The singer-songwriter Celia Pavey, who goes by the name Vera Blue, floated through the middle of the South by Southwest Swan Dive audience. She walked up the steps on to the stage to play her first show in the United States. Her long red hair, enchanting voice and ethereal, black dress stole the audience’s attention.

By Miranda Chiechi

Vera Blue is an Australian artist who grew up in the country town of Forbes, Australia receiving her claim to fame after placing third in the second season of “The Voice Australia” at age 19. She now has EP, “Fingertips,” out with five songs and more to come later this year. Vera Blue blends folk and electronica to create songs rich with bold blends of sounds and sincere lyrics.

ORANGE Magazine got a chance to talk with this up-and-coming artist when she arrived in Austin for her first ever SXSW about her love for Joni Mitchell, the meaning behind her lyrics and growing up singing her mother’s favorite band, Simon & Garfunkel, alongside her sister.

After her shows in Austin this past week she has now officially started her U.S. tour.

How do you feel about performing in the U.S. and starting your U.S. tour dates in Austin?

It’s a little bit daunting. I’m so used to performing in my own country, Australia. It’s daunting, but at the same time it’s really exciting. It’s fresh crowds, it’s meeting new people. It’s really cool and exciting.

Have you been to the U.S. before?

Last year in July I came. It was mainly just to meet with the record label I just signed with, Capitol. It’s good to be back.

I read you were third in “The Voice Australia” —can you tell me a bit about your experience on the show?

I had a really positive experience, and back then I was still developing who I was as an artist, so it was a very special time to grow through that TV show. I met some amazing artists and had some really good experiences. I think a lot of people sometimes have a bad experience on television shows because they can be quite confronting and interesting. I did see the confronting side of it, but I kind of just breezed through it and had a really good time and took very positive moments from it.

What were you doing before “The Voice?”

Before “The Voice” I was kind of just learning performance and I had just moved to Sydney to do music and I didn’t really know what to do. So I was at a music college for about six months in Sydney called The Australian Institute of Music and I was just learning performance. I thought I’d just take the next step and do something else and “The Voice” was it.

I grew up in the country, so I needed to move to the city to do music. I feel like the country wasn’t quite the place I needed to be.

Have you been playing music your whole life?

Yes, I grew up with music in my family. I grew up doing a lot of singing in church and I played violin from a young age and I think that’s what kind of pricked my ears—pitch and singing and all that kind of stuff. My older sister would sing and I would sing with her and sing harmony. Eventually at 16 I realized that I wanted to write music and I started writing my own songs.

Why did you choose “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” by Simon & Garfunkel to sing for your audition on “The Voice?”

When I was young my mom used to love, well she still loves Simon & Garfunkel, and she used to play it on the piano and me and my sister would harmonize and sing it together when we were little. I always loved to play music and I was listening to a lot of them at the time, as well as a lot of Joni Mitchell and artists from the 60s and 70s that wrote amazing folk music. So it was the song that I picked and I loved it to play the guitar part finally.

Is your sister making music, as well?

She does music as a hobby. Sometimes I’ll do a show and she’d be in and she’ll come up and she’ll sing a song with me. We still share those musical moments together.

You go by the name Vera Blue for your music—can you tell me how that name came about and why you chose to go as Vera Blue?

Well, I guess the first step of making the new Vera Blue was when I met my producer, Andy Mak in a writing session and we wrote the song together (debut single, “Hold”) with a writer named Gossling, and once we got that song we thought we’d better keep working together. So, we created an EP and this is before I thought of the name. Because the sound was very folky and it had that really awesome electronica, we thought of a project name so that’s kind of how Vera Blue came about.

I’ve listened to your album “Fingertips” and I love it. Are you in the process of making more music?  What can we expect to hear?

Yes, absolutely. I’m working on an album at the moment which I’m really excited about. For a couple of the shows and for the South By show, I’m performing a couple of the new songs from the album, which is going to be coming out at some point this year which is really exciting, so it’s really fun being able to develop new music.

Who would be your dream person to collaborate on music with?

There’s so many people, but it would be really amazing to write with artist, BANKS, or my all time favorite artist in life is Joni Mitchell. She’s the most amazing artist. It would be amazing to meet her, but sometimes it’s good to not meet your heroes, right?

Or, I think, Jon Bellion—I love Jon Bellion, he’s amazing.

What inspired your first album? More specifically the song “Hold?”

It’s about what I was going through at the time, relationship-wise, breakups and coming out of emotional things. “Hold” is about how you think sometimes you find someone and you feel like they’re the one. Or, there’s someone who kind of can be a little bit reckless or you’re in a place where they kind of bring you back to yourself and ground you, look after you and hold you. It’s really a nice little love song, that one.

What’s the main message you want to send through your music?

So many messages, like my latest record that I’m working on at the moment has a few messages about being a strong woman and individual and being able to get through times that are hard. I like to put out the message that you can get through tough phases in your life. And I think a lot of people can relate to my music with relationships or in general where you’re trying to come out of a place in your life. It’s kind of speaking my mind with my lyrics and my emotions.