Bella Mackenzie may be nineteen years old, but she is a woman at the full force of her powers. The Mackay singer-songwriter has sparked a fire in country music fans, and it’s going fully ablaze with her new EP ‘Wild Thing’, out Nov 22, 2024 through Island Records / UMA.
Telling her story through song since the age of twelve, Bella spent her teens relentlessly honing her craft to its sharpest point. Sweating it out in pubs and bars earning her live stripes, racking up hundreds of thousands of streams on her singles and developing an eye-catching personal style that led to brand partnerships with Wrangler and more.
Hailing from the small coal mining town of Moranbah, Bella fell in love with country music, from Lee Kernghan songs that seemed to be written about her life in rural Queensland.
The go-get-em confidence of Bella’s new EP ‘Wild Thing’ is the perfect nexus of country authenticity, hook-driven modern production and the powerful pride and self-confidence she wants to inspire in her audience.
“I want to make music that pumps people up when they listen to it as much as it pumps me up when I sing it”, she says. “I want to look out from a festival stage and see thousands of fists in the air, but I also want the little girls, like I once was, listening on their headphones and feeling strong and like they can do anything they set their mind to.”
Determined to capture the energy and dynamism of her live shows on record, Bella headed to the Central Coast with her bandleader: multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jacky McCormack. With the trust and creative mind-meld earned from years of touring, the recording process was a free-flowing exchange of ideas and they landed on a sound both organic and progressive.
From the sizzling fiddle and guitar that kicks off the title track to sultry outlaw tale Georgia, the swaggering kiss-off of lead single Cowboy and beyond, Wild Thing is a blazing declaration of empowerment and self-worth. Each song is a cascade of lyrical and instrumental earworms, all built around Bella’s powerful vocals, which can blow the roof off or grace the ear with stunning intimacy from song to song.
Bella proves real strength is also being unafraid to show her vulnerable side – on tracks like Wasted, a raw duet with US emerging star Lecade, she embodies the turmoil and confusion of a woman falling back into the arms of an ex-lover. The gentle and gorgeous Buy Me A Drink, co-written with Sarah Buckley of The Buckleys, is classic country romance. Neon Mood is tender and soaked in mournful pedal steel, you could close your eyes and feel like you’re sitting at the next barstool.
The closing track Down South, a rowdy ode to hitting the dirt roads out in the country, seems destined to detonate live as Bella burns rubber around Australia for the rest of 2024, including showcasing at Big Sound in September and a coveted slot on Ridin’ Hearts alongside international superstars Riley Green and Mackenzie Porter. There’s no sign of slowing down for a woman whose talent and drive see her destined to take on the world.