loading . . . 'There Is Nowhere To Hide On This Record': Katie Noonan Shares Her Most Vulnerable Work To Date In 1996, former US President Bill Clinton won his re-election to office (while keeping his storied affair with Monica Lewinksy – at that stage – under wraps), the gaming gods gave us the Nintendo 64, and the Spice Girls completely transformed the world and what girl bands could achieve with Wannabe.
It was also the year Katie Noonan saw late American singer-songwriter and 1990s forerunner Jeff Buckley at an unassuming auditorium stuffed inside rugby leagues club Seagulls on the Queensland-New South Wales border.
Despite the venue’s rough-round-the-edges bearing, watching Buckley was a seminal moment for the young, classically trained singer, whose band George was about to unleash their – still to this day – inimitable jazz-soaked alt rock upon Australia from their South-East Queensland base.
“I was like ‘Holy shit. Whatever that is, I want to do that. I don't know what it is. I can't describe it. But it's magical and I want to be part of that world’,” Noonan laughs.
“And that era – far out. The albums that came out around then. Radiohead. Björk. Tori Amos. It was a very exciting time for interesting pop music.
“Australia and England in particular were punching way above their weight with really interesting bands,” she adds. “And I think we always have, actually.”
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Since their first EP in 1998, it was clear George was a band doing things differently. As a fervent young five-piece comprising classical, jazz and opera-trained friends and siblings, they certainly took on huge touring for small pay packets (“Our first gig in Sydney we got paid $27, so enough to buy us a pizza”), but reaped the reward of that fierce attention that seemed to come pouring in for hard-working Aussies bands at that time.
Signing with Festival Mushroom, a Breakthrough Artist Album win at the 2002 ARIAs, top billing on then-major festivals like Big Day Out, and even multiple songs in triple j’s Hottest 100 before they’d even put out their debut Polyserena – all these milestones graced young Noonan and her band; it was a good time to be a music maker.
“But really since then, it's never been tougher,” she offers. “The last six years since COVID have been extraordinarily difficult on many, many, many levels.
“Obviously, as a musician is the one that I can relate to, but as a festival producer, as a promoter, as a punter, just as someone who cares for my industry – it's been disastrous.”
Looking back on winning that very first Battle Of The Bands in 1996 at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus – and the subsequent rollercoaster 30 years in the music industry – Noonan is even more passionate about her craft, but no less busy.
She has now equalled that three-decade milestone of making music with an equal number of albums.
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Her latest, Alone But All One, explores love and loss in all its forms, and Noonan met the tricky subject matter with a sonic version of that vulnerability, stripping everything back to its core: just her voice, her grand piano and a string quartet.
“It was a very organic process. I was home alone a lot. Just me and my grand piano recording it live in my lounge room, slowly moving through the enormous waves of grief,” she explains.
“With dear friends of many, many years. It's very much a bunch of friends making music together. The words and the set-up gave me great comfort. ‘Less is more’ was definitely my approach.”
The 10 tracks Noonan landed upon for her 30th album did not arrive with the same ease or joy as perhaps the songs for past releases had, despite the creature comforts of creating at home and with a close-knit circle of creative friends.
In the space of a few years, the singer and her creative endeavours had, like many artists, felt the savage impacts of the pandemic on her industry – then she lost her father to illness and her marriage of 26 years.
“This record is my most exposed, vulnerable body of work; it's been the hardest two years of my life,” she shares. “I didn't expect to write these songs. They just literally fell out, because they had to.
“You know, Alone But All One – in those four words I hope to give a sense of empowerment and hope for the future. Because being alone is not a bad thing; it just is a thing.”
Lyrically, Alone But All One was punctuated by not just Noonan’s fresh insights into love and loss; celebrated author Trent Dalton, who penned much-loved alt-hero novel Boy Swallows Universe, offered pages of personal, unpublished writing to Noonan.
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The two have been fierce friends since Dalton first interviewed the singer in 2001, before George’s first album release while a cadet at a Queensland newspaper.
“He loved music, so he knew who we were. I just recognised a kindred spirit. A lovely, beautiful person,” Noonan says. “Little did I know the traumatic childhood he'd come out of, as we all know now from Boy Swallows Universe.
“But the writing he gave me, I was just drawn to these five beautiful works that were all about the birth of love. And that really helped heal my heavy, sad heart. These words reminded me of the joy and wonderment of new love.”
It’s a heartening place to have arrived at, given the jolted journey it took Noonan to get there. But, she’s thankful for it all – the albums that came before this 30th milestone, the stories, the friendships, the lessons learned, the accolades, and what lies ahead, including her eight-date national tour.
“I'm incredibly excited, but also slightly... Well, not scared, exactly. But there is nowhere to hide on this record,” Noonan laughs. “I think that's when the most beautiful connections happen, though – people can feel that honesty and vulnerability. I find that when I do that, people feel their stories in my music.
“Which is obviously the entire reason we're musicians – for other people to hear themselves in our songs.
“And on top of all that, I get to go to New York to write with Gary Lucas, who co-wrote Grace and Mojo Pin with Jeff Buckley – another full-circle moment,” she adds.
“It's literally my 30th year of being a musician – my first gig was June 1996, the same year I saw Jeff play, and now it's my 30th studio album. It feels very sort of... yeah, serendipitous, I guess, is the word.”
Katie Noonan’s Alone But All One is out now.
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Katie Noonan – Alone But All One 2026 Tour Dates
July 10th – Old Museum - Concert Hall, Brisbane, QLD
July 11th & 12th – Art Gallery Of NSW, Sydney, NSW
July 16th – The Rechabite, Perth, WA
July 17th – Camelot Arts Club, Mosman Park, WA
July 18th – Miss Chow’s, Margaret River, WA
July 30th – The Gov, Adelaide, SA
August 1st – Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC
September 26th – Majestic Theatre, Pomona, QLD
October 9th – Karralyka Arts Centre, Ringwood, VIC
October 10th – Berninneit, Cowes, VIC
October 14th – Coledale RSL, Coledale, NSW
October 15th – Bondi Pavillion Theatre, Bondi, NSW
October 16th – Concert Hall, The Joan, Penrith, NSW
October 17th – The Estate, Camden, NSW
October 22nd – Brunswick Picture House, Brunswick Heads, NSW
October 23rd – Armitage Centre, Toowoomba, QLD
October 24th – The J Noosa, Noosa, QLD
October 28th – Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour, NSW
October 29th – Old Cheese Factory, Frederickton, NSW
October 31st – Armidale Playhouse, Armidale, NSW
November 6th – Geelong Arts Centre, Geelong, VIC
November 7th – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC
November 13th – Ian Potter Recital Hall, Theatre Royal, Hobart, TAS
November 14th – The Royal Oak, Launceston, TAS
November 15th – Wilder Tasmania, Gowrie Park, TAS
November 20th – Avoca Beach Theatre, Avoca Beach, NSW
November 21st – Flow Bar, Old Bar, NSW
November 27th – Milton Theatre, Milton, NSW
November 28th – Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra, ACT
November 29th – Riverina Playhouse, Wagga Wagga, NSW http://dlvr.it/TTD69R
