I'm Sorry: Thelma Plum Reflects on Home, Guilt and Apologizing 'Way Too Much'

“I try to make them catchy,” Thelma Plum tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ. “Lana Del Rey is always [a] production reference for me.”

- LARS BRANDLE

Sports people talk loud and often. Spend enough time with one, you'll hear the peculiar expression of an athlete's “ceiling,” the unscientific idea of how they're limited, or otherwise, by their talents. The higher that ceiling, the assumption can be made that they'll progress to all-star, some day.

Thelma Plum has no ceiling. For the Australian singer-songwriter, the sky's the limit.

On her second album, I'm Sorry, Now Say It Back, Plum finds that sweet balance, by unspooling lyrics full of raw honesty, humanity laid bare, delivered in her unmistakable, vibrato-hewn voice and soundtracked with studio polish, strings, and delicious melodies.

“I try to make them catchy,” Plum admits. “Lana Del Rey is always [a] production reference for me.” Definitely, those hooks on “Freckles,” “Nobody's Baby,” and other cuts were “very intentional.”

That Catholic guilt has really been there, to say sorry.”

A proud Gamilaraay woman, Plum has no reason to apologise, though she admits she has “often felt misunderstood. It's something I've felt maybe for a long time, you know, for my whole life. It's a feeling that... goes with shame.”