Kesha Nevé—

Australian Idol winner Kesha Nevé shares her story in her first original single, Better This Way. The country-pop track gives insight into the singer-songwriter’s own experiences, telling the story of heartbreak and learning.

Co-written with Ruby Rogers and Middleman duo Lara Frew and Phoebe Sinclair, Better This Way was created by an all-female team, something Kesha said made the experience even more special. The single was produced by Phoebe and Robby De Sa.

“My goal as a musician has always been to tell a story and to kind of take artists’ lyrics and make them my own and make it feel like I almost wrote it,” says Kesha. “So being able to actually write a song and get my personal story across is a really, really amazing way for people to see me as an artist and hear me as an artist, not through other people’s lyrics, but through my own and through my own personal experiences.”

Better This Way captures the experience of giving everything to a relationship and eventually realising it wasn't being returned. “I was very in love and dedicated to someone who probably didn’t replicate that amazingly,” she explains. “It was just one of those things that I had a heartbreak, and I wanted to tell the story, and I wanted to relate to people who’d been in that same situation with being so in love with someone and kind of had those rose-coloured glasses on.”

While millions of Australians watched Kesha’s journey on Australian Idol, Better This Way marks the beginning of a new chapter as she establishes herself as an artist in her own right. “This is the first song I’ve ever released, which is really special for me, and it’s kind of the first step into my journey as an artist off the TV,” she says. “I think this is kind of helping me, this is that transition from TV to being a muso in the real world.”

Describing herself as a “country pop storyteller”, Kesha’s connection to country music has been shaped by a life spent between the Snowy Mountains and the NSW Far South Coast (she now also lives part-time in Bondi), along with time spent working on farms and around the rodeo scene.