About Gannon
Singer. Songwriter. Storyteller.
I was born and raised in Adelaide and now call Melbourne home. We lived in low socioeconomic conditions and formal music lessons were never possible. I asked, cried and begged, but I sang anyway, leading school choirs, singing in church and eventually serving as a worship minister.
Music became my escape from a childhood shaped by an abusive father, family violence and a mother who struggled to regulate overwhelming emotions. I later performed as a drag artist, opened Feast Festival in 2012, twice reached the grand final of Adelaide's Search for a Star and reached the Top 100 of Australian Idol.
As an adult I survived abusive relationships, coercive control, addiction and PTSD. Then I lost Mum, Sonia, my best friend and greatest believer, only twenty days after her diagnosis. Life knocked me down again.
I'm Still Here is the answer I kept giving life. Not perfectly fixed, not untouched by what happened, but still standing, still creating and still finding purpose in what I survived.
The music and the coaching work growing beside it share one purpose: helping someone else feel less alone and believe that being knocked down does not have to end their story.
"For them, it was about appearance.
For me, I was breaking inside."
Gannon Waye
The Series
Ten Episodes. One Life.
From childhood to today. Read the chapters as they're released, or dive into what's available now.
Childhood
Before I knew what abuse was, it was already shaping everything.
“I learned to survive before I learned to live.”
Identity
I woke up every day wishing I could be someone else.
“The world kept telling me who I should be. And I kept trying to become it.”
Church & Rejection
I found belonging. Then I came out. And overnight, it all disappeared.
“People I spoke to daily vanished from my life completely. No conversations. No closure. Just silence.”
“I confused survival with love.”
Gannon Waye
Abuse & Relationships
I believed love and pain were supposed to coexist.
“Chaos felt familiar. So I kept choosing it.”
Addiction & Recovery
At 28, something inside me finally broke differently.
“I called my mum straight away. I stayed honest throughout all of it.”
Losing Mum
Even while dying, she was still protecting me.
“She organised for someone to be with me when she called to say she didn't have long left. Even in death, she was still loving everyone else first.”
“At 33, I finally became okay being me.”
Gannon Waye
PTSD & Survival
Trauma doesn't only live in memory. It lives in the body.
“It's not just what happened. It's how it stays.”
Rebuilding
Six years of learning what I should have been taught at the start.
“I learned how to sit with discomfort instead of running from it.”
Music & Purpose
Music became the place where every part of my story finally had somewhere to go.
“If something I create reaches even one person sitting alone believing they are broken beyond repair… then every part of this journey matters.”
“Music became the place my pain finally had somewhere to go.”
Gannon Waye
Still Here
After everything… I'm still here.
“No more abandoning myself. No more repeating the same cycles. No more shrinking to survive.”