“Do I fight, or help untie a restless mind that tries to keep it all in?” Harrison Storm asks at the start of his debut album. To many, this would seem a rhetorical question, but for the Australian indie folk singer/songwriter, it’s the beginning to a wondrous journey of unbridled introspection into the deepest crevices of his own heart and mind. Released via Nettwerk Music Group, Wonder, Won’t You? is an invitation to join Storm on this adventure – to break down our walls and open up as he does the same in song.

“For me, music is a lot about self-discovery and honesty,” Storm says. “My stories have a lot to do with connection and connecting with myself, but also really trying to connect with the world. Growing up, I could never really find my place or fit in – and that’s me being super overly sensitive, which I think is a good thing. When I write a song, it helps me realize that all these emotions and learnings are just part of the human experience, and that it’s okay to have those heavy and introspective thoughts.”

Hailing from just outside Melbourne, Storm discovered music’s therapeutic powers at an early age. Growing up in a culture of toxic masculinity where “boys were boys,” he would listen to artists like City and Colour, Angus Stone, and Jeff Buckley, and feel a little less alone.

“They were singing about things that were almost taboo in my everyday life,” he reflects. “Hearing these men sing about their feelings really struck a nerve with me. It felt very refreshing.”

Those singer/songwriters inspired Storm to pursue his own music career, and in 2015 he’d made enough money to finance his debut EP Sense of Home, which was produced by his friend and fellow Melbourne Nettwerk artist, Hayden Calnin. A record deal with Nettwerk soon followed, and over the course of the next seven years Storm released four more EPs: Change It All (2017), Falling Down (2019), Be Slow (2020), and Under Dusk (2022) – the latter a collaboration with Enna Blake. To date, Storm’s songs have racked up over 350 million global streams, with radio plays on Australia’s triple j and the UK’s BBC Radio 2. The song "Sense of Home" was certified Gold in Canada in 2020.

For Storm, it’s the connections he makes through music that matter most. “My first ever headline show was something I’ll never forget,” he smiles. "Seeing people in the audience react to my music emotionally was a powerful moment for me and really inspired me to keep going in that direction." Music has already taken Storm around the world, touring throughout Australia, Europe, and North America alongside artists like Gregory Alan Isakov, Tash Sultana, Snow Patrol, and The Head and the Heart.

For these reasons and more, it’s easy to forget that Wonder, Won’t You? is Storm’s first full-length record. “It doesn’t really feel like my debut album in a way,” he admits. “I’ve released five EPs. I don’t feel any pressure or buildup.”

Still, it was important that these songs be as true to him as possible; that they be his and his alone. “I was pretty adamant from early on that I wanted to write all of it,” he explains. “There’s something so rewarding for me about being able to create something myself. I can’t build a house or fix your oven if it breaks, but I can write a song, so being able to create something myself and stand by it as something that I’ve written means a lot to me.”

Storm collaborated with ARIA Music Award nominee Dustin Tebbutt to produce the record. “He’s one of my favorite producers in this genre, and I felt like he was able to really get what I wanted out of my head and into the song,” Storm says of Tebbutt. “The difference with the EPs is that I really felt like I put a lot of the production ideas and the sonic beds and landscapes into someone else’s hands. With Dustin, because he first and foremost is an artist himself, I always felt like the song and my vision of the song was number one priority.”

That vision comes to life through ten songs aching with vulnerability and raw emotion.

Lead single "Warm a Cold Heart" sets the tone as Storm sings about being kinder to yourself and believing in the good parts of who you are. “All I want to know from love is how to warm a cold heart,” he confesses in the song’s chorus, his warm voice a beacon of light and longing ringing out softly over a bed of acoustic guitars.

“Out of all the songs, ‘Warm a Cold Heart’ speaks to me the most,” Storm shares. “I feel like it really represents where I am now and where I have been in the past year or two with my personal journey, looking after my mental health. I have suffered with a lot of anxiety throughout my life; I’ve done a lot of work on that and just taking care of myself. This song is really that kind part of my personality that I want to nurture. I really wanted that energy and the energy that song gives me to be the first taste of the album, because I know that there are moments in the others that are heavy, and I want to start with something more positive and light.”

Storm holds nothing back in Wonder, Won’t You?: He dives headfirst into the chase and pull of desire on "This Love," an indulgence of intoxication with an air of intimacy and allure. He spills his heart on the achingly tender “My Way Home,” blending acoustic and electronic elements together into a heartfelt expression of adoration and belonging; Storm calls it his “pure love song.”

On “Daylight Sun,” Storm extends an outstretched arm for a friend in need, shining a healing light in the dark. In “Tomorrow,” he reckons with the often overwhelming chaos in our society, finding safety and clarity in the comfort of a loved one. “It’s about not letting that reality of it all bring you down, but to accept it and roll with it,” he says.

Wonder, Won’t You? finds Storm looking within as he navigates life’s often rocky ebbs and flows. He dwells in the depths of memory, of moments come and gone on "In Good Time," a nostalgic sepia-toned daydream of forgiving the past and running into the future.

“I was listening to my previous release, ‘Sense of Home’, and I started bawling my eyes out just in reflection of time past and all the things I’ve experienced in-between then,” Storm recalls. “I started playing my guitar while I was still in that mindset, and this song came out. It’s kind of a response to where I’m at now, versus where I was when that song came out in 2016.”

Whereas "In Good Time" feels like a weight off the shoulders, one of the record’s heaviest moments comes in “Stone” as Storm learns to be okay with being alone. It’s “the pain of losing your sense of community and some friendships because you're changing and growing,” he describes. “Wanting to fit in and belong but finding it’s time to be by yourself, despite it being hard, and doing the self-work, digging deeper into yourself to learn what you need.”

Storm wrote “Stone” in the worst part of Melbourne’s lockdowns. “At its peak, I could barely leave my house,” he says. “I was so anxious, and I had this epiphany that I really needed to work on it. The chorus is, ‘I’d rather be alone than together now,’ but for me, it’s not a negative thing. I need to be alone so I can have these reflections. I could’ve gone down such a negative spiral, but with the help around me I was able to be with it and nurture myself within it, so I could come out.”

The album’s title Wonder, Won’t You? comes from a lyric in “Stone,” and for Storm, that line says it all: It’s his perspective on life, how he thinks, how he feels, and how he connects to the world.

“Before I’m an artist, I’m just a human being,” he says. “When I feel stagnant with my wellbeing, I get to a point where something’s got to give. I find a lot of comfort knowing that I can pick up a guitar and release what I need to release. It feels spiritual in a way. Music is therapeutic in the sense that, if I’m really struggling with a particular emotion and I can’t seem to shake it, putting it into a song helps.”

Intimate and unabridged, Harrison Storm’s debut album sees the singer/songwriter at his most vulnerable, his most sensitive, and his most human. These songs helped him work through his own struggles, and now he hopes they help others do the same.

“You’re never alone with your emotions. We all experience suffering, and it’s okay to feel them and reach out. That’s the main thing: People aren’t alone with what they’re feeling.”

Wonder, won't you? It’s a question as much as it is a statement of intent. Join Harrison Storm on this intimate journey and find your own state of inner peace.

Wonder, Won’t You? is out January 12th.