When the Johannesburg-born, Naarm/Melbourne-based Ruby Gill first began releasing music in 2018, she didn’t particularly have much of an idea of what would follow.

After all, how could she? No one could have predicted that a string of well-received singles would later turn into a debut album that would even be nominated for the Australian Music Prize. But as Gill explains, the local success of 2022’s I'm gonna die with this frown on my face was far from the initial ideas that they thought music had in store.

“I definitely didn't have grand plans for stardom, and I still don't,” Gill explains. “It meant a lot to me to put that album out, and it was important to me that I was putting it out in a way that was meaningful to me. 

“So it felt really nice that this very independent, very lo-fi process of putting that record out just with friends and people that I cared about did well, and got a warm reception in a way that allowed me to tour more and do more things with connecting in a music space.”

Fast-forward to 2025, and as Gill prepares to release their second album, Some Kind Of Control, the same desire for a meaningful relationship with music is maintained. “Every one of these pieces of work is their own little world, and this is a collection of songs that are very personal and meaningful to me,” Gill says. 

“I'm not sharing them to get attention or travel on a very upward path to whatever that stardom looks like for other people.”

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However, that’s not to say Gill doesn’t appreciate the opportunity to share music on a large scale, whether it be through playing shows, supporting artists, or simply just releasing music. Rather, it’s just a little uncanny to see success coming their way.

“Recently I've been on other people's tours, played bigger shows compared to the shows I would be playing, or I've been around people who are at a higher level of the industry than I am at,” Gill explains. “It’s not like I had a feeling like, ‘Wow, that's the dream,’ or thinking as a kid, ‘That's where I want to be one day,’ which is aspirational for so many people. 

“If I ever saw my name on a billboard outside a hotel room or something, I would lose my mind with anxiety, or be feeling like I'm not a human anymore. So it's definitely never my intention to get to that point, but I love the wide-reaching connection that a song that does well can give you. 

“If a song does well, or a record does well, lots of people hear it and connect with it, and I get two-way conversations out of that in terms of messages from people or people showing up to gigs, then I will count myself as very successful and lucky.”

Undoubtedly though, it’s a little hard for an artist such as Gill to gauge this musical growth and the attention with which it brings. While many musicians might feel a sense of pressure, or imposter syndrome, Gill also had the odd situation of feeling slight imposter syndrome in regards to their own nationality thanks to a nomination for the Australian Music Prize.

“That was twofold weird for me,” Gill tells. “One, because I'm not Australian by birth, and I hadn't even gotten my permanent residency at that point, so I was like, ‘How can you be nominating me for the Australian Music Prize?’

“But that record was absolutely made in Australia, and now I am a permanent resident, and the next one is absolutely an Australian record in many respects. But it was weird to grapple with this idea of doing well and being labelled, or set above the rest in a space that didn't even feel like my space yet.

“Then on the accolade level, it does create a pressure of thinking if the next record doesn't get nominated, or if the next song doesn't do that well, then maybe everyone thinks you've done something bad or slipped or whatever,” Gill adds. “Even though all you're doing is growing as a human, creating the next thing that you thought of, having a new experience, and simply processing that experience in words or music.”

The human growth and creativity that Gill talks about is one that she is always undertaking. Even as soon as the first album was done, the process of songwriting never halted, and in fact, these past few years have been some of their most prolific in terms of songwriting.

However, it also coincided with a decision to remove themselves from the music industry somewhat, with negative experiences souring them to the idea.

“It felt like a space I didn't want to be in,” Gill says. “While I had sort of quit the industry space, I was writing more songs than ever, and that's interesting for me to reflect on because when I took myself out of the pressure of that space and thinking what the next album was going to be, I made better music and I wrote more meaningful songs.

“I managed to meet enough beautiful people and make enough meaningful connections in the music space that felt different to how I'd been doing it before. These people made me feel like there was a part of the industry that felt more real and felt more human, and I wanted to share music again, as long as it abided by those people's values.”

This supportive nature allowed for a more cohesive body of work. While the first album was a collection of “random songs,” Some Kind Of Control features Gill exercising the titular control and refocusing their efforts on the music-making process on their own terms. 

The result is a record that is confident yet vulnerable and one that sees Gill focusing on themes of queerness, autonomy, and wanting to be seen and respected. While Gill has previously described it as a “coming out record,” it’s also an album that presents itself as a snapshot of where Gill has found themselves these past few years.

“I think it unfolded as I went on that journey,” Gill notes. “Personally, in terms of coming out publicly in a sexuality way, but also just in a general authenticity way to myself and being brave enough in all facets of my life to be who I am in public, or in a relationship,  or in connection with people. 

“I went on a very big journey over the past few years trying to accept a lot of things in myself, including queerness, but also other things about my body and about my stance on things in the world or stuff that had felt hard for a long time. As I was trying to process that stuff to myself, that is what I was writing about. 

“So this record does feel very thematic, which wasn't intentional, but it is just actually what was going on in my life,” Gill adds. “It's still happening in some ways.”

In fact, now that the songs have been written, recorded, prepped for release, and debuted live, these performances have helped Gill resonate with the songs more in terms of how far she has come. 

