How one regional artist found a wider stage online

Isy Cappo’s mum remembers digging trenches so power lines could be laid on their property. A generation later, with the family home connected to a high-speed plan over the nbn network, her daughter can finish a 12-hour disability support shift in Goulburn and still join a Sydney-based songwriting session that night.

“I just hop on a 7pm video call and I’m able to write a song with a producer,” says Cappo, 21.

Home bass

Family is a big part of what keeps Cappo at home. “As an Italian, it’s our culture. If you’re not sitting around the table making noise with your family, then where are you?” she laughs.

Cappo began writing as a teenager, but from Goulburn, the path from writing songs to releasing them and building a career wasn’t clear. “No one around me was releasing music,” she says. “But I thought, I would love to see my name next to Beyoncé’s on a playlist one day.”

So, when she was 14, Cappo and her mum searched online for a recording studio and found producer Steven Lindsay at Old Binda Road Music Studio in Crookwell, 45 kilometres away. Lindsay recorded Cappo’s first song and taught her how music distribution worked.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, my song could go on like 150 platforms all on the one day’,” she says.

Cappo began releasing more music and building audiences on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Traditionally, a record label was the gatekeeper. But with the support of fast upload speeds over her nbn connection, social media gave her another way in: building an audience first.

“Artists are in this really cool position where you can find your fans first and find the people who actually care about your music,” she says.

Open mic

In 2021, Cappo connected with a rapper based in New York through US distribution company Adventures Music. She wrote and recorded a verse remotely for his song Enough. “I was just this girl from Goulburn, but I was on a New York rapper’s song. It was sick!”

Then, in 2024, an Instagram ad led her to The Artist Studio Academy, a nine-month artist-development program. When Cappo couldn’t travel to Sydney, she joined online, dialling into masterclasses and roundtables during lunch breaks at work. The program also connected her with professionals from Spotify, Sony and Universal Music.

"You'd still have your voice heard," she says. "I still had that creative connection through the Zooms."

She calls it her "first step" into the industry, opening the door to a community of artists, producers and mentors.

Reliable connectivity matters when that collaboration happens in real time. A glitch during an online production session can “stop the flow and the creativity”, she says.

Higher frequencies

Those digital connections have increasingly become real-world opportunities. In Sydney for gigs, classes and recording sessions, she was often meeting people she already knew online.

“You find someone in a crowd that you’ve followed on Instagram since 2020 and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, hey, I know you.’ And that was all done from rural Australia.”

Her network now stretches overseas. Through The Artist Studio, Cappo attended songwriting camps in Italy, Bali and Cabo, Mexico, building relationships with international producers and artists.

“They were my mentors once, but now they’re my friends,” she says.

This year she’s heading to London with another artist to write with producers they first met at the Italian songwriting camp, relationships they’ve maintained online since returning to Australia. Cappo is also in discussions for a Melbourne-to-Brisbane tour with Borderline Music Group.

Meanwhile, the teenager who once couldn’t see anyone around her releasing music is becoming visible to other young regional artists. Cappo recently posted a TikTok post declaring: “We can’t all be in LA. Someone’s got to hold it down in rural Australia.” It received more than 20,000 views, with young women from regional Australia banding together just in her comment section.

“When I moved into town and had nbn, it was like that’s literally the basis of how I started my career,” she says. “Without it, I wouldn’t have had this… opportunity to grow connection and find people that want to listen to my music.”

For Cappo, those online moments were part of growing a music career from regional Australia. Video calls, uploads and live collaboration can all ask different things of a home connection, especially as the way we use the internet at home keeps changing.

With nbn full fibre becoming available to more homes, check what technology is available at your address.

Isy’s experience is based on her individual circumstances. Customer experience may vary.