What Do You Do When Life Falls Apart? With Gretta Ray
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What is the “diabolical quarter” and why does it matter?
Alisna production.
So if you've listened to the podcast for a while now, you might be familiar with the concept of the diabolical quarter. The diabolical quarter was a phrase that Hannah and I coined when we endured three months of just about everything in our lives falling apart and just continually joking that we couldn't catch a break, but we were putting a very positive spin on it. And I think maybe this was like two years ago now or something. Turns out though, that's pretty universal. It was one of the biggest responses we ever got from you guys as well, if you're going through your own versions of diabolical quarters. And I think the thing with it is you'll probably face more than one diabolical quarter in your life.
In fact, I am about to record a Satin Return episode. So that's in the pipeline. But given how relevant this feeling is, I wanted to have an open conversation this week with someone who has also had to ask the question: how exactly are you? To react when shit just hits the fan. Because imagine this. You work your way up in your career after having a hit song at just 18 years old. That's like before we even sat the HSC. And then after seven and a half years of hard work, you board a flight to London to take your next step in your career. And it's a dream come true. And then within 48 hours of landing, you end up in the hospital and told that you might die. You go through a breakup and you have to move home and start a really long recovery process.
How do you rebuild from that? That's what happened to Greta Ray. Now I've been listening to Greta for over a decade now, and you probably have also listened to her breakout song Drive on Triple J, or maybe you saw her tour with Maisie Peters or Mumford and Sons or Gang of Youths. So not only is she able to get candid about her thoughts of early fame and maintaining success and the state of the Australian music scene, but she walks us through her own diabolical quarter. Let's get into it.
Yeah. Mano, mano, mano.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. I am a longtime fan. Oh really? That's crazy. Obviously, Drive.
How did Gretta’s early breakthrough with “Drive” shape her career?
But then also Time was one of my favorite songs ever. Wow. Wait, you're a real one. That's amazing. Real OG. Um, but take us back to 2016 because that is when Drive popped off. Like you were just 18 years old, and in this phase of the year, you won Triple J. unearthed high and had a fifty K first place prize in a global songwriting competition for Drive. What a time, 2006 I was in year were you year twelve, right? I was in year ten. Same god. Oh my god. How weird that that was ten years ago. I can't believe it, especially when that like two thousand and sixteen trend became
I know, I know. I was like, wait, hang on, this is great. Cause I kind of was already thinking, like, okay, I'm definitely gonna be like acknowledging like the 10 years of drive and then that trend started and I was like, great, we're getting started. This is
what was that like though, being 18 and popping off like that? Because I like I can only imagine, like, have you had you even start the HSC yet?
No, I hadn't. In fact, when I got the news about Vander and Young, my phone was off because I was doing a practice exam. And so I got a call and I like turned my phone back on and I was like, Oh, Miss Call And then they were like, You've just won fifty thousand dollars and I was like, Yo So crazy. But also I was trying really hard in that period of time to stay fully focused on my interview exams because I really cared about how I would do and I had poured all of my energy and time into those subjects because I picked my year twelve subjects to help support what I knew I was gonna do, which was my music career. So I was like, well, I've worked really hard on this. I don't want what's going on with this song and kind
Of beginning my career to distract me from this thing that I'm working really hard towards. And so we had kind of just settled down the hype post-Triple J on Earth. And I was like, but I'm locked in, I'm doing my exams. No, it's like And then I got that call and I was like, whoa, this is crazy.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the “diabolical quarter” and why does it matter?
0:02–2:04
2
How did Gretta’s early breakthrough with “Drive” shape her career?
2:04–7:53
3
What happened when Gretta moved to London and fell seriously ill?
7:53–12:56
4
How did Gretta cope with hospitalisation, family support and the diagnosis?
12:56–18:51
5
What steps did Gretta take to recover physically and mentally after returning to Australia?
18:51–24:53
6
How does Gretta view the current Australian music scene versus her early years?
24:53–32:09
7
What inspired the creation of the new album *Heartsong* and how does it reflect her healing journey?
32:09–37:52
8
What practices and rituals does Gretta use now to stay grounded and keep creating?
37:52–46:06
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Big Small Talk
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