{"id":794179,"date":"2026-07-11T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794179\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:38:10","slug":"grace-woodroofe-on-heath-ledger-healing-and-turning-abuse-into-art-for-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794179\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Woodroofe on Heath Ledger, healing and turning abuse into art for new album"},"content":{"rendered":"

When she was 17, Grace Woodroofe uploaded her first three songs to triple j Unearthed<\/a>. They made their way to Heath Ledger via the late cinema legend’s sister, Woodroofe’s high school friend.<\/p>\n

Woodroofe was plucked from Perth, signed to Ledger’s label, The Masses, and thrust into the Los Angeles music scene.<\/p>\n

“Heath really nurtured the early parts of my career,” Woodroofe tells Double J’s Karen Leng.<\/p>\n

“When I think about it now, I’m like, ‘How did I do that at 17?’ It’s wild!”<\/p>\n

Her debut album, 2011’s well-received Always Want, was produced by blues and roots icon Ben Harper and recorded with his band, Relentless7.<\/p>\n

“Since Heath’s passing [in 2008], Ben has really taken over and been such an incredible mentor and support to me. And we’ve toured all over the place: the US, Australia, we did Italy a few years ago \u2026 all these amazing things that I’m just so grateful for.”<\/p>\n

At 21, while touring that album and living in the US, Woodroofe met a fellow musician and fell in love.<\/p>\n

At first, things were rosy. But soon the dizzy rush of romance gave way to red flags.<\/p>\n

That turning point, where the telltale signs of emotional abuse became impossible to ignore, is captured in the gothic-tinged folk of her new song A Love That Could Kill.<\/p>\n

“What do you do when the love is a love that could kill you?”<\/p>\n

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Family and domestic violence support services:Other resources that can help:WIRE:<\/a> 1300 134 130Victims of Crime<\/a> (or your state or territory’s Victims of Crime service): 1800 819 817If you’re in immediate danger, call the police on triple-0<\/p>\n

That question dangles dangerously at the centre of Woodroofe’s first new album in a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rotate On The Ache, Pt.1, begins a two-part project chronicling Woodroofe reclaiming her identity and career after escaping emotional abuse.<\/p>\n

“I was with this person for five years, so I had to unlearn a lot of ideas about myself and behaviours. Things that really held me back, because by the end of the relationship I was stripped back to nothing.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Years of gaslighting, manipulation and anxiety gradually wore down Woodroofe’s autonomy, artistic voice and community of friends.<\/p>\n

“I lost so many relationships; I lost my music career \u2026 It took me a long time to [put] myself back together. And I did that through making the music.”<\/p>\n

She found healing and regained her voice through writing about the trauma, determined to produce music that was meaningful.<\/p>\n

“I told myself I would make something beautiful out of the pain that I experienced.”Amazing Grace<\/p>\n

Despite is heavy subject matter, Rotate On the Ache makes for gorgeous listening. It moves effortlessly between moments of intimacy and wide-screen, guitar-assisted revelry, with Woodroofe’s rich, show-stopping voice taking centre stage.<\/p>\n

Her dramatic pipes drive Promise of Everything, where rolling toms and driving guitar crash into a euphoric chorus of shimmering layers.<\/p>\n

The ambling I Love You Babe glides on a swooning melody and echoing six-string, as Woodroofe gushes “heaven is when you’re around me\/I can breathe, it’s like a movie”.<\/p>\n

Only the growling bottom-end hints at the awful things to come.<\/p>\n

Both tracks appear early on Rotate On The Ache, which is sequenced to mirror the experience of being inside of a budding romance that slides steadily into toxicity.<\/p>\n

“With emotional abuse, you often don’t realise what’s happening until much, much further along, or even in hindsight. And that was the case for me,” Woodroofe admits.<\/p>\n

“I really wanted to take listeners on a journey in real time, what it all felt like.<\/p>\n

“Because it’s so intoxicating, so exciting and euphoric in the beginning. And that’s why you often stay because you’re always trying to get back to that part of the relationship \u2014 the beginning.”<\/p>\n

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It was only after things ended that she could recognise all the telltale signs: love bombing, confusion, bargaining and isolation.<\/p>\n

“There was a gradual, very slow pull away from my community, my relationships, until it was all about this one person and keeping him happy.”<\/p>\n

Her abuser was “very threatened and jealous” of her career. “He used to mock singer-songwriters, so I changed my stage name.”<\/p>\n

