Kirby has been honing her songs in Central Queensland where she drives the monster dump trucks at a coal mine and it’s all culminated in her debut album, Semi Precious.

She said she believed that her background gave her a bit of a different edge. 

Kirby said she had been songwriting since she was about 15 years old, but had been singing since she could talk.

“I’ve always been creative in that way, but have been taking it seriously since I was about 15,” she said.

“I would write songs for myself and perform at my local school fetes, then I decided I should take it a little bit more seriously. In 2011, I attended the Academy of Country Music and did the 2005 Camerata School of Country Music.”

Semi Precious is released on Saturday and Kirby said she was “really excited”

for people to hear it as it had been five years in the making.

“I’m committed to working seven days off and seven days on, so I’m a coal miner for a week and my partner has children as well, so juggling all that on days off is a challenge, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.

“Nine out of the 10 tracks were written by myself or co-written.”

Tamworth had a hand in the album with Shouldn’t Be Like This written with Tamworth guitarist Michael Cole, cowritten at the Academy.

The songs cover the years of Kirby’s songwriting experience, with the first song on the album written when she was 17 and the final track written two weeks

before she entered the studio to begin recording with Matt Fell.

Kirby is looking to be a bit of a controversial artist on the country music scene and said she wanted to encourage people who feel they don’t fit into the

mainstream.

“I really believe in my sound and it took me a long time to get to that point and I’ve have had a lot of criticism along the way,” she said.

“This is who I am, this is me and it’s a true representation of who I am.”

Kirby said her controversial image came from working with 70 men each week and the first single off the album was Porn Star.

She is also launching the Official GK brand of lingerie and said she wanted to empower women as she had lost 50kg in the past 12 months.

“That, in itself, has given me the willpower to push for other things in my life,” she said.