m sorry, there’s no pressure, next time I’ll try and not ask about new music!
No, no I know, its fine, and thank you for asking. Its great. I’ll just see how this single goes and I’ll decide from there.

Any other plans for 2022?
Well… I might be involved in another musical…

Before “We Will Rock You?”
Yeah because “We Will Rock You” is postponed until I don’t know when, so I think this other show will be coming out before then and you know I’m always excited about just playing gigs! I love performing live. That’s my favorite and most comfortable place to be; on stage and singing live, so all that stuff I’ll be doing a few performances here and there. I cant wait to just get out there again!

Any Melbourne gigs coming up? Im just being selfish now!
Hahaha not at the moment, but hopefully soon and when I do, I’ll make sure its up on my site and all my socials so you know about it.

Hahaha thanks mate. We’ll all be watching “Eurovision – Australia Decides” next weekend and wishing you all the very best sincerely.
Thanks Paul.

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Check out PAULINI below
Website – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter

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Press Release 24th January 2022 (below) HERE

EVIE IRIE
joins
ISAIAH FIREBRACE
on the
‘Eurovision – Australia Decides’
stage

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AMNPLIFY – DB