Dami Im on the 'daunting' reality of starting a family while juggling her career

Three years on from leaving Sony Music Australia and signing with ABC Music, Dami Im is the most musically confident she’s ever been in her career.

The former X Factor winner is set to release her new EP In Between on Friday, which she describes as the beginning of a “new chapter” after publishing her tell-all memoir Dreamer in November last year and welcoming her first child.

“This new EP, it's similar but it's different to my other stuff,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle ahead of its release. “It's got a certain sound, it’s a bit more moody, there’s a bit more R&B elements to it. And of course, there is a theme across the whole seven songs, the ‘in between’ theme.”

She describes the collection of tracks as “a chronological documentation of the journey towards accepting and embracing a new season in life”, ultimately celebrating the realisation that life is about the ‘in between’ moments.

“It's like the seven stages of grief, but it's more like the seven stages of the in between or a life transition,” she adds.

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While she gained creative control for the first time in her career while making her 2021 release My Reality - her first album in seven years made up entirely of original songs she helped co-write - Dami admits she felt much more “mature” when creating In Between.

“My Reality was the first album since leaving my old label, and so it was kind of the first time to really try things on my own and just experiment, and I did it over a few years,” she details.

“Whereas this one is the follow up to that, and so I feel like I was more in my zone. I wasn’t like, ‘Who am I going to work with?’. I sort of knew where I wanted to go and who to work with and things were a bit more intentional in a way.”

Defying society's expectations

In Between also marks Dami’s first musical project since becoming a mother - a title she admits used to make her feel “uncomfortable” after being asked for years when she was going to start a family.

“I think I had this feeling that society would expect something of me, like people around me wanted me to mature quicker than I was ready to be mature,” she reflects.

“I got married pretty early so I was always expected to grow up quickly and be a mum and be this old lady who's wise, and I just wanted to play around and work on my career. So there was always this tension that I didn't even understand myself where it was coming from.”

After welcoming her son Harrison in May 2022, Dami says she quickly realised that motherhood is simply an “added layer” to who she is.

“I thought, ‘Okay, once I'm a mum, am I meant to just suddenly become this old lady who just talks about their kids all the time?’,” she remarks, before quickly adding with a laugh, “Sometimes, but no.

“It's been better to actually get here rather than dreading the day that I would get here and being so fearful of what that would be like. It’s actually so nice. There are really good things about this stage of my life and I'm quite enjoying it much more than I thought I would.”

National tour

In addition to releasing her new EP this week, the Eurovision star will also kick off her first tour in two years on Friday.

“It'll be funny because people actually won't know any of the songs except the few that are already out because the tour starts on the release day,” she says. “So it'll be weird and very new and it'll be an actual album launch, which is kind of exciting.

“And we're trying to replicate the performance so that it's a good representation of how the album sounds rather than trying to make another version like the band version. We're making it work so the soundscape still stays true, so that's gonna be fun.”

Dami Im is set to release her new EP In Between and launch her tour on July 7.

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