IT was fitting that Alex The Astronaut recently set a new Australian record by performing on top of the country's highest's building, the 322-metre SkyPoint, on the Gold Coast.
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Since releasing her debut single Already Home in 2016, Alexandra Lynn has consistently strove to pitch her songs above the ordinary and pushed for new levels of acceptance.
Her folk-pop single Not Worth Hiding became the unofficial anthem of the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite and Lynn's latest album, How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater, deals directly with her diagnosis last year of having Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on the track Octopus.
Lynn says she approaches these songs by firstly identifying what issues she believes need to be publicly discussed.
"When I'm writing a song, I'm seeing it from an outside perspective," Lynn says. "For Octopus, that was about being diagnosed with ASD and with that song it was mainly coming from a place that I was really nervous about.
"I felt not that great about it, but I wrote what I needed to hear, which in turn, made it a more positive song."
Leading into the release of Octopus, Lynn admits she was nervous about revealing too much about herself. But the response to How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater quickly put Lynn at ease.
"When people come up and share their stories on it, that's a really lovely part," she says. "I feel like that's where the magic part of music comes in, when people feel that vulnerability and are able to share their stories back at you."
Lynn was 21 when Not Worth Hiding finished 23rd in the 2017 Triple J Hottest 100 and became tied to the same-sex marriage campaign. The song shared Lynn's own experience of coming out as gay at high school.
She admits she struggled with the responsibility that was thrust upon her.
"We're all living in a time that's very complex and there's big things that are changing and that's naturally what I'm drawn to writing about," she says.
"My thing I struggle with is being some representative for these issues, because I don't really know that much and I would prefer someone more qualified did that."
Alex The Astronaut's recent performance of her song Ride My Bike at SkyPoint was to promote the Gold Coast's free Springtime music festival, which is scheduled for September 2 to 4. Other acts performing at Springtime include Thelma Plum, Skegss and Skunkhour.
Lynn got the full "rock star treatment" and was even flown by helicopter to the Surfers Paradise skyscraper.
"It was very cool and very scary," she says. "It got less scary as time went by and the helicopter was very fun.
"The scariest part was under my seat there was a grate so I could see through to the ground. That was quite unnerving."
Alex The Astronaut performs at Canberra's Kambri on Thursday, Newcastle's Cambridge Hotel on Saturday and River Sounds in Bellingen on Sunday.