News January 17, 2017

iHeart’s Nozz: five Aussie acts to watch in 2017

Former Executive Editor

Between iHeart Radio’s LIVE events with international superstars Tove Lo, Shawn Mendes and DNCE in 2016, content director Brett “Nozz” Nossiter, hasn’t let our local emerging artists go unrecognised.

“It’s always subjective about what is new, and it’s a major risk trying to predict the ones to watch in 2017,” Nozz told TMN on his five Aussie acts to watch in 2017.

“You just never know what song will be synced up to some cat video, goes viral and become the song of the year. But here’s what I think…”

The Royals

iHeart Radio Australia discovery! Jess & Mikaela submitted a DJ mix to win a meet-and-greet with The Chainsmokers. We loved it so much we invited them to do a weekly show on our dance station. Now they’re signed to Ministry of Sound and have been playing at our iHeartRadio Live events. Great gals to work with. Fun fact, Jess has a puggle (baby wombat).

Caitlyn Shadbolt

We just launched iHeartCountry Australia, and it’s exposed us to a whole range of great artists. I first encountered Caitlyn when she was on The X Factor, and I loved her honest, charming and down to earth manner. She’s so good with her fans. Now writing and performing in her natural genre, I think she has a great future.

Kaylen’s Rain

Sydney brother and sister team, Glen and Kaylee Harrison, are another country discovery. The Golden Guitar nominees featured on Amber Lawrence’s weekly iHeartRadio Australia show, Amber Nights, and word from the big roosters in the label hen house is these guys are set to take off big time.

Mischief

A nice fun, pop sound, this Queensland three piece are doing it the ‘old-fashioned’ way – working promo, touring hard and going indie. They have an EP in the works for 2017.

Iluka

Iluka entered the First Break commercial radio competition a few years back when I was judging, and I loved the unique sound. She also scored some airplay on triple j too (sidenote: did you know you can listen to triple j on iHeartRadio Australia – you can!). They just dropped the single Blue Jean Baby from their forthcoming EP out next year. You can hear the influences from any artist recognisable by their first name only, e.g. Janis, Ray, Stevie, Nancy, Nina, Ella, Buddy, Joni, Dusty.