Ricki-Lee is an Australian pop artist that has made a name for herself ever since first being discovered as a contestant on the 2004 edition of Australian Idol. Since then Ricki-Lee went on to release four studio albums, and 20 singles and became a mainstay within the Australian entertainment industry on television and radio.
“I’m great thank you for asking!” Ricki-Lee expresses how she is feeling at the moment to Eat This Music, in fact, we would argue that Ricki-Lee is actually doing more than great, “I’m riding high on life – my song just went #1 on the iTunes chart,” which has never happened to one of Ricki-Lee’s songs before. She adds, “I got close with #2 twice and a #3, so this has been an amazing week for me!”
Before chatting to Eat This Music about her latest single, ‘Last Night‘, it was worthwhile to hear what she had been up to since her previous release in 2018, “I have been a busy little bee”, Ricki-Lee explains. Essentially, Ricki-Lee had been writing songs, touring and hosting Australia’s Got Talent.
“I really can’t believe it’s been 2 years since I released music…it’s gone by so quickly!” Between Ricki-Lee’s tour last year and filming Australia’s Got Talent, she really had no time to finish and release music, Ricki-Lee adds, “so when the pandemic hit and everyone had to stay at home, it was kind of a blessing in disguise for me because it meant I all of a sudden had all this downtime to focus on finishing some music and that’s really the reason ‘Last Night’ is out now.”
“Thank you so much! I honestly couldn’t be happier! To see people’s reactions to my song and to see it climbing up the charts and hitting that top spot on iTunes is the greatest feeling in the world,” Ricki-Lee expresses to Eat This Music.
“You write so many songs, and then spend so much time debating which song to put out – and then when you finally do you just have everything crossed that we all made the right decision and hope that people love it.” — Ricki-Lee on the release of her new single.
“And with this one – we hit the nail on the head! I’m so happy!” Ricki-Lee adds.
Speaking on the inner workings of the single, Ricki-Lee tells Eat This Music that Last night is a song about being crazy in love! “It’s about being with someone who makes you so happy you could quite happily spend the rest of your life with just that person. And if it was your last night on earth you would want to spend it with them,” Ricki-Lee explains.
Ricki-Lee wrote this song with one of her favourite producers Throttle and two other Australian writers. Revealing to Eat This Music, Ricki-Lee explains that the single “was the first time I had written with the three of them and we had so much fun!” The day before Ricki-Lee wrote ‘Last Night’ she had written quite a heavy ballad and she walked into the studio that day wanting to write something uplifting and feel good, Ricki-Lee explains, “I knew I wanted some kind of driving piano and a big singalong chorus…and it all just came together so quickly.”
Ricki-Lee and her team wrote three-quarters of the single in a day and all they had left was to write the second verse. “When I decided I wanted to put this song out – we finished writing the second verse,” Ricki-Lee says, “then I went and recorded it a couple of months ago.” Throttle did his part by working on the music/production and he would send Ricki-Lee production ideas over email, they had version after version after version – and Ricki-Lee would listen over and over and over again to every little thing! Ricki-Lee continues, “We tried a bunch of different things to get it to where it is now – and then we sent it to LA to be mixed and mastered and as soon as I got it back I sent it straight to the team and said LET’S GO!”
“I think he is such an amazing producer and he is so forward thinking and also very collaborative,” Ricke-Lee expresses on working with Throttle. Rickie-Lee admits that Throttle has very strong ideas and so does she, “but we are also both very open-minded and can concede when something doesn’t work and let it go – and when something is better we are both very quick to say ‘yep, that’s better and run with it.” In fact, Ricki-Lee thinks she and Throttle made a great little team.
“Oh my god – this song IS my life! If you listen to the lyrics, the first verse is about the night I met my husband…” — Rickie-Lee on the relevance of her own life to ‘Last Night’.
“We met through a mutual friend at The Espy in Melbourne, he walked in the door and I saw his face and melted – he took my hand and took me to the bar and we had a couple of shots and a couple of hours later it was ON,” Ricki-Lee shares with Eat This Music. The second verse is about the morning after and Ricki-Lee had a flight to catch, but her – yet to be at the time – husband “made it reeeeeeeeally hard to get out of bed! [laughs]” And the choruses are basically about him being Ricki-Lee’s favourite person.
When COVID happened and everyone went into lockdown, Ricki-Lee’s whole year was just cleared instantly, explaining to Eat This Music that she “just decided I was going to be productive.” Ever since Ricki-Lee wrote this song she has been obsessed with it, her friends are obsessed with it and had been bullying her to put it out, but since she wrote it she was constantly working, travelling with her tour, other gigs, filming Australia’s Got Talent and press commitments and shoots and Throttle was busy with his own work as well, “so neither of us had the time or the headspace to finish it. But all of a sudden, we were both at home with nothing to do – so we finished it,” Ricki-Lee says.
Currently Ricki-Lee is all about ‘Last Night’ – but as soon she can, she will “be in the studio working on finishing more music!” And we can not wait to hear more from one of Australia’s best-known pop voices.
