Jemma Siles: On Fate, First Love & Finding Her Own Story

words & photography: chloe abotomey

Even before releasing her debut EP, Jemma Siles had already built the kind of presence most emerging artists chase for years. With millions of streams and a fast-growing online community, she arrived not as an unknown, but as an artist whose songwriting had already begun carving out its own quiet lane.

Drawing on the new wave of diaristic pop storytellers, Siles’ writing blends sharp emotional detail with melodically rich hooks, intimate enough to feel like a secret yet cinematic enough to feel universal.

But what sets Siles apart is how deeply she commits to honesty in her craft, and the discipline that underpins it. With the release of Scripts of Fate, Siles steps into a new chapter, one shaped by the turbulence and contradictions of growing up. The project charts early relationships, internal reckonings, and the long process of understanding what we carry from our past. Its breakout moment, “Never Loved,” written in 2019, quickly became a fan favourite during intimate listening sessions across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Jemma Siles’ entry into music goes all the way back to childhood. Although music wasn’t formal in her home, it was ever-present, shaped by her Spanish and Italian background.

As the youngest child, she was placed into every sport her older brothers played swimming, soccer, tennis, golf but none of it felt like home. When she joined a performing arts school, everything shifted. She consistently imagined herself under stage lights, and at eight years old, landed the role of Annie in a theatre production. After the final show, she cried, afraid she’d never again feel that kind of joy.

By her early teens, she’d convinced her parents to buy her a keyboard. She taught herself chords through pattern and instinct  “like maths,” and found comfort in writing songs, especially during a turbulent time at home. Though she later stepped back from music to pursue medicine, seeing Selena Gomez live reignited everything for this pop girly. A late-night keyboard delivery from her boyfriend sealed it: she began writing again that same night. From there, Siles built her audience slowly and deliberately. Moving between the social media platforms as they developed, posting covers on Facebook, then YouTube, then Instagram and TikTok. There was no sudden breakout, just years of consistency and emotional honesty.

While, she didn’t initially set out to create a concept EP, Scripts of Fate organically became a quiet coming-of-age story: ascent, collapse, longing, clarity, release. “It felt like what growing up felt like,” she says. “Up and down. You don’t know what’s coming.”

With a very promising reception following the release of her debut EP Scripts of Fate, we are so excited to see what is coming next for the Naarm/Melbourne medical pop girl.