Music Videos July 27, 2020 1:39PM ET

‘The First Time’ With E^ST

Australian singer, songwriter, and acclaimed musician E^ST has Rolling Stone‘s “The First Time” to reflect on her journey to where she is as an artist.

Having first hit the scene with her debut EP back in 2014, the last six years have been a wild journey for E^ST (better known to her parents as Melisa Bester). With numerous singles from across her four EPs receiving widespread airplay on the likes of triple j, this week is another chapter in an incredible life story, with her debut album, I’M DOING IT, being released on Friday, July 31st.

To celebrate the record’s upcoming release, E^ST sat down in the Rolling Stone studio to open up about some of her career milestones, including adopting her stage name, playing an arena, writing a song, meeting a personal idol, or even hearing her own song on the radio.

“I was in the car with someone at some point, the song came on and I didn’t even realise that it had come on the radio,” she recalled. “And my friend was like, ‘Hang on, isn’t this you?’ And she like, turned it up and I was like, ‘Oh damn!’

“This happened a couple of times. I was in Tokyo, walking down the street with a bunch of cafés and restaurants and stuff, and a song of mine was playing from a restaurant and I didn’t recognise it. And it was my friend who was like, ‘Wait, I think I can hear your song. It was a song called ‘Hollywood Angel’. That’s just a theme in my life where I just don’t hear my own songs.”

E^ST also used the opportunity to reflect upon success as a musician, and how the pursuit of such feels like an almost Sisyphean effort.

“Success is a difficult thing to work out in the music industry,” she explains, “Because as soon as you accomplish anything, there’s always something bigger and better in your mind that you can accomplish.”