Meg Washington

Megan Washington, who records simply as Washington, specializes in melodic adult-alternative pop lifted by synthesizers. Formerly a jazz vocalist, she released two EPs in the mid-2000s before introducing her pop material with the 2008 EP Clementine. Her debut album, I Believe You Liar, reached the Australian Top Five upon its 2010 arrival. The more introspective There There returned her to that same chart tier when it appeared in 2014.

She was born in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and spent part of her early years there while her father worked occasionally as an events DJ. The family settled in Brisbane, Australia, once she turned ten. Washington trained in music at the Australian School of the Arts at Sheldon College, then continued at the Queensland University of Technology and the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, concentrating on jazz vocal performance. Her opening EP, Nightlight, surfaced on Newmarket Music in 2006 with a four-piece band that included pianist Sean Foran as co-billed contributor. She and Paul Grabowsky followed with the EP Bennetts Lane the next year.

At that stage Washington played keyboards on tours for alternative acts such as Old Man River and Ben Lee before shifting toward alternative pop under the Washington name, beginning with the Mercury-issued Clementine EP in 2008. Her version of Ross Wilson’s “Bed of Nails” became the theme for the ABC1 series Bed of Roses from 2008 to 2011. The EP How to Tame Lions arrived in September 2009 and earned nationwide radio exposure. An appearance on the music quiz Spicks and Specks later that year increased her profile ahead of the May 2010 Rich Kids EP and the mid-2010 full-length I Believe You Liar. The album, which incorporated several tracks from her earlier EPs, debuted at number three on the ARIA chart. Insomnia, an EP released late in 2011, peaked at number 24. In 2012 Washington served as a mentor on the first season of the Australian edition of The Voice and delivered a TEDx Talk on stuttering, noting that the condition vanishes when she sings.

Washington traveled to London in 2013 to record her next album with producer Samuel Dixon, whose credits include Adele and Christina Aguilera; she had met him while supporting Sia, for whom he played in the touring band. There There, issued under her full name on Mercury in September 2014, restored her to the Australian Top Five. She appeared as featured vocalist on country artist Lee Kernaghan’s “Spirit of the Anzacs,” which reached the Top 40 the following year.

She previewed her third album with the single “Saint Lo” in late 2016 and joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for a 2017 concert at the Sydney Opera House. Further singles emerged across the next three years, among them her Island Records debut “Dark Parts,” released in 2020 under the Washington name and produced by Dixon alongside Konstantin Kersting, whose work includes Tones and I and Mallrat.