At the age of 22, The Voice’s goth metal/opera singer Victoria Knight already has more than a decade of musical experience behind her.
When she was 12, she released her first song (“it was about a friend of mine who was going through some hectic mental health stuff”) and, when she was 14, her band, Victoria K, released their first album and toured Australia. That same year, the band also toured Australia as support for Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie.
“I was a fan of them, so I was freaking out,” she tells TV WEEK with a laugh. “They didn’t know I was 14!”
But she did have her dad with her on both tours.
“Dad’s never missed a show. He still comes to every single show.”
Victoria says she was “the weird kid” at school.
“I remember going to parties with school friends and feeling so isolated, just because I didn’t get pop culture. I didn’t listen to many pop songs so I didn’t know the same music that everyone knew. I remember wearing Doc Martens and getting bullied for that.”
But she found her community through music.
“I felt so comfortable with my bandmates, and with the other bands that I was playing shows with. The same with the classical community, because I was learning classical voice at the time. I felt really accepted there as well.”
In The Voice’s knock-out round, Victoria was thrilled when her coach, Kate Miller-Heidke, gave her Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ to sing because her band had already released that song as a single.
“I was over the moon,” Victoria says.
By appearing on The Voice, she hopes to be a representative for gothic metal, a community she loves.
“It’s a beautiful community and beautiful sub-genre that I think is really misunderstood,” she says. “I want to do the metal scene proud.”
Catch The Voice on Monday at 7.30pm and Sunday at 7pm on Channel Seven or 7plus.