A standalone 2015 EP under the moniker R.W. Grace marked a shift in sound towards electronic pop. “I love the songs but I was trying to be something I wasn’t,” she says.<\/p>\n

In trying to tour the release, Woodroofe was undermined further, accused of cheating with male bands or singers. “I had to start cancelling things to keep him happy. And I was making my team upset.”<\/p>\n

Saving Grace<\/p>\n

After returning to Australia and seeking treatment, Woodroofe revisited journals and scrapbooks<\/a> kept throughout her relationship, which helped inspire new music and a visual world.<\/p>\n

Another touchstone was Beyonc\u00e9’s 2016 masterpiece Lemonade, where the superstar famously reckons then reconciles with her husband Jay-Z’s infidelity.<\/p>\n

“It came out right around the time I had left this relationship. I remember just sobbing watching the visual album,” says Woodroofe, moved by how such a “revered and famous” figure could create something so deeply revealing and cathartic.<\/p>\n

“I thought, ‘If Beyonc\u00e9 could do it, I can do it!’ \u2026 Said no-one ever,” she says, laughing.<\/p>\n

To help sweeten her own sour experience, Woodroofe collaborated with songwriters, including Dustin Tebbutt, Mansionair’s Lachlan Bostock and Xavier Dunn.<\/p>\n

Most important was Oscar Dawson: prolific producer, guitar hero, one half of Holy Holy and “totally the right person” to bring Woodroofe’s vision to life.<\/p>\n

“From the first day we wrote Happy Again together, I was like, ‘He gets this!'”<\/p>\n

Dawson’s tasteful shredding dovetails with Woodroofe’s brassy voice as she rises to a defiant peak on Happy Again.<\/p>\n

He pairs glistening arpeggios and gently insistent rhythms with Woodroofe’s hypnotic voice on Say You Will, while A Love That Could Kill features a weepy cello and slide guitar.<\/p>\n

\"Brunette<\/p>\n

Grace Woodroofe knows she has a big vocal range. “I want to use it \u2026 it all serves a purpose in the melodies and the song and the delivery,” she says. (Supplied: Jody Pachniuk)<\/p>\n

“I wanted the songs sonically to bounce around because that’s what the relationship did.”<\/p>\n

Control My Universe is a standout track that disguises its pain in a lush arrangement.<\/p>\n

“I’m kissing a stranger, feels like I’m going mad, and I know it’s bad but I just keep running back to you,” Woodroofe sings in soulful phrases that could be mistaken for tender, if not for the distressing subtext.<\/p>\n

The track also reunites her with an old collaborator: Matt Corby<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The chart-topping Australian wrote the song with Woodroofe at Rainbow Valley; his custom studio<\/a> nestled in the rainforest of Northern New South Wales.<\/p>\n

“Magical place,” Woodroofe gushes. “Matt has been a friend of mine for many years and we’ve toured together.<\/p>\n

“I reached out to him thinking it’d be really nice to reconnect, and it was. We wrote two songs and the other will be on part two.”<\/p>\n

Coup de Grace<\/p>\n

Rotate on the Ache, Pt. 1 offers a satisfying, self-contained listening experience. But, thematically, it does end on a cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

A sense of desperation lingers over piano-led closer I Keep Waiting. “I’ll take all of the pain, if it makes you main again,” Woodroofe sings.<\/p>\n

“That’s part of the gaslighting \u2014 you think you’re the problem. So I’m minimising myself, correcting myself, making excuses for him,” the musician explains.<\/p>\n

“But at the end of part one, recognising that this isn’t right and I don’t feel safe is no longer avoidable. But I still loved him despite feeling that way, so I really wanted to get that emotion across\u2026<\/p>\n

“It’s a little uncomfortable but if you stick with me \u2026 the rest of the story continues.”<\/p>\n

Woodroofe says Rotate On the Ache, Pt. 2 will feature “more rock, heavier songs to reflect the manic pain and dissociation”.<\/p>\n

But it does reach a hard-earned happy ending, evidenced by Woodroofe’s revived career and confidence. She hopes it has an aspirational effect on those who might be struggling to untangle their own knotty situations.<\/p>\n

“Initially it was a project that I did for myself. But as I started to share it with other people, I really felt like it’s for everyone else [who] can relate to it,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I want people to know you can come out the other side.<\/p>\n

“The title, Rotate On the Ache, was inspired by the memories just looping through my mind constantly. And once I faced them, then I could release that pain and move on.<\/p>\n

“I hope people know that they can do that too. You just have to face it, unfortunately, and go through [it] to get out.”<\/p>\n