“I've just been in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and I've been playing a lot of those songs live, and it's really nice to sing them and realise that was an era of reckoning with myself, and I'm not actually fully in it anymore,” Gill says. 

“I feel very much on the other side of the mountain in terms of looking back on some of those feelings and realising that a lot of the things that I'm singing for, asking for and defining in that record, I now have them in my life every day, that I am fully okay with it all and public about everything. They feel normal, is what I mean.”

The entirety of the album is a revolutionary experience, not just for Gill but the listener as well. While Gill has previously described the record as being “cheekier, looser, gayer and even more raw” than their 2022 debut, it represents an entirely new version of who she is. It’s more open, it’s more free, and it’s more true to Gill as a human being who likes to enjoy themselves.

“The last record was all songs I wrote in South Africa or very early after moving to Australia, and I was very serious as a person,” Gill explains. “I was very earnest and always trying very hard to be doing the right thing, to be feeling things in the right way, or being a bit uptight with how I was experiencing the world.

“I give myself so much compassion in terms of why I was that angry and stressed all the time, which is what that record is about. Like it's literally called, I'm gonna die with this frown on my face. It was very much in the throes of it all.

“However, these last few years and this record to me, even musically, just feels like I'm playing more, I'm breathing more, I'm chilling out more, and I'm just actually saying things without having to think about what I'm about to say,” Gill adds. “Literally, I think we rehearsed these songs once or maybe once through before we got into the studio and recorded them.”

It’s this ability to be open that adds a greater sense of intimacy and vulnerability to the record. As Gill explains, some of the songs hadn’t even been rehearsed previously, allowing a level of looseness and freedom akin to what she has been experiencing in their life.

“I feel like there is just so much more joy and laughter and peace and directness now in how I'm living my life compared to how I was a few years ago,” Gill says. “It's really special to be able to record that sonically without having to say much and just have a record of this feeling of being very okay and open with the world.”

This openness also leads to an immense sense of vulnerability that’s on display on the album. Given that songs such as Touch Me There portray a version of Gill that is arrestingly candid about sexuality and personal topics, it makes one wonder if the seriousness that earmarked Gill’s first releases was something that was slowly eroded to make way for an album that feels so confessional.

“I don't think I've ever struggled with vulnerability in that I am an open book and have always talked about my feelings a lot and have been very willing to do that,” Gill explains. “I’m not afraid to ‘go there,’ but I do still feel this next level of vulnerability in my life and in this record of just not being at all scared of what the outcome might be from that and not being worried that I'm saying too much, that I am too much, or that I'm going too deep or too personal.

“I was often still worried that I was coming across too strongly or that I was going too far down a road that someone else didn't want to go down. It stopped me from being very open and honest in the world, and I think with this record, I had to be vulnerable with myself first.”

This ability to be kinder to themselves allowed for a music-making process that was not just vulnerable but useful in terms of achieving a sense of personal growth. For those who enjoy the record, however, they should be grateful they’re actually able to hear Gill’s record at all, given much of it might not have made it out into the world if initial plans were adhered to.

“I wasn't planning on sharing a lot of this music,” Gill explains. “It was written mostly for me to just process stuff, to play with writing, and just practice. I had to be vulnerable with myself, too. In Touch Me There, I had never actually, like, fully written down or said out loud that I was gay until I started singing that song and then as those words came out of my mouth, I was like, ‘Oh, I just said the thing that I've just like been avoiding saying for years and years and years.’

“So the vulnerability in this record was more scary in terms of saying it to myself, but it wasn't necessarily scary to say it to everyone else because I wanted part of this record to be about being honest and being who I am and not being afraid of that. And if somebody doesn't like that, or if someone thinks I've said too many things, well, whatever. 

“But it was hard to come to terms with a lot of the stuff in the record in terms of letting myself feel the full extent of a feeling that I hadn't previously articulated.”

The result is a record that is ultimately made for Gill to exercise Some Kind Of Control, but it’s one that achieves a sense of impactfulness and power in terms of the topics being addressed. It’s one that gives a voice to the feelings unable to be spoken and one that is liberating for those who need it most.

“In my community and also in the world at large, we're at a point in time where queerness, women's bodies, and trans people are being silenced or held to some kind of strange standard around the world,” Gill notes. “So it’s very liberating on a community level to be able to make this record, which can be seen as relatable to a lot of people going through the same things.

“It just feels powerful to be able to say these things without fear and then give people a space to also feel their version of that or feel the communal weight of some of those themes.”

For longtime fans of Gill’s, Some Kind Of Control is an album rooted in openness and honesty, and one which will be recognisable as the artist they’ve always loved. For newcomers to Gill’s work, it’s an exceptional starting point to experience an artist who is operating on a level where they are allowing their truest and most vulnerable self to be seen. For Ruby, it’s an exercise in honesty.

“What I hope this record says about me is that I’m making honest and real art in the way that music or art is meant to be made, which is communally and with a choir of people around you and saying meaningful things,” Gill explains.

“It’s not a record that's caught up in like sonic perfection, or one preoccupied with putting out a hit that takes you to the next level; it's just a real, raw normal record of a normal, real person's life,” Gill adds. “I feel very proud to be making art like that.”

Ruby Gill’s Some Kind Of Control is released on March 28th. Pre-orders are available now.