The history of contemporary music is full of performers working unusual jobs in order to support their art.

Kurt Cobain slaved away as a janitor before he hit it big, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke worked tirelessly as a cinema attendant, and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp fame was a fishmonger.

Yet of them all, Stacey Abdilla may well win the award for most offbeat occupation. Now the frontwoman for Sydney’s own Stellar Addiction, Abdilla used to make money wandering around supermarkets, dressed, uh, unusually. “I used to dress up as a giant Ribena berry in shopping centres to make extra cash,” she says.

On top of embarrassing jobs, Abdilla also had to overcome a number of other hurdles on her way to becoming a musician. When she was younger, the stage was more a threat than a home, and she battled nerves constantly.

“I started singing lessons at nine years old and used to compete in eisteddfods in my local area. Pretty sure I was awkward as hell and stayed that way for some time. It wasn’t until I went to study music at TAFE and was regularly performing in bands there that I began to feel confident onstage.”

That said, when Abdilla discovered her true purpose, she went for it – hard. “The first time I performed in a rock band, I knew that was where I wanted to be and haven’t looked back since,” she says.

In the time since forming the band, Abdilla has gone from strength to strength, both as a performer and a writer. Though Stellar Addiction might not yet be a household name, they are certainly becoming an enticing live proposition, and are attracting a fair amount of attention with their artful pop-punk tunes. That critical rise is set to continue with the release of ‘Unbroken’, their thrashing new single.

“The song started out as a few chords Tanya [Carboni, drummer] was jamming on piano one day,” Abdilla explains. “I really clicked with it and immediately started singing some melody over the top. Over the course of about a week I wrote lyrics, and Tanya and I played around with them and the structure of the song. We took it to the band about two weeks later and jammed out pretty much the structure that you will hear on the final track. It was a pretty organic process.”

That ‘organic process’ also tends to involve a lot of conceptualising and brainstorming – and not always about the songs themselves. “We laugh at ourselves all the time because even before the song has lyrics or a real structure, we are talking about what kind of lighting we would want, and where we could build the song up to get the crowd feeling it as much as we are,” Abdilla explains.

“Most of the time we are even coming up with ideas for a video clip for the track as we are writing too. I like it when I can picture the future of the song – it gives it purpose beyond just writing to [capture] whatever I’m feeling at the time.”

And yet all that writing and planning seems unimportant when compared with Abdilla’s true love: getting up onstage and unveiling the songs for her fans. “I love interacting with the audience,” she says. “I really live for their energy. I do have some moments though where I disappear into my head – usually if I’m really getting into a song I’ll close my eyes for a second and completely forget where I am. But then I see a familiar face singing back at me.”

Punk Out With Camp Out! features Stellar Addiction, along with Mixtape For The Drive and We Take The Night at the Annandale Hotel on Saturday February 18.

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