If you didn’t catch the 2013 season of Australia’s Got Talent, you missed the brilliance of a humble family trio who just want to keep playing as much music to as many people as they can.
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Their first appearance on the talent show blew the judges away. Kyle Sandilands said he had goosebumps from head to toe and he felt like an idiot “because I felt like crying or something”. “That was absolutely beautiful”, he told them.
Timomatic said he was grateful to be a part of the moment; while Dawn French said she felt “privileged to have heard that”, and Geri Halliwell told Laura her voice was “silky, it’s amazing”.
The audience reaction was equally overwhelming. “We didn’t know how to take it,” Laura says. “We weren’t sure what the process was, and afterwards we were on a high.”
The cousin of brother band members Danny and Shannon Stitt says they always knew they had something because of the family connection. “But it wasn’t until we got that reaction and started getting messages and emails and viewers voting for us, we thought, we can really do this.”
Their rendition of Ed Shearan’s Give Me Love garnered an even bigger response. Timomatic stood atop the judges’ desk to applaud, and Sandilands ventured Laura had “one of the best voices in the country”.
The trio earned $250,000 as winners of the reality show, which they put towards promotion of their tours, hiring musicians to record new music, and split the rest between them.
“I went on a trip to South America and the boys put money down as deposit on their homes,” Laura says.
The band successfully released singles of each of the songs they performed on the talent show, but unfortunately, their contract with Sony expired before anything came of it. “Whether they didn’t have faith in us or what, we were motivated when we got out of the contract … we had our freedom back.”
Laura says it’s hard to get a foot in the door and they are grateful for the platform that launched them into doing what they love for a living, albeit, they have other jobs. Laura is a barista Monday through Wednesday.
The rest of the week they make music and perform. “You have to have a balance in life. And I’m selling a lot of [our] Christmas albums to customers.” She says her boss understands the industry and allows her flexibility with her schedule.
The Christmas album is available on iTunes, Spotify and from their website unclejed.com.au for $20. Laura says it has been a dream of hers to release a Christmas album. “Carols can be cool. We did a lot of the arrangements of traditional carols like Silent Night, Little Drummer Boy, and there is one original.” You’ll hear carols, covers and some originals at LUSC on Saturday.
