One day this Spring, when 19-year-old Sofia Isella was fast asleep, her mum came into her room and asked her if she wanted to support Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium. “I was sleeping, I wasn’t the first to know about it. My mom slammed open my door early and was like ‘SOFIA. SOFIA.’” Isella told the Standard, about the request from the world’s biggest popstar. “While I was half asleep, she asked: ‘Do I wanna open for Taylor at the Eras Tour?’”.
Isella’s mother was laughing, and soon the young musician was too. First of all, the answer was “obvious” (yes, of course), but they both found it “hilarious on multiple levels” that the question was being asked out loud. It hasn’t become any more ordinary since. “I just keep repeating ‘wow’” Isella says. “It didn’t register as real then, March 30, and… it still hasn’t.”
Isella’s mum isn’t quite like everyone else’s: she’s involved in her career, and even helps play some of her music on stage, queueing up some backing tracks. The rest of the Isella clan also help with the show too, assisting with visuals and photos. That means they will all be helping Isella play Wembley tonight, by far the biggest gig of her life so far.
SOFIA ISELLA (she stylises her artistic name in capitals), was born in the US, but has lived in Australia’s Gold Coast since her family were quarantined there during the pandemic for her dad’s job. Writing songs since the age of eight, she’s built her career with low-fi gigs and canny online promotion, and only did her first headline show in London last month at the Camden Assembly, which has a capacity of a few hundred. A classically trained violinist since the age of three, she’s previously supported Tom Odell and Melanie Martinez.
ISELLA has not yet released an album, just a series of singles since 2022, and will only play six songs at Wembley. But all are remarkably accomplished, with pulsating and complex electronic production that’s reminiscent of Billie Eilish. Isella has 500,000 Instagram followers, many of whom leave comments saying how her songs speak to them deeply, and they can’t understand why she’s not better known.
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While she’s young, her work has maturity, and an often unsettling intensity: like Swift, Isella feels lyrics are all important. As well as Nine Inch Nails star Trent Reznor and Beck, she credits writers Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood among her key influences. One song, Unattractive, has the words: “I wanna pull my face off, it's impulsive”. Another song, Everybody Supports Women, explores the performative nature of social media feminism. “Everybody supports women until a woman's doing better than you,” go the lyrics. “Everybody wants you to love yourself until you actually do.”
ISELLA is one of five young women who are supporting Swift for five gigs this week – they’re all playing before her main support act, Paramore. The young musician, who is kicking off the shows, stands out, partly because all the others are all British: RAYE, Suki Holly Humberstone and Maisie Peters.
Like many of the women, ISELLA is a huge fan of the all-conquering country star. She says Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department did “a bunch of numbers” on me, calling it a “f**king hurricane”, with the “the most ribcage squeezing sentences I’ve ever seen on an album”. “Just the prolificacy alone, and not only that but the quality of prolificacy, was so inspiring I could cry,” Isella says passionately.
“I would walk through the day and remember a line and just repeat it over and over at different speeds,” Isella says of the record, which also inspired her to write more. “It gave me that feeling of that’s what we’re all doing it for,” Isella says. “To send shockwaves of that communal inspiration that regurgitates and recycles itself.”
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Isella is approaching this gig a little differently to her other ones. “This whole thing is about celebrating Taylor’s legacy,” she says passionately, of her preparation for a stadium crowd. “Just to speak on it on a more physical level, it’s insane. I just get so excited for a challenge, I chomp at the bit... I’ve been going into mode for it since March. I know that Taylor trains for it like an Olympian and that’s the way to do it. She’s a fantastic role model for anyone, both men and women. I look up to her.”
One thing that won’t be different is how much Isella’s family play a role in her music – with her mum actually a part of the live show. “The things I’ll be doing the same though since I used to play gigs at an empty bar or empty malls in Australia, is my family is all a part of it,” she explains. “My mom is running the tracks backstage from empty spaces to Wembley Stadium, my little sister takes my photos, my dad made the intro visuals that I walk out to. They’re the reason I’m still sane… somewhat” she jokes.
For now, Isella can’t wait to get out there. “I can’t speak to why Taylor chooses her openers or what her thought process is because I’ve never talked to her, and I don’t know her personally,” she says. “But she creates an environment of safety in her world, especially in her live music setting, and that kindness and love that she cultivates into her fans makes it less daunting to be walking onto the biggest stage in the world.”
