Fazerdaze: 'I'm very much reclaiming my fierceness'

In the eight years since her hit debut album Morningside, Christchurch musician Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze) has learned a lot about looking after herself.

On the new album Soft Power, Murray's pretty guitar-pop sound is fuelled by the "oomph" of unapologetic self-expression.

"I felt so conditioned through my 20s just trying to appease everyone and make everybody happy around me. Soft Power is about kind of shedding that stuff and finding something within me that's kind of unrelated to the external world and crafting my own version of womanhood and adulthood."

After the smash success of Morningside, Murray toured the world for years, recorded in Los Angeles several times and eventually burnt out, disappearing from the music industry for several years.

"I just wasn't mentally or psychologically equipped to deal with ... you're technically running a business as an artist, and then just the attention ... I felt really uncomfortable with the success and like very unworthy and I was just super overwhelmed."

Murray says she learned the hard way that people excited about your music may not know how to support the human being behind it.

Nobody was looking out for a young person super overwhelmed by trying to navigate the music industry and stay healthy, she tells Music 101.

"Before I was really struggling but not telling anyone. Now I'm just a lot more honest with myself. I have good friends, and I definitely accept support and I let the support in.

"Now I lean on people, I ask for support, I ask for help, and I don't feel like I have to have it all together for the people closest to me. "

'Soft power' - a phrase Murray first heard in Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming - encapsulates a balance between gentleness and "fierce boundaries", she says.

"I'm glad that that fierceness is coming through a bit more in the music now because I just think that was a part of myself that I had sort of tucked away. I could feel that fierceness that I had in me threatening people around me and now I'm very much reclaiming that."

Because she still has an "appeasing energy", learning to back herself creatively in the presence of others is still a work in progress for Murray.

"In my room by myself, there's nobody else to please. It's just like nobody's watching. I can kind of just make myself happy and not worry about anybody else's feelings."

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.