PREMIERE: Amela Brings Warm Summer Vibes With “Better Off” Video

Spring started today. That means there’s only another 90 days until summer is officially planting its sweltering stamp on your days. Except, in Australia, it might be sooner, because you’re playing Russian roulette with the 30+° mark on any day after September 1st. It also means there’s only 90 days to get your playlist set up before you start kicking back on a beach or a balcony with a beverage.

With that in mind, I think we can present you with the first offering to your Summer Chillbillies playlist with Gold Coast songstress Amela, and her track Better Off, presented in a simple but stunning video.

The video shows Amela and her three accompanying band members joyfully playing the track on an empty stage. While this may not sound like the slickest production, it actually expresses such a great energy when paired with the track. You can almost sense the emotion and vibe in the room as the four swing and move their way through the song.

Better Off is a wonderfully summery track that blends a little bit of folk with just the slightest touch of surfy vibes. The track kicks off with some smooth acoustic guitar and Amela’s beautiful voice, before she is joined by the rest of the band in a swinging verse. The chorus goes in straight half time, with just enough echoey electric guitar chord work to give it a beachy texture.

“Whenever I play this song live at shows it seems to be the song that people can connect to the most because of the message behind it. It’s about being true to yourself and sticking with your own path because you’d be ‘better off’ that way,” Amela says.

There’s hints of trumpets, multiple acoustic guitar lines and some tight work from the rhythm section that harks back to artists like Fiest or Lisa Mitchell mixed with early Of Monsters And Men, so you know you’ll be tapping your toe all through the warm vibes.

Born in Bosnia, Amela moved to Sydney and then the Gold Coast in her early childhood and likes to channel those coastal vibes into her work.

“Growing up in a Western culture though in Australia and playing to mostly an Australian crowd, most of my songwriting was influenced by modern pop music. Around the time I wrote Better Off, I was listening to a lot of The Strokes, Ben Kweller and had just seen a show by local band Major Leagues. I love the whole indie-rock scene particularly the surf-rock culture and I think living on the Gold Coast influenced that a little bit as well,” she says.

She’s been writing songs since she was just 10-years-old and as such has had some pretty solid accolades to her name, with substantial airplay overseas and a few TV spots. The single is from her upcoming EP ‘Somewhere In Between’, and Amela says that there was a lot of emotion in the production of the tracks.

“There is quite a variety but each songs represents a different part of me… it was a self-test to see if I was capable of producing the record myself,” she says.

Keep your eyes peeled for Amela’s ‘Somewhere In Between’ EP, and check out the video for Better Off below!