FEATURE: Spotlight: Nieve Ella — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Nieve Ella

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AN artists who is really…

shining and powering through 2023 with amazing songs and a singular sound, I am looking forwards to Nieve Ella releasing her E.P., Lifetime of Wanting, on 1st September. I am going to bring in some fairly recent interviews. I want to focus on those that focused on her previous E.P., Young & Naive. The West Midlander spoke with CLASH about a tremendous work - one that that won a whole wave of new fans:

“Since its global takeover a couple of years ago, TikTok has become the music industry buzzword, with talent blossoming and blooming from all corners of the platform. However, few truly nail the transition from ‘TikTok singer’ to mainstream starlet. But Nieve Ella is one of them.

After garnering a mammoth cult following on the app, the West-Midlands indie pop riser dropped her debut single ‘Girlfriend’ in mid-2022, a 90’s tinted guitar pop cut which grabbed the attention of many. Since then, Nieve has released a slew of tracks, delivering her own signature brand and raw talent of vulnerable and authentic song writing and infectious hooks. Now, these singles have culminated in her debut EP, ‘Young & Naïve’, a concise collection of the tracks she’s released over the past few months, plus brand-new cut ‘19 In A Week’.

After some brief trial-and-error on the cursed Zoom, Nieve and I were linked up to talk all things Nieve Ella.

‘Young & Naïve’ is just around the corner – how does it feel to have the last six months for you all in one little package?

It’s so surreal. Every time I talk about it, it kinda feels like a big joke. I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t understand how I’ve got this opportunity, to say all this stuff, I’ve never been able to do that before.

So, you’re feeling good about it!

Yes. Very, very good. I’m excited.

When did you realise that your music went beyond TikTok?

I don’t even feel like I realise it now. I still feel I’m this TikTok person, posting videos. I remember sending demos of the tracks to my friends and them being like ‘Woah Nieve, you can actually make music? You don’t just do covers?’ And then it was like oh wait – I can actually do this. That’s probably what it was. All I wanted was my friends to like it. If they like it, that’s all that matters.

Do they like the EP then, now it’s finished?

Yeah, yeah, yeah! It’s weird, all of the demos I sent was the EP, but I didn’t know it was going to become ‘Young & Naïve’. It wasn’t for an EP; I wasn’t signed or anything like that at the time of the demos.

As someone who is a serial songwriter, are you already working on your next release?

Yeah mate. I’m not stopping. I’ll be releasing for the next ten years, every two months. Just you watch (laughs).

Did you grow up playing music?

No. I only started playing guitar like three years ago – yeah, it’ll be three years in March. I wrote my first song then as well, fully. When I was little I was always doing drama or singing High School Musical. I’ve signed up for Britain’s Got Talent twice in my life.

Fuck it, do it again. Promo for the EP.

Hmm. Maybe not (laughs)! I’ve always sang, but it’s one of them difficult things where I’m from a tiny village, a place called Albrighton.

Obviously, you did – or do – a lot of covers. If you could collaborate with any artist who would it be! Sorry, hard question.

Actually, it’s not.

Can I guess?

Yeah.

Phoebe?

Yeah. BUT, I have two. Phoebe Bridgers, obviously. She’s too cool for me, though. I would not be able to write a song with her, I just wouldn’t, I’d want her to write all of it. The dynamics wouldn’t work. Maybe in another life. The main geezer though, is Sam Fender. He’s literally the reason I do this. September 2021, I went to his show in Birmingham, without a ticket! I tried the door and they said there were none, but a guy came up to me wanting to sell his ticket for twenty pounds. I was like yes please! Got into the gig, and I was like I want his songs. The production of ‘Girlfriend’ and ‘Fall 4 U’ were inspired by Sam Fender; if I didn’t go to that gig, those songs would not exist.

So, you’re kicking off the year with your new EP, ‘Young & Naïve’. What next? What’s the rest of the year gonna hold?

Um, that’s a good question! I don’t actually know. I feel like most of it I manifest! I don’t wanna stop, I don’t know what that’s gonna be, whether it’s releasing music or playing live. I want to explore a new era of music, getting the chance to release you might as well just do what the bloody hell you want (laughs). There’s a lot more I wanna do with recording and making songs, I wanna properly get into a room with my band, write songs together, record stuff live. I just wanna find this whole new sound. There’s so much more I want to let out, I just haven’t figured it out yet”.

If you have not heard or discovered her yet then go and follow Nieve Ella. She is an artist with a very long future that we are going to hear a lot more from. I am excited to see what comes after the E.P. release. I know she will be in demand around the world – and I hope she gets to play in a lot of different countries. NME spoke with the then-twenty-year-old abut navigating music and grief simultaneously. Nieve Ella chatted about her amazing Young & Naïve E.P. too:

“I never knew how to write songs before; it would just be me singing melodies,” Ella says, sitting cross-legged on a sunken sofa. But as soon as she played a guitar that her late father had left behind at home in Wolverhampton, she “just figured it out”. Ella studied tabs online, writing her first song ‘Four Years Gone’ in less than a week. “Playing guitar was a saviour for me,” she adds.

Fast forward three years and Ella has streams in the hundreds of thousands, and recently supported Inhaler on their UK tour as well as Dylan on her European stint. After every date of the latter, Ella – whose backing band comprises her “best friends” Finn Marlow (guitar), Matt Garnett (drums) and Fran Larkin (bass) – had hour-long queues of fans waiting to greet her at the merch stand. “Some girls were crying and saying, ‘You’ve really inspired me,” she says. “I want people to feel the way I feel when I listen to music; connected and not feeling alone.”

Ella’s songwriting process is as direct as it can be. Honed from her bedroom in lockdown, she found that speaking rather than singing lyrics over her guitar helped keep her style “conversational”. That’s reflected in the snippets of recorded phone calls with her mother on her ‘Young & Naive’. Elsewhere, on EP standout ‘Glasshouses’ she addresses her father, who passed away when she was 11, in the present tense (“I know you’re still out there somewhere”). Her father never lived with Ella and her two brothers at home with their mother; when she was a child, he moved to Spain and they had little contact. Songwriting, therefore, is a form of therapy for Ella.

PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Fieber

Ella says that she used to be “very shy”, and when NME suggests that her teenage years were stunted by grief, she nods. “I think so too. I’ve definitely realised that before it was like, ‘Oh, I’ve just got to carry on with life.’ But actually it’s a big thing.” She continues: “Music literally did save me. I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s just the best feeling.”

Her songwriting heroