She's been singing for as long as she can remember – now she's released her very own song titled ‘Tug of War'.

Tauranga 16-year-old Venice Harris has already had a pretty full-on musical life. At age six she was jet-setting across the country and the world, singing, acting and dancing in musical theatre shows.

'I can't really remember not singing. I've been singing like forever,” says Venice.

Her musical theatre stint has seen her perform in world class shows such as ‘Annie', ‘Les Misérables' and ‘The Sound of Music.

But these days, Venice is stepping away from the stage and into the recording studio.

'I'd done so much musical theatre throughout my whole childhood so I wanted to do more of my own stuff,” says Venice.

Working with New York-based producers Johnny Cummings and Sam Polizzi, Venice co-wrote her song ‘Tug of War'.

'It took a couple weeks to finish writing it and then it took a while to get the whole sound and mix, the backing track, then recording it.”

Using Zoom online, Venice says: 'We had to set up a good time that he'd be awake [in NY] and I'd be awake at the same time so that we'd have a long enough period of time to record the song”.

Venice says people who enjoy songs that are 'a bit more dramatic” will like ‘Tug of War'.

'I think the songs that I prefer singing are very acoustic, not super upbeat songs I guess. I wanted to write something that could relate to a lot of different things; like it can relate to peoples' relationships and it can relate to your own self.”

Venice says a many school friends were shocked to find out she was putting out a song.

'A couple of my friends at school didn't actually know I was releasing a song and then when I posted on my Instagram...they were all like: ‘What? That's crazy!'”

Venice says her mates' feedback has been great.

'They've all said it's awesome and they love listening to it, so that's really good. I think it's kind of different. It's not the everyday stuff that you hear on the radio, so I hope people listen to it and they enjoy it and want to keep listening.”

Venice is planning to release another song this autumn, with ‘Tug of War' on Spotify now.