Songs in the spotlight

WHEN Anita Lester was 14, her interest in music took a major turn after listening to American singer-songwriter Melanie’s hit song, Candles in the Rain.

“The next day I started playing guitar and writing music,” says Anita Lester, aka Lester The Fierce, the 27-year-old alt-pop artist who has just released a new single Howl.

This follows her debut self-titled EP in September that was produced by Jonathan Dreyfus on the Australian record label True Music.

Lester moved to New York in the beginning of 2012 to further her career and released the song Colours, which drew the attention of Kevin Agunus at Sound City Studios, who is responsible for bands including Edward Sharp and The Magnetic Zeros, Gotye and Cold War kid.

“In New York everybody is somebody,” she says. “Slowly, I got the attention of a couple of the people I was interested in.”

Now back in Melbourne, the singer has wielded her pen to craft poems and illustrate children’s books, having taken her stage name from the protagonist at the centre of her own illustrated book about her romantic failures. The book, which has not yet been published, has been written for adult readers, yet adopts the whimsical style of a children’s book.

“The stuff in the book is not that dissimilar from what I’m singing about, so there’s a nice synergy and harmony with that.”

Lester, who attended the Sophia Mundi Steiner School and was a member of several Zionist youth movements, says a willingness to work hard has been key to the development of her career.

“I’ve always worked hard – I got my first job when I was 14. I learnt to work really hard for the things that you want.”

It’s a deep passion for the traditions and spirituality of music that has captivated Lester.

“I would consider myself an agnostic. I find music has been so profoundly spiritual for me ever since I was a kid and that’s probably why I play music. That’s where I find my spirituality, my version of God. That feeling of being on stage and being blanketed by the music I’ve made is partly self-indulgent but also totally external.”

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