Cast your mind back, if you will, to 2011 and the third season of ‘The X Factor’ Australia.
It was the year that Reece Mastin triumphed, that we first discovered the cheeky Johnny Ruffo and it was the year we were introduced to a prodigious 15 year old talent by the name of Christina Parie.
Christina subsequently signed a deal with Warner Music Australia and later dropped her impressive debut single ’16 & Unstoppable’.
Sadly for Christina, just one year earlier, Australia was just getting to know the sounds of an American songwriter with a decidedly similar name… Christina Perri.
Staggeringly both were on the same label, confusion reigned and Warner Music ultimately chewed their local act up and spat her out.
She escaped. Still to the safety of music, but safe beneath a flimsy disguise so the music would speak for itself.
“Even when I was playing in those shitty bars just to survive, I found the music was connecting,” she explains.
“People would always come up and say it made them feel something, and eventually I started feeling like I was playing in a stadium even when it was to nobody.
“Then I’d open up my eyes at the end and remember where I was, but each time I got more confident in knowing when I’m on-stage, any stage, that’s me. I can trust in that no matter what.”
And with Christina Perri having been silent for four years, Christina Parie is ready to rise again.
This time around, however, to ensure there’s no further confusion, she’s known as Christina Castle. And her stunning debut single under said moniker, ‘Penny Lane’, lands at retailers across the planet today.
‘Penny Lane’, as Christina reveals, is enormously personal.
“I want to go into every experience positive and fresh and open, but it is hard not to get bitter, or even just cautious,” she reveals. “It’s been a lot of identity digging to stop myself from constantly preparing for the worst,
“I don’t think anyone understands the long-term damage of being treated like a product instead of a person for so long. It’s so much. Can’t the music be enough? Can’t what I’m doing be enough? Part of that digging has been realizing I’m enough for myself.”
Put plainly, ‘Penny Lane’ is stunning. This needs to be a big, big hit.
A warm welcome back, Christina.
Australia's first stop for pop!