Education
An independent boarding school attended by her siblings. At Geelong she took up the piano again, this time playing jazz including performing with David's group on weekends. She was introverted and found that piano practice helped her cope with living at boarding school.
Career
Missy Higgins was thrust into the limelight in mid-2001 while still at high school. She won the Triple J "Unearthed" demo competition and her song "All For Believing" became one of the station's most requested tracks. Missy soon signed a recording deal with local label Eleven: a music company (through Virgin/EMI). However, instead of rushing to release a CD she chose to spend the following year backpacking around Europe and writing lots more music.
While she was off doing that, a live recording she'd made for Triple J found it's way to Los Angeles tastemaker radio station KCRW and they started playing it. Many U.S. labels responded to the unique sound of her jazz hued voice wrapping itself around her emotive lyrics. Even though she'd actually spent 2002 trekking around youth hostels, by the end of that year she had landed an international deal with Warner Bros Records.
In 2003, Missy was invited to do Australian tours supporting the Waifs and George. She also released a critically acclaimed, self titled, EP that spent nine months around the top of the national independent charts. The lead track from that EP "Greed For Your Love" was voted one of the Hottest 100 songs of the year by the listeners of Triple J.
Missy has just spent several months recording in the U.S. with producer, John Porter (The Smiths, Ryan Adams, Los Lonely Boys) and mixer Jay Newland (Norah Jones).
The first song to be lifted from these sessions is called "Scar" and, needless to say, it's the lead track on "The Scar EP" which was released in Australia on August 2.
"Scar EP" debuted at #1 on the Australian charts and is now certified gold. Missy's memorable debut album "The Sound Of White" will follow on September 6.
The disc opens with the first song Missy ever wrote "All For Believing". It then weaves its way through twelve other pieces including the stark beauty of piano ballads like "Nightminds", "Any Day Now", "They Weren't There" and "Sound Of White".
Also on display are a few of Missy's acoustic guitar driven songs, including the live favourites "Don't Ever" and "Ten Days". With their lyrical focus on distance and desire, these stripped back tracks have clearly been inspired by all of the traveling Missy has done over recent years.
Elsewhere, "Casualty" and "This Is How It Goes" reflect her jazz background while "Katie", "The River" and "The Special Two" typify the darker lyrical outlook that creeps into the second half of the album.
The thread that binds all of this material together is Missy's direct lyrical approach; she has an undeniable knack for penning piercingly sincere songs. When this is matched with the album's frills' instrumentation it's a powerful combination pure and simple.
Given all this, the album title is obviously apt.
As soon as "The Sound Of White" hits the shops Missy will hit the road again. It will be her fifth national tour in less than twelve months although it will be the first one where she's the headliner rather than the support act.
Politics
As a vegetarian, Higgins promoted the health benefits of not eating meat in a 2005 advertising campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA);and has supported their anti-fur stance.
She is interested in environmental issues and is involved with the Sierra Club, a grassroots organisation based in California. She has protested against the proposed industrialisation of the Kimberley region of Western Australia and donated the royalties from her 2009 EP More Than This. Since early 2007, Higgins has tried to make her tours carbon neutral, she purchases green energy to power venues, uses hybrid cars where possible and purchases carbon offsets.
On 5 October 2012, Higgins performed alongside The John Butler Trio and Clare Bowditch at the Save the Kimberley concert held at Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia. In relation to the Kimberley region and campaign, Higgins stated:
Apparently scientists are still discovering hundreds of new plant and animal species there every year, which goes to show that there is still so much we don't know about the region. I just fell in love with it; it gets under your skin. Woodside Petroleum are planning to build one of the world's biggest LNG (liquified natural gas) processing plants on the Kimberley coast, just north of Broome. They would be drilling for the gas out at sea and bringing it onshore at this plant, which would just be devastating for the region. The question everyone is asking is, why not process it offshore or pipe it to one of the mining towns down south that already have the infrastructure in place? Why ruin the Kimberley if there's an alternative?
As of 2012, Higgins is one of numerous publicly-known advocates for the 'Oscar's Law' campaign. The campaign, launched in 2010, protests the existence of "puppy factories" in Australia, whereby animals are factory farmed. One of the campaign's slogans is "Break the Puppy Trade—Don't buy puppies from pet shops" and the list of notable advocates includes Paul Dempsey (musician), Kate Ceberano (singer) and Mick Molloy (comedian).