Like so many great Australian singers from John Farnham to Bon Scott, Dami is a migrant who has made Australia her new home.
With English as a second language, Dami managed to excel at school and university where she studied a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours and completed a Masters in Contemporary Voice.
In her downtime Dami would do what many other Australian girls did; she went to the beach, she drank coffee with her friends and eventually fell in love and got married.
In the back of her mind, the world stage always beckoned, but first Dami had to build a career in her new home. In 2013 Dami found herself a home in the heart of Australia via television.
Dami won The X Factor on the strength of her astonishing voice and palpable sense of artistry.
More success followed as Dami earned multiple ARIA accreditations, including #1 chart positions and multi-platinum sales for the likes of her self-titled debut album and hit singles ‘Alive’, ‘Super Love’ and ‘Gladiator’.
Dami Im is not only an artist of the new millennium, but she possesses a devout understanding of the rich history of pop and how truly first-class songs are crafted.
Dami, like all great singers, knows how to inhabit a song and make it her own.
Her choice of stage wear may draw an audience in, but the real exchange comes when an audience hears her remarkable voice.
Written by DNA Songs (Delta Goodrem/The Veronicas/Ricky Martin), Dami’s entry into Eurovision 2016 was the stunning power ballad, ‘Sound Of Silence’.
Almost as soon as she was able, Dami, who partly learned English by mastering pop songs first, got herself a gig.
“My first paid gig as a singer was at an up-market Chinses restaurant in Brisbane,” she recalls, “they had an upright piano and I had to bring my own microphone and a speaker to sing for a couple hours each week.”
“All my life I’ve been obsessed with playing music.
Since learning the piano from the age of 5 I would practice every day and in my spare hours I’d pick up new instruments like the violin or the flue and try all sorts of genres.
My love of singing started when I was 14. I practiced tirelessly even while going through my university degree in classical piano until finally deciding to make singing my career by pursuing a Masters in Jazz vocals.”
This training put her in good stead for the success that has followed.
“Auditioning for The X Factor was a challenge that I decided to take to see if I could tackle my fears.
It was the biggest step I made outside of my comfort zone. Non one, not my family and certainly not myself, ever thought I would win.
It opened up so many doors that I could never have imagined. I released singled and albums that were played on the radio and achieved platinum and gold sales.
I fly to countries such as China, Korea, Singapore, America and Sweden to perform my songs and to write new ones.
Still, being a person who prefers coffee over a small group of friends rather than drinks at a crowded bar, it was difficult becoming a ‘pop star’ all of a sudden.
