Stefanie Duzel Fires Back With New Single “Ain’t Gon Be Me”

Following the 2023 release of her debut album The Other Side, Victorian Americana artist Stefanie Duzel releases her new single ‘Ain’t Gon Be Me’ out today.

When Stefanie Duzel began recording her debut album three years ago she was knee-deep in navigating her pub/music venue The Macedon Railway Hotel through the pandemic before she and her business were devastated further by a fire that tore through the building in 2021. 

Though ultimately the fire at the hotel saw the demise of her business, it opened the doors to new and exciting opportunities to pursue her music, with the resulting album The Other Side forming the backdrop to a run of live shows that took her from Melbourne to Tamworth and beyond.

Songs from the album received airplay on PBS, 3RRR and across community radio in Australia, while The Other Side was included in the Best of 2023 edition of the International Americana Music Show, with host Michael Park describing it as “a wonderful debut album… multiple great songs.” In their premiere of the title-track single, the website Sunburnt Country Music said, “The song has fiddle and piano, guts and sass and country charm and twang, and also plenty of joy.”

The album was produced by Lachlan Bryan and Damian Cafarella, acclaimed producers, artists, musician in their own right. They enabled Stefanie to bring ten songs to life in an intoxicating mix of Americana, country and folk-rock, all with a soaring pop sensibility built into their DNA.

Now Duzel has again joined forces with producer and musician Cafarella to record the attitude and swagger-laden sound of her new 2024 single ‘Ain’t Gon Be Me’. The Duzel-penned song has an irreverent and sassy quality as it addresses the age old trap of falling for the wrong kinda guy, as she explains. “I just laughed and laughed to myself when writing this song cause I finally wasn’t attached to the story anymore. This is a song about dodging bullets and pulling the pin…..eventually!”

Imagine a stage lit with warm hues of gold and amber, where the air is filled with a blend of earthiness and rhythm, that’s where this song resides. It hits a hard country funk groove, peppered with devilish slide guitar as Duzel unleashes her unbridled, wailing vocal, marked by soaring inflections and a rhythmic pulse, drawing from both the traditional roots of country and the vibrant pulse and passion of funk and soul.