A Quick Chat with Gia Ransome
Congratulations on your new EP, ‘Belladonna’! You’ve mentioned that it’s been a long time in the making. Can you tell us a bit about how you wrote the title-track and what inspired it?
Thank you! It certainly has been. Belladonna is a song I wrote five or six years ago now, and I’ve been playing it at shows ever since. It’s about my first big heartbreak. I met a guy I fell head over heels for in Europe, who then left me stranded when he ran off with my friend. I was devastated, and it took me a long time to recover from the blow to my self-esteem. I wrote Belladonna by the cliffs on an island in Denmark, where I had a residency after it happened. I just started singing to myself with my feet in the water, and what came out was the first verse. At the time my music fixation was Tamino’s debut album, ‘Amir’, and I think the siren-like nature of that album had a huge influence on Belladonna.
The rest of the EP feels like it has similar themes to Belladonna, though dynamically there’s some big shifts. What’s the bigger picture of the EP?
Belladonna is a bit of an outlier as a song I wrote quite a few years ago, but unfortunately it seems I didn’t learn my lesson from that experience. The rest of the songs are about a more recent relationship, where I was left for someone else, again. I thought I understood heartbreak after going through it once, but this one was something else altogether. After Belladonna, the EP is like a series of journal entries about that more recent break-up. I think of it as a song for each of my stages of grief, starting in utter devastation with A Girl from America, followed by longing with Martyr, a realisation of anger with Marry a Wh*re and ending in rage with A Woman Scorned.
You’ve been complimented for your vocal prowess and theatrics on stage, and always seem to be booked and busy with gigs. Can we expect any shows to support the EP?
Absolutely. Playing live is my greatest love in music, and my favourite place to be is on a stage with my band. We’ll be touring the east coast from September to November and I’m crazy excited to hit the road.
Tour dates:
Fri 26 Sep 2025 - The Old Bar - Melbourne, VIC
Thu 9 Oct 2025 - Lazy Thinking - Sydney, NSW
Fri 10 Oct 2025 - Van Q - Wollongong, NSW
Fri 31 Oct 2025 - The Polo - Canberra, ACT
Sat 8 Nov 2025 - The Ori - Newcastle, NSW
Tickets at giaransome.com
Which artist would you say has had the biggest influence on your music, and why?
Probably Tamino - I had a huge fixation on his music for at least a couple of years, at a time when my writing style was really shifting. I saw him live in London with his full band (including Colin Greenwood on bass??), and solo in Manchester. They’re some of my most treasured memories and some of the best live performances I’ve ever been to. His songwriting is deeply profound and poetic, and he’s created a mesmerising sonic world through his Egyptian influence and heritage. The sense of melancholy in his songwriting really resonates with me.
What Australian artists are you loving at the moment?
I’m a big fan of Le Shiv and Battlesnake after seeing them live at a show we played in Wollongong last year. Battlesnake blew me away with their insane, cult-like performance, pyrotechnics and all, and Le Shiv are putting out bangers that I’ve got constantly on repeat. We played a show in Sydney recently with a band called UGLIEBOY from Melbourne who I’ve become a fast fan of. I’m also really loving Don West and Full Flower Moon Band at the moment. The list could go on forever but these are probably the artists I’m streaming the most!