Watch 12 Year Old Lorde Performing at Her Middle School Battle of the Bands [YouTube Video]

It's hard to imagine that Lorde, the New Zealand born rising star, was blowing people away during live performances over four years ago. After all, she just turned 17 this month. Videos have recently surfaced of the "Royals" singer performing with her classmates for her schools battle of the bands at age 12. They performed the 1975 hard-rock song “Man on the Silver Mountain," by Rainbow and "Edie" by the Cult.

Not only does Lorde's talent stand out, but her overall stage presence, confidence, and maturity are rare for anyone, much less a 12-year-old. The same goes for the rest of the band, who were all very proficient with their instruments for that age and played very well together. According to the youtube description, Lorde's band only won 3rd place in the competitions covers category, which we find hard to believe.

Lorde signed to Universal just a year after that performance at the age of 13. An A&R scout got a hold of some recordings of Lorde singing acoustic covers with a friend. By the age of 14 she began working with some of Universal's songwriters and producers, and the rest is as they say, history. Below are audio recordings of Lorde singing "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon and "Mama Do" by Pixie Lot.

You can purchase Lorde's debut album Pure Heroine on iTunes and Amazon.