With the Queensland Music Awards open for applications this week, Emma Louise — who collected three awards in 2011 — talks about how it started her career back in 2007.

“I went into the QSong, which is now QMA, when I was 15 and I can honestly say if it wasn’t for that I would probably still be in Cairns because that’s how I met my manager and lots of people that I work with now,” Emma says.

It was this break that eventually led Emma south, when she moved to Brisbane permanently at the age of 18. “I love Cairns but there’s definitely more opportunities in Brisbane and I was so keen to do stuff with my music that I loved every second.”

It was last year that all her hard work, and the move to Brisbane, paid off, as Emma won the Song of the Year Award as well as the Pop and Folk/Singer Songwriter awards at the inaugural Queensland Music Awards. “To be able to go into the same awards and win some other ones, I think it’s a really great awards and I think it gives everyone a fair go,” she says.

With the increased exposure from the QMAs, Emma’s schedule is definitely packed, with recording and international tours coming up, including the ‘Out Of Water’ US tour.

“So we go to America in two weeks and just before that we are trying to get as much recorded before we go away. In April we are recording and in May we go away to London for a month; there’ll be a lot of running around and stuff but it should be good.”

This will be Emma’s debut album, and it seems to have taken a life all of its own. “We were going to do an EP but it’ll be an album now. I’m just recording the newer songs that I have ... I’m not trying to take it in a certain direction or away from the EP, I’m just doing what comes out naturally and we’ll see where it goes."

Entries for the 2012 Queensland Music Awards are open from Thursday March 1.