Songs recorded in Mia Deriu’s bedroom set for The West Australian Pulse exhibition gig

Mia Deriu is shouting from the rooftops after being plucked to perform at this year’s The West Australian Pulse exhibition.

The sky is the limit for the Perth singer-songwriter, who likes to wear her heart on her sleeve in song and will be strumming her pain with her fingers to entertain this year’s young artists at a roof party.

Deriu will sing at Pulse Live Music Sessions, part of the celebrations for this year’s extensive student artist display.

“I did this gig because I thought it was really inspiring for art students and it’s incorporating visual art, fashion and music and it is just appreciating young artists in Perth,” she tells The West Australian.

“It’s good to give them a platform. Having a whole event that celebrates that, it really resonates with me.”

At 19, Deriu is a veteran of the arts music scene. “I have been performing since I was 14, having that platform is good,” she says.

“I am playing the show as a solo artist. I play my songs in the form they were in when they were first written. I write all my songs in my bedroom by myself on an acoustic guitar. When I play solo sets I perform them as they were written — I go back to the root of the song every single solo set.”

Now a full-time muso, Deriu has lots to say and reckons authenticity is the key to her fan base.

“My songs are about how it feels to be growing up. How the relationships that you make, whether it be family or friends or people that you are dating as you get old, how they form you and sculpt you as a person,” she says.

With idols like Fiona Apple and Courtney Barnett, Deriu doesn’t want to buckle to what’s trending.

“I’m focusing more on what I am trying to say rather than what I think people want to hear from me,” she says. “I want to stay true to the art of it rather than doing it for validation or to please other people.”

As for mixing with artists on the night, Deriu admits: “I paint really badly. I try. I collage and draw terribly! But even if you do it badly it is still a great form of expression. I’m not very good.”

The West Australian Pulse exhibition opens on April 28 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and is free to attend.