{"id":923513,"date":"2026-10-10T22:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923513\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T22:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:06:22","slug":"author-trent-daltons-youthful-diaries-helped-singer-katie-noonan-remember-the-power-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923513\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Trent Dalton’s youthful diaries helped singer Katie Noonan remember the power of love"},"content":{"rendered":"

As ARIA award-winning singer Katie Noonan sat in the audience watching author Trent Dalton’s book Love Stories coming to life on stage, her own love story was falling apart.<\/p>\n

That day, Katie found out that the 26-year partnership with her jazz saxophonist husband and father of her two children was all but over.<\/p>\n

“I remember that day so vividly,” Katie, 49, tells Australian Story. “It was quite intense actually, watching that play and the searing honesty of how hard [it is] in the trenches, being married and being artists.”<\/p>\n

After the show, Katie bumped into Trent, the author of the international bestseller Boy Swallows Universe, and his wife and co-writer of the play, Fiona Franzmann.<\/p>\n

\"Katie<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan and Trent Dalton, who first met 25 years ago, have joined creative forces. (Australian Story: Vanessa Gorman)<\/p>\n

Katie and Trent had known each other since 2001, when they were enthusiastic young creatives from Brisbane; he was a fledgling journalist who had come to interview her, the breakout star with the ethereal voice from the indie pop rock band named george.<\/p>\n

Now, as they caught up over a drink, Katie told Trent how much the play had touched her. How beautiful the writing was and how real it felt.<\/p>\n

And that her own marriage was in serious trouble.<\/p>\n

“She really let me know she was going through one of the toughest times in her life,” Trent recalls. “And that was where my relationship with Katie kind of got a bit more poignant.”<\/p>\n

\"Katie<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan is adjusting to a new pace of life at her Sunshine Coast home with Saffy her loyal staffy by her side. (Australian Story)<\/p>\n

Six weeks later, Katie was out of the family home and living alone in a new place on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.<\/p>\n

“There have been days that were catastrophically hard and dark and lonely and depressed and all those things,” Katie says.<\/p>\n

But music has always been her best friend, and so she turned to it.<\/p>\n

Exploring different music genres is a hallmark of Katie’s career. One of her projects is the Australian Vocal Ensemble [AVE], an a capella quartet that celebrates the work of Australian writers such as Tim Winton and the late David Malouf.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan finds solace in music, especially in difficult times. (Australian Story: Marc Smith)<\/p>\n

She knew Trent and his writing would be perfect as AVE’s next muse. “I reached out to him and said, ‘Do you have any words?'”<\/p>\n

He had plenty. He had 153 pages of thoughts, lyrics and dreams he wrote as a lovesick young man falling for Fiona. He said Katie could have them.<\/p>\n

The result was not just a new piece for AVE but an album about love \u2014 the wonder and the heartache \u2014 and a creative outlet that has helped Katie on the road to healing.<\/p>\n

\"Four-piece<\/p>\n

Recorded live in Katie Noonan’s lounge room, the album Alone but all one features her vocals and piano accompanied by a string quartet. (Supplied: Katie Noonan)<\/p>\n

‘Bravery and lunacy’: Music her way<\/p>\n

Growing up, music filled the Noonan household. Katie’s mother, Maggie, was an acclaimed opera singer and singing teacher and her late journalist dad, Brian, had been a crooner on shows such as Bandstand.<\/p>\n

“One of my fondest memories,” Katie says, “[is] sitting in bed with Dad Saturday mornings, listening to ABC Radio, listening to The Goons and the Jazz Show while Mum was teaching.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan’s childhood was filled with music. (Supplied: Katie Noonan)<\/p>\n

After leaving school, Katie studied opera at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (often called The Con) while living in a house “full of thespians, actors and musicians and incense and patchouli oil and a lot of djembes and fire twirling and crystals”.<\/p>\n

This potent mix led to the formation of the band george (sporting a lower-case g), with Katie’s older brother Tyrone on keyboards and guitar.<\/p>\n

\"Five<\/p>\n

Polyserena by george was one of the biggest Australian albums of 2002. (Supplied: Festival Mushroom Records)<\/p>\n

As Katie explored her musical options, switching to jazz at The Con, the band started touring and building a loyal following.<\/p>\n

The 2002 debut album Polyserena reached number one and stayed in the charts for 15 weeks, buoyed by the support of radio stations such as the ABC’s triple j and Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ.<\/p>\n

“We were sort of the seven-year overnight success because we’d been touring and touring and touring,” Katie says.<\/p>\n

By then, Katie had met the man who would become her husband.<\/p>\n

“I adored and was madly in love with him,” she says.<\/p>\n

Within 18 months of marriage, they had two boys, and although Katie’s husband played in her next band, Elixir, Katie had the capacity to earn the most.<\/p>\n

She became the primary breadwinner, touring widely with a range of bands and different musical genres, while he stayed home to look after the kids.<\/p>\n

“As a wife and mother and making so many sacrifices to be the breadwinner, it puts a lot of pressure,” Katie’s mother Maggie says.<\/p>\n

\"Mother<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan with her parents Maggie and Brian Noonan. (Supplied: Katie Noonan)<\/p>\n

From the outset, Katie was determined to do music her way, without surrendering to commercial interests. When a record company executive told her to lose weight early in her career, she told them “no” in a rather colourful manner.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never been afraid to have an opinion,” she says. “I’m always going to speak up for things that matter to me.”<\/p>\n

Having artistic control in such a fickle industry was so important to Katie that 15 years ago, she started her independent label, an “act of bravery and lunacy in a lot of ways”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Elixir was a folk jazz trio that collaborated with cartoonist Michael Leunig (far left). (Supplied: Michelle G Hunder)<\/p>\n

It’s a tough way to make a living. Albums don’t sell in big numbers anymore, she says. And the streaming service Spotify gives very little, if anything, back to artists, a subject Katie has often spoken out about.<\/p>\n

So the answer is to tour \u2014 and keep touring. “I will play anywhere,” she says. “I love playing little, tiny halls \u2026 and then I get to play the Opera House.”<\/p>\n

But when COVID hit, everything went belly-up. Katie was three dates into a 25-day solo tour when the plug was pulled on live gigs. “The financial pressure was staggering,” Katie says.<\/p>\n

“I put on a lot of weight during COVID \u2026 plus a bit of perimenopause rage thrown in,” she says. “And, you know, also drinking too much.”<\/p>\n

There were problems in the marriage before the pandemic, Katie admits, but “COVID broke us”.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/a>‘I’ve overshared way too much’<\/p>\n

Now, as Katie pulls her solo life together, she acknowledges that separating was the best option, even though she would not have made that decision.<\/p>\n

Excerpt: Alone but all one<\/p>\n

Today was a day I gave my new address and my solo Medicare number<\/p>\n

I was one of four for so long, but never again<\/p>\n

Now I am alone, but all one<\/p>\n

Now I am alone, but all one<\/p>\n

Today was a day, I got asked for my next of kin<\/p>\n

I stood frozen as the tears bloomed out as I realised I didn’t have one anymore<\/p>\n

Today was a day like that moment weeks ago \u2014 where he blew my world apart with a letter from the law and angry silent apathy<\/p>\n

She’s desperate for her relationship with her now-adult sons to get back on an even footing but accepts they need time.<\/p>\n

“I’ve stuffed up, I’ve overshared way too much with them emotionally,” she says. “I wish I hadn’t in retrospect.<\/p>\n

“Being largely estranged from my children has been a sorrow that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, but \u2026 they know I love them.”<\/p>\n

There have been times, Katie says, when she felt she wouldn’t get through the day.<\/p>\n

On other days, songs just “fell out”, demanding to be written. The result was one half of her new album titled Alone but all one.<\/p>\n

“It was an album that I never intended to write,” she says. “[It] just fell out from a place of deep sadness and sorrow and loss and grief and not knowing who I was anymore.”<\/p>\n

\"Katie<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan says her latest songs just “fell out of her”, spawned from a place of grief and sorrow. (Australian Story: Marc Smith)<\/p>\n

Amid that torment, she received Trent’s 153 pages, his words celebrating “the wonderment” of new love \u2014 and a sliver of light entered.<\/p>\n

“That was a great gift for me that I needed because I couldn’t write those,” Katie says. “I was deep in the other world.”<\/p>\n

\"lines<\/p>\n

Trent Dalton’s writings conveyed the feeling of falling in love. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan rewrites her ending<\/p>\n

Katie is at her piano, singing When the Heart Falls Apart, one of the songs on the new album, while Trent watches on.<\/p>\n

Under his elbow is one of his dog-eared notebooks, the pages into which a 20-something Trent poured his joy at having found Fiona \u2014 and the pages from which Katie found the words that helped her navigate her marriage breakdown.<\/p>\n

\"Seated<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan and Trent Dalton collaborated on Katie’s new album. (Australian Story)<\/p>\n

The juxtaposition of the joy of love, seen through Trent’s eyes, and Katie’s heartbreak at its loss is the essence of the album.<\/p>\n

It’s a thrill for Trent that his “really revealing, really embarrassing” words have found a life outside these pages more than a quarter of a century after writing them.<\/p>\n

He’s even more chuffed that Katie “took all of that and just turned it into something that might get somewhere close to her feeling better”.<\/p>\n

“All that gushing I was doing, I think somehow reminded her of the truth \u2014 that it was true love,” says Trent of Katie’s love story with her husband.<\/p>\n

\"Katie<\/p>\n

Trent Dalton flicks through some of the 153 pages of notes he gifted to Katie Noonan. (Australian Story)<\/p>\n

“Like any story, the ending shouldn’t be the definition of the entire story,” he says. “You are allowed to look back on beginnings and middles and go, ‘That was amazing.'”<\/p>\n

Katie says while the past two years have been the most challenging of her life, she’s now at a point of gratitude \u2014 for the life she is building and the love she shared with her husband.<\/p>\n

“I’ll always love him because he’s the father of my children and he is a beautiful human and an amazing musician,” Katie says.<\/p>\n

“I’m so grateful that he allowed me to be an artist because he decided to be a stay-at-home dad. I couldn’t have been an artist without him.”<\/p>\n

\"Katie<\/p>\n

Katie Noonan’s 30th studio album explores love in all its stages. (Supplied: Katie Noonan)<\/p>\n

Music is her constant. It has been “my succour, my panacea” throughout her heartbreak, she says, and she’s immersing herself in it.<\/p>\n

For Katie’s Australian Vocal Ensemble, a 13-piece song cycle called Just for Dreaming has been created, with music by Jessica Wells and lyrics based on Trent’s notebook musings about his hope for a better life after a messy, troubled childhood.<\/p>\n

She’s heavily involved with the Eumundi School of Music, the “legacy project” she and friends began 10 years ago, providing professional music lessons and scholarships to budding school-age musos.<\/p>\n

And Katie Noonan is touring again, singing the songs from the album she never intended to write but, with a little help from a friend, is the one she needed to bring to life.<\/p>\n

Watch Katie Noonan’s Australian Story Monday 8pm (AEST) on ABCTV and ABC iview.<\/p>\n

Read more from Australian StoryLoading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As ARIA award-winning singer Katie Noonan sat in the audience watching author Trent Dalton’s book Love Stories coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,491259,447,22426,134,491258,491256,2581,119969,122718,491257],"class_list":["post-923513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-vocal-ensemble","tag-celebrities","tag-divorce","tag-entertainment","tag-george-band","tag-katie-noonan","tag-marriage","tag-singer-songwriter","tag-trent-dalton","tag-zac-hurren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}