Quitting a job to go on a reality show might seem extreme to some, but for Bertie Anderson, it was a no-brainer to leave mining behind to go on The Voice Australia.
While he was a fly-in, fly-out worker for more than 10 years in Western Australia, he had been using his earnings to release his R&B music independently.
That included a song with Australia’s Got Talent star and dancer Timomatic, whom he first met when he performed at a show, introducing himself backstage.
Speaking exclusively to New Idea, Bertie says he realised music was his true calling after he was invited to the Hitmakers Songwriting Retreat in Los Angeles last year.
“Just being in Hollywood amongst those greats, reassured me that my voice and making the most of this opportunity, really motivated me,” he says.
The experience allows emerging artists to receive direct feedback from songwriters and Grammy winners.
“It was an emotional decision,” Bertie says of leaving his work in the mines behind him.
As a supervisor, he drove around the mines and sang as he went, telling us how singing for hours on end helped him prepare for the reality show.
Despite quitting his job being a hard decision, he said it had to be done, and he now has more than 900,000 streams on Spotify alone.
Music has been a way of life for the 37-year-old for as long as he can remember. He watched his father tour around the country as a reggae artist in the band Broken English, and his mother was also involved in music.
“Growing up in that scene and the stages were very cool to me, and I think it was very natural to me,” the singer shares.
Determined to continue the momentum and embrace any music opportunities that come his way, he tells us that he’d also love to act.
As a Torres Strait Islander, he hopes to inspire others by being on a national stage.
“If there’s a Torres Strait Islander kid watching, and they can think ‘Oh, he looks like me, I can do that,'” he explains.
“I just want to be an inspiration for them and to be a role model.”
For his audition, he sang Usher’s Caught Up, and ended up choosing Kate Miller-Heidke as his coach.
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