If you want to know Rachael Fahim’s story, just listen to her music. Some songwriters take inspiration from their lives, Rachael opens up her heart and pours its deepest truths into the songs.
“Songwriting is like my diary. I might be letting people in too deep, but I just have to be vulnerable. When I write about heartbreak and other things I’ve been through, it’s like I’ve taken the weight of those feelings and experiences off me and captured them into the song”.
Her new single ‘Good Luck’, out now via Island Records / UMA, is an aching example of that unfiltered honesty.
After being dumped by a partner so that he could get back together with his ex-girlfriend, Rachael brought the tumultuous mix of sadness and anger into a session at a writing camp. The emotions poured out so powerfully that she had to retreat to the bathroom to tearily unpack the whole story to a friend - not realising the subject of the song was in the adjoining unisex stall.
“It was mortifying, but it really gave me the drive to go back into the room and write the rest of the lyrics. It was so hard to pull all that out of myself, but I knew we had nailed the song, and it gave me closure on the whole experience”.
Perfecting the recording for almost three years, Rachael relentlessly finetuned the track until the production felt locked in to the catharsis she felt in the lyrics.
The final track is quintessentially Rachael - tactile, infectiously melodic, deeply heartfelt, centered in country but blending in the best elements of confessional pop.
The dedication to perfecting the song is unsurprising to anyone who knows Rachael’s story, a catalogue of hard work and achievements beyond her years. You could draw a line back to the influence of her parents, both practical and supportive - her father a builder and mother a dental nurse.
When Kasey Chambers’ sophomore album ‘Barricades and Brickwalls’ dropped in her life at age six, it unlocked a latent musical passion. The album, which featured the smash ‘Not Pretty Enough’, helped spark a wide-ranging musical palette. Over the coming years, Rachael delved into modern and classic country - from Lee Ann Womack to Linda Ronstadt to Keith Urban to John Denver, despite the shunning and mockery that it could provoke from schoolmates in an era where country sat far outside the mainstream of cool.
After an impressive rendition of the national anthem at a school assembly woke her family up to her sonorous voice, she started singing lessons and was soon making up the beginnings of her own songs. Despite the lack of any industry connections, Rachael felt determined to pursue a path as an artist. It wasn’t just a dream, it seemed like the only life she could imagine.
Driving forward was hard work, but her passion and drive to constantly better herself took her through - through the CMAA Academy of Country Music, being crowned Toyota Starmaker (following in the footsteps of Keith Urban, Troy Cassar-Daley and countless others), five #1s at country radio and a national tour with pop superstar Dean Lewis.
2025 is shaping up as Rachael’s biggest year to date, with her first ever headline tour kicking off at the end of January, and her debut-album in the works for release later this year.
Her ability to connect with the audience at a massive pop show as well as hardcore country fans at festivals like CMC Rocks speaks both to her distinctive blend of country music with influences from pop singer-songwriters like Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo, but also to the way that people fall in love with the beautifully transparent songwriting that reminds them of their own triumphs and struggles.
“I can’t write something even a little untrue into one of my songs, I just won’t let myself, and I think people feel that and feel their version of whatever I’m singing about. Nothing makes me prouder than getting DMs after a show from girls saying they related to my songs and it helped them move past heartbreak the same way it did for me writing them”.
