Australian Idol hopeful Piper Butcher has a lot on her plate

Now 18, she's been self-driven to succeed in music since the age of 11, when she made an impromptu debut at The Hood Milk Bar at The Junction in Newcastle, ably assisted by country music star Harry Hookey.

"It was the perfect introduction to music, I couldn't have asked for anything better," she said this week in an interview near her West Wallsend home.

"It really made me hungry for more opportunities.

"And here I am seven years later, ready and raring to go, with the audition coming up and so much more in the works."

The audition she speaks of is on Australian Idol, which returns to Australian television screens on Monday, January 30, on the Seven Network.

Butcher will appear on the show on Tuesday, January 31.

"Oh my god, I'm so excited for everybody to see the audition," she says.

"Time is ticking away. I've been holding this secret so, so close, and some people might have seen me on the ads, but it's a little bit tricky to see because it's not my usual stage persona and look.

"It's me in my natural environment, working in the shed with the fam', and it was just so exciting to have Harry [Connick Jnr] come into the shed and ask me to audition.

"And I'm really excited for everybody to be able to see it. It all comes to fruition, Tuesday the 31st."

Butcher had applied to be on Idol and had cleared a couple of challenges with the production team, but just could not get to the judges' audition. But all of a sudden, things changed, with Harry Connick showing up at her family's work shed on their property in West Wallsend, asking her to audition.

"It's really, really exciting," she said.

"It happened all so quickly, I wouldn't have changed it for the world."

As a working musician who has been clear about her path, there is no hesitation about the value of Idol to her career.

"It's a stepping stone," Butcher said.

"It's an opportunity. It's pretty big stakes because a lot of people have strong opinions about it, whether good or bad. I've taken this audition just as an opportunity to get exposure."

Butcher's own musical journey saw her first experiment in country music, but she has evolved into a blues artist. The single she released in December, Unconscious Mind, reflects a soul committed to blues.

Butcher's had a hectic summer, and it's not over yet.

She's playing at the Thredbo Blues Festival this coming weekend. The headliners include Nathan Cavaleri and Karen Lee Andrews.

"I've got three gigs happening over the entire time of the festival on Friday and Saturday," she said.

"I'm really excited to be going down there and to meet so many other amazing musos.

"It's been awesome trying to crack into the blues scene. I've had my toe in the country music scene for several years, and now with all of these opportunities coming to light, I've really appreciated being into the blues industry as well. Thredbo's going to be a hoot."

Most of January was spent in Tamworth for Butcher. One of the highlights was performing her new single, Unconscious Mind, at the Maton [guitars] showcase.

She worked at the Tamworth Country Music Academy for 10 days as an intern, and then spent 10 days performing. As happens at Tamworth, she had some experiences with the top performers.

"When I was in Tamworth I crashed Kevin Bennett's performance at the Tamworth Hotel," she said, "And he is just an absolute legend. I got to know to him really well over the course of the internship I did at the [Country Music] academy and he is one of the mentors. He invited myself and the two interns up on stage and we actually did a cover of She Will Be Loved by Maroon Five. It was so fun to be able to get into that environment and connect with those artists, and to crash his show as well. Just insane."

Butcher has also been writing a song every week, which she began in April 2022 through Song Club with Nashville songwriter Sam Hawksley.

"With so much happening in January I've felt so much and been inspired to get that down onto paper," she said. "I really can't force it. I was a very, very timid songwriter as a young girl getting into music. I always thought 'Nobody really wants to hear what I have to say, I don't know what to say'. But now, over the years, it's been great to have a little bit more life experience, still learning as I go, but it's been great to get those notches under my belt to really learn and write from the heart.

"I've always been a creative writer. I used to do public speaking. I used to be such a dork. I used to love my English. Straight As with all that sort of stuff. I loved writing mystery stories, all these dystopian narratives. And I love weaving them into songwriting."

Piper Butcher made 2021 a year that counted with new music and successful surgery