18 | Music Is My Lifeline with Rae Leigh

Through The Creative Door

Join us in this inspiring episode of Through the Creative Door, where host Alexis Naylor sits down with Rae Leigh—a talented country singer-songwriter, actor, creator, mother and host of the Songwriter Trysts podcast. Rae shares her deeply personal journey, from overcoming the trauma of childhood abuse to finding solace and purpose in music. She opens up about the power of creative spaces, the importance of being prepared, and the courage to step into fear and pursue your dreams. This conversation is a heartfelt reminder that creativity can be a lifeline and a source of healing.

If you’d like to see more of, you can follow Rae Leigh on instagram; @ raeleighaus @ songwritertrysts

This episode was recorded on 2 May 2024 on the lands of the Bundjalung Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.

Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.

Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor

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Creative resources from Rae Leigh:

> Podcast: Songwriter Trysts

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CREDITS

Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor

Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel

Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel

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00:08 - Alexis (Host)

Hello, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. May we pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I will be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. I’m delighted to welcome you to Through the Creative Door.

Hello, Rayleigh, I am so chuffed to be here. Welcome to Through the Creative Door.

00:55 - Rae Leight (Guest)

Thanks for having me

00:56 - Alexis (Host)

We go way back. We've known each other and we grew up in country Victoria together. We went to the same school. we went to the same church.

01:05 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

You were like confident and creative and I was like shy and very nerdy.

01:11 - Alexis (Host)

I mean, it's the yeah

01:13 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

I was the nerd. That's okay. I own it now I've come to terms with it. I was a nerd. We can't all be pretty and amazing.

01:21 - Alexis (Host)

Oh stop it, right back at you sister. So let's start with a little bit about you. You oh, my goodness, what a rap sheet that you have. You are such a phenomenal country singer-songwriter, very talented, you act which I'm keen to know more about. How that's even come about? But one thing that I'm, just from afar, so proud of you for creating is being the creator and host of the Songwriter Trysts. It's a podcast which you have got on your T-shirt. We've got in the background.

02:04 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

This is for the retreat. This is specifically 2024 retreat, which we're about to experience.

02:09 - Alexis (Host)

I'm curious, especially because you do lots of different creative ventures what does a creative space mean to you and why do you think.

02:21 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

A creative space to me means I have the complete freedom and the space, and that means a little bit of financial security you know, I think you need to have your basic needs as a human kind of met to allow yourself to be creative.

02:37

Financial security, food roof all that stuff helps you to be able to create away from desperation, um, so you need hope. I guess if you don't have hope that you have the ability to overcome, or overcome whatever challenge that you want to create, to solve whatever um, then you won't and you'll feel defeated and you'll feel trapped and then that's a really bad mental health space to be in. So, yeah, that's probably, I don't know, is that what you meant?

03:07 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, well, I mean it's interesting over the course of the interviews that I've done so far. Like some people, a creative space is a physical and in you know,

03:18

I was talking about mental space.

03:20

Well, that's what I mean, but everyone's different, and I think you know, for some people if the mental space is not's what I mean, but everyone's different and I think, okay, you know, for some people, if the mental space is not there, then it doesn't matter whether you're in a beautiful fancy studio or you're in a hotel room. If you're not headspace, you're not in the headspace. What is something that you're proud of creating?

03:43 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

I've got a new EP coming out, so I'm really proud of that more proud than. I've ever been of any of my music, which is really cool. I think that's a normal creative thing, though so we're always most proud of the last thing we just did.

00:53 - Alexis (Host)

The thing that’s at the forefront

03:58 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

Most proud of the last thing we just did. I'm proud of the times that I've stepped into my fear and I've not let my fear stop me from doing something, just said yes to so many different things that I previously wouldn't have said yes to because I was scared. I didn't. I mean I wouldn't. I didn't even sing in public until 2019, outside of church and, I think, at school once. I have songs that I like more, so there's a song called All of Me. I have songs that I like more, so there's a song called All of Me, and I find it really hard to even say that I wrote this song, because I didn't technically, I just sang it.

04:32

I was testing out my recording, my new recording equipment. I pressed record and I just played and I went into my flow and I played this song and I finished. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool, I'll just chuck it up on Facebook. I did that exactly as it was, and then someone took that off Facebook, got a backing track created, got me into a closet and recorded the vocals, got it mastered overseas and gave it to me as it was, that is so special.

05:02

Sitting in the car and listening to this fully mastered version of this song, that kind of I didn't write, I sang, like I kind of, you know, I wrote it and I still don't even know what it meant, but it felt so good and I was listening to it in the car and I was like I didn't know that my voice could sound like that. Whatever this person did, I didn't know that I could create something that sounded so professional.

