“Well, when I get back from LA…” Girli starts laughing at how ridiculous that sentence sounds. “That’s such a pop star thing to say,” she mocks, putting on a cartoonish voice and, for a fleeting moment, she becomes the two-dimensional character she’s often reduced to. Bubblegum pink, throwing tampons and courting controversy with a determined glare, Girli is larger than life. But only just. Amongst the politics and the protests stands Milly Toomey, grinning and well aware of how ridiculous it’s all become.
From the tongue-very-much-in-cheek flourish of “I’m a pop princess, a sassy songstress, we’re all very impressed. My, what a revealing dress,” on ‘Girls Get Angry Too’ to the, “You thought I was going to do a ballad? Fuck off,” welcome of ‘So You Think You Can Fuck With Me Do Ya?’ Girli has quickly established herself as an artist who says exactly what she’s thinking. She can tell what you’re thinking too, and dances with that power. Constantly one step ahead, ACME weight on the cliff above, she’s ready to hit.
It all started age 14 after Milly went to a Tegan and Sara gig. Her dad dropped her off at the venue so she could queue early and she spent the rest of the evening “fangirling so hard. It was the first time I’d properly seen women on stage in a gig setting. I remember being blown away and thinking, ‘Shit, they’ve made a room full of people feel happy. I want to do that.’”
And from that moment on, Milly chased it. First came a handful of “quite shit” indie pop bands where she “played Electric guitar really badly and sang. I found some YouTube videos the other day of one of the first gigs I did with my first band. It was me and these two other girls who were a bit older and now, looking at their eyes in this video, I can see that they were thinking ‘this is shit’ but for me, it was the best band that ever existed."
