At The Bar with Singer/Songwriter Ruby Gill

South-African born and Melbourne-based singer/songwriter Ruby Gill has announced the date of her second studio album Some Kind of Control – to be released on 28th March, 2025.

It coincides with the arrival of a new single out today – Touch Me There – a personal ode to coming out, embracing one’s identity and rounding up her community of friends to take part in the very poignant video clip.

The critically-acclaimed Australian Music Prize and Music Victoria-award nominated singer turned heads a few years ago when she released I’m gonna die with this frown on my face (2022).

Some Kind of Control will pull the heart strings – it’s poem-drenched wonderment at its best, minimal instrumentation and a world where crafted slow burners are set to charm.

The album is produced by Tim Harvey (Ella Hooper, Jade Imagine) and features Gill on piano and guitar, Jess Ellwood on drums and Lewis Coleman on bass, and a backing group of queer, female and gender-diverse local musicians including Annie-Rose Maloney, Hannah McKittrick, Angie McMahon, Hannah Cameron, Jess Ellwood and Olivia Hally (Oh Pep!). 

Ruby Gill spoke to The Write Drop for our At The Bar series.

MY CITY

My last steady city was Naarm and I will always feel like I’m coming home when I smell Lebanese bakeries on Sydney Rd and jasmine in the backstreets and the salty concrete of the Cinema Nova carpark basement. There’s something gritty and unplastered about my favourite bits of Melbourne, and I think it’s most special when it’s a bit chaotic and lets the old seep through.

FAVOURITE FOOD MEMORY

One of my first dates with my partner was at Citrus, the Sri Lankan buffet spot on St George’s Rd. I can still taste the eggplant curry and I served up three servings of the pineapple salsa, neat. I was so happy that I was literally grinning at every single stranger that walked in.

FAVOURITE BAR   

Brunswick Green on Sydney Rd. It’s just chill and they have deep couches and make a non-alcoholic hot toddy, which is pretty much all I’ve ever missed about drinking since stopping.

DRINK THAT DESCRIBES YOU

Probably cherry liqueur or something ridiculous, intense and daggy like that.

BEST HANGOVER CURE

These days, I get hungover just from missing two hours sleep, so I’d have to say go to bed early, and I’m not ashamed of that. But back in the day it would be eat white bread and lie on cool tiles.

OVERSEAS BAR 

This is not just a hot bar – but it had hot people in it. Woof! in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, Aotearoa. It’s a little queer bar on a corner and it has such cute energy and a really delicious drinks menu, including non-alcoholic options.

FAVOURITE WINE

It’s been a very long time since I had real wine. but I’ve skulled a couple of bottles of NON with friends and I really like them. The Stewed Cherry and Coffee bottle is my favourite. They’re expensive, which is good, otherwise I would probably have a bottle with me at all times.

FAVOURITE WINERY WE SHOULD VISIT

Babylonstoren in Cape Town is almost too picturesque, and to be honest it might not be a winery, but they have a wine shop! They grow amazing fruit and veg farming – and people love popping the question (the marriage question) in the protea fields and cactus garden. I would not do that but I would recommend wandering around aimlessly.

Tell us what prompted you to write the song Touch me There?

I was staying out alone near a river, and feeling open and soft with myself. So, I dared myself to write a song that I would never release – say all the vulnerable things I was too scared to say to other people or partners. All the words (and boy, there are many) tumbled out of me in one long river stream and I found myself singing things I had never said out loud, including coming out to myself verbally for the first time. That was years ago now, but it helped me to see myself so clearly. Which made it feel more important and permissive to let fly publicly.

All your friends are in the video clip. Who came up with this idea?  

Me, my girlfriend and my beautiful friend Bridgette Winten who shot the film were brainstorming and we were just talking about how nice it would be to celebrate real queer bodies and touch and intimacy. We talked a lot about the power of queer community in making you feel seen and comfy and held in the more complex experiences of being a bit gay and a bit sensitive. The idea of including actual friends was natural as a result, and to be fair it’s how the whole album has been made. Less of a professional project and more of a slumber party.

What a great provocative video clip that gets us thinking about lots of things. What do you hope it imparts?

Thank you, that’s special. I hope it leaves people with a sense of strength in their affection and attraction and even their own beauty. I love how it captures vulnerability in the awkwardness and magic of growing, intertwining, touching and building confidence in our bodies and preferences and pleasure, and I hope it helps people own that in themselves.

THREE NEW SONGS – AND WHY THEY MATTER

Room Full of Human Male Politicians is a pretty self-explanatory title. I wrote it about Trump and his cronies, and immigration policies, about Roe Vs Wade, but then I kept singing it about other countries and experiences too. Everywhere we live there is some version of the fear and control and anger I talk about in it. “After the break, more with this guy.”

To What Do I Owe My Pleasure I wrote in my old loungeroom in Northcote, looking out over my little messy lemon tree and thinking about how hard it is to love your own body sometimes, especially when it doesn’t work the way you expected it to. I wrote it quickly and quietly. It just fell out into the piano and made me cry. I loved recording it with the choir of angels on this record – Angie McMahon, Annie-Rose Maloney, Hannah McKittrick, Jess Ellwood and Olivia Hally – because it really felt like acceptance to have all these bodies holding me up.

Space Love is about escape. I started writing it in a cupboard while stuck in a house during lockdown that I really did not want to be in. I then finished it when I finally was living in my own space and could walk around talking to myself, scream-singing at the walls. It was very cathartic and I like performing it now, with all the space I was desperate for when writing it.

AN ALBUM THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE

Once when I was a teen in Durban, the film clip for Alicia Keys – No One came on Trace Urban (RnB music video channel on South African TV) and I lost my mind. I had to put down my toasted cheese and lean right forward. Firstly, it is obviously an all-time hit. But I was also like, wait, a woman can play a grand piano in the rain wearing leather and it’s considered hot, not just high school nerdy? Clearly that aesthetic was perhaps a few dreams too far for me haha! but I’m grateful for the empowerment she provided. It made me go home to my teenage bedroom and belt out every song I could think of, standing up, feeling powerful. I wouldn’t be exactly here without that moment.

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