05:28 - Alexis (Host)

I guess that sort of leads me into my next question, which is has there been something in particular that's challenged your personal creativity, and what was the major lesson, do you think?

05:42 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

I mean, I entered into the creative industries in my 30s, which we've talked about ageism and as being a woman. That's like insane, which which is also stupid, like that's. That is not a belief and I'm not going to preach that. Um, I disagree with that. I was being very sarcastic with that but, um, when I was younger, I so I had a an abusive sexual relationship with an uncle who was in my family. He was like my mum's foster brother, and so I was sexually abused from around the age of three or four is when it started and it went right and through until I was about 12 when I started to get very good at avoiding being around when he was in the house and I would go to a friend's house or I could do homework because, you know, I just I learned what was going to be an acceptable excuse to not be around the house and I had more, you know, independence as a 12 year old at high school and um.

06:33

But I was groomed in a way that I thought it was my shame, I thought it was my fault. I didn't feel loved, I didn't believe I was lovable, I didn't think I was as valuable as other people because I'd been abused and I felt like I had been taken advantage of and I thought it was my fault. I thought I was a sinner and I was a bad person and that I'd asked for this attention. And the reality was was like my parents had six kids. They were running the local church. My dad was a Vietnam veteran dealing with PTSD, my mum had a child at 42 and had postnatal depression, so they weren't emotionally available and I was very neglected and I was very by myself as a little kid and all of a sudden I started getting attention from this uncle. And as a child and as adults, we all need attention. There's nothing wrong with attention. It is a human essence that we need, like food and air and sleep. We have to have some form of connection and attention from someone, and as a child, I was starved of attention and I started getting sexual attention from this man, and so it was a very confusing time of growing up, thinking that I liked it, also trying to protect my little sister, making sure that he didn't give her attention. So if I saw that he was going towards her, I would be like no, I want to play with you, you know. So it was a really challenging time.

07:56

And then, once I started to learn to avoid it, I did high school, and it just became this like shameful part of my own story that it was my sin, that I had to hide, I had to shave. I put this big mask on, I became the nerdy kid. I became the worship ministries leader and the school captain, and I tried to be the good person that everyone wanted me to be. I tried not to be shy, because when you're shy, people like are you okay? And I hated that question right. So I got really good at being in big groups. I had one friend who, um, I was able to say I had a best friend, so that no one thought I was weird and had no friends. You know, it's like I created this world of mask around me to make me appear like I was fine, so that no one would see how simple I thought I really was.

08:47

And in that shame, though, I found music. So when I was about six, I saw my dad playing the piano and I just felt it. I just felt that peace that came with it. So I started getting piano lessons, and when other people were away, I would be learning and doing stuff on the piano, and I learnt drums because my piano teacher said I had no rhythm. I think she was just trying to get my parents to pay for more lessons.

09:14

When we were travelling, I would do music theory and I was obsessed, but I never told anyone and I was very shy because the music was attached to my shame and the music was attached to who I really was and my core belief and this is this is where core beliefs is a whole thing.

09:30

You should check it out but my core belief was that I was unlovable, that I was not valued and that if people really knew who I was, that I would be completely cast out. So and that was that was attached to my music, because when I, when I sat at the piano or when I wrote even I had I have so many diaries when I was younger, when I would write and I can't spell either dyslexic and crazy, and I was terrible at English, and now I'm a writer. It's so weird I tell my kids that because my son is like I can't, I'm bad at English and I'm like you can be really good at something. Just because you can't spell doesn't make you bad, because storytelling is a really big part of English.

10:09 - Alexis (Host)

Storytelling is a lot to do with what we do with songwriters

10:12 - Rae Leight (Guest)

Exactly, and I'm like I laugh at it sometimes because English teachers that I had as a kid would be like if I had have told them that I was going to do anything to do with writing or spelling they would laugh their ass off.

10:26

So, yeah, it's one of those things that I think I just was attached to me, processing my emotions.

10:32 - Alexis (Host)

Music was your lifeline,

10:35 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

It was my lifeline, it was my prayer, like I was calling out to God, and a lot of my songs of just like help me, I'm suffering, like I'm just I can't breathe because I was so stressed, organizing my life so that no one could see what was happening because I was this bad person that that blocker was there because of the shame of what I was, and the music gave my body a manifestation of a way to process the body stuff that my brain could check out of. So there was, like this, what do you call it? Decompartmentalisation? That was happening and this is why, in my podcast, I say music saved my life because, it really did so because music was my lifeline and I could see people being rejected when they showed someone their music and then they got rid of their music, I was like all of a sudden like I'm like this is my music. No one's going to take this me. I'm never showing anyone this because if they take my music from me, I will die I've got nothing, I will have nothing.

11:44

And and I believed that and I say that loud now and I'm like, but like, I honestly believed that if someone took my music from me, I would have nothing. I'd have absolutely nothing. And when I became a mum at the age of 23, I very quickly became aware that I was a victim of child sexual abuse. I didn't have the belief, like the understanding, that I was a child. Do you know what I mean? It was just I brought it on, I was groomed, you know, and so I thought it was my fault. I'd asked for it. Blah, blah, blah, 23, holding a baby in my hands. Oh my gosh, this baby is not going to know the difference between right or wrong, probably for the next 20 years, but let's give them at least 10. You know like they don't know anything and they fully rely on adults around them to tell them what is right or wrong.

12:34

And that was when the penny dropped. I was like, I was taken advantage of, I was sexually abused and I was a victim of sexual abuse. And all of a sudden there was just everything changed. This mother wolf was born. So I reported it to the police with the support of my husband the reluctant support of my parents because they were worried about further traumatisation. I thought, as long as I tell the police, then the blood's off my hands, the authorities know and then they can deal with it. And then it did.

13:02

It turned into like a fast-tracked three-year court case. It went to trial in Victoria, which is where it happened, and I got a guilty verdict. It took three days to share my testimony and I was cross-examined and it was really intense. But we got a guilty verdict of nine different charges of indecent sexual assault towards a minor and along with that whole court case and the closure that I had because of that and the healing that was able to start happening from that and I felt something I had never felt before in my life, I felt happy. I have a song actually called I Need Faith that I released and that was the song that I sang through my entire life.

13:45 - Alexis (Host)

That's very brave to be able to be that transparent. So thank you. Now, when you're creating, do you have an object or thing that you can't live without when you're creating, and why?

13:58 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

Like outside of, like my guitar and my piano and stuff. I still like to write on a notepad and pen.

14:03 - Alexis (Host)

Well, yeah, for some people they've yeah, said that you know it's their instruments, even though they're a tool. And some people it's um. Had one person they still have the printout um ticket from the first concert that they ever went with their dad.

14:23- Rae Leigh (Guest)

Oh, that's so cool

14:26 - Alexis (Host)

And it just they don't look at it all the time. It's it's, but it sort of sits near their computer and it's just a thing that they know is there. Yeah, it's not's not like they, you know, it's their lucky ticket that they have to touch or something, but it was yeah. So everyone's different. Everyone's got either a thing or a not thing.

14:40 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

I mean, I have journals and like Bibles from when I was a kid, that like were my you know life, that I look at now and can barely comprehend what I'm saying because it's in like dyslexic speech that I've never thrown out.

14:58 - Alexis (Host)

If you could give one piece of advice to another creative person, what what it be?

15:06 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

If you're always in the right place and you're always prepared, eventually it'll be the right time. And I have had people go oh how do you always get all these opportunities? And like, how do you do this stuff? And I'm like, I'm prepared, like I practice my instruments, I'm constantly writing new songs, I've always got more product adding to my catalog. I'm working every day behind the scenes being prepared. You have to be confident enough in your skill of what you do that you can drop everything and do that tomorrow. So, yeah, be prepared,

15:41 - Alexis (Host)

Perfect advice. I love it. What resources would you recommend if someone wanted to do what you do or just as another creative? Yeah, like someone who wants to develop their creative process.

15:52 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

Read books. I mean, I love self-development books so I'm on Audible because I am a taxi mum, I'm driving to schools so I listen to audiobooks all the time and there are so many great audiobooks. I could just show you my library and that's a great way for me to absorb, even like driving to Victoria two Audible books in that 17-hour period. It's great. And then music.

16:15 - Alexis (Host)

That's why I love driving across the Nullarbor or driving around WA, because it's so massive and you just get to immerse.

16:19 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

And when I fly, I'll take a book, so I love reading and getting other people's experiences and I totally think it's absolutely fine if you're only half-read a book. Sometimes you'll be through a book and you'll know whether you want to spend or invest your time in that book or not. Um, I try to finish it, but sometimes you will find books that just aren't page turners. Don’t force it.

16:41 - Alexis (Host)

If you could have any other creative, come on to this podcast and answer these same questions. Who would you want to hear answer these questions and why?

16:56 - Rae Leigh (Guest)

Leonard Cohen. I really like Leonard Cohen and I don't know why. So I would be curious. I'm curious as to how and why his brain ticks, because he has his books of poetry, all his lyrics and songs and just has that power in his creativity to bring people together and feel that way and treat each other in such a way. That's a gift.

17:26 - Alexis (Host)

Rayleigh, thank you so much for coming through the creative door. This has been, I feel, so privileged to have had this chat with you. Thank you for being so gracious with your words and your story and, yeah, thank you for the laughs too. You're such a vibe, so great. Thank you, thanks, very good. Thank you.

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