My family was a little musical, but I wasn’t. Mum was a trained singer but didn’t do it professionally. When I was a toddler, she’d take me to her singing classes. I sat on the floor and just thought the sound she was making was gorgeous.

Brett Sheehy. Photo © Lachlan Woods

We always had pianos in our house. Mum played, as did one of my sisters. Another played the violin, another the guitar. I was the black sheep of the family, because I never learned an instrument, but I did play with the piano. When I was about 12, I stuck drawing pins in all the piano felts to make it sound like a harpsichord. Even though my mum was incredibly strict, weirdly she loved the sound too. So, my act of vandalism went unpunished, and we kept the drawing pins in that piano for about four or five years.

At school, I sang a little, but I was so shy and nervous, I gave that up.

When my older sister hit puberty, she fell in love with soft rock, and everything she loved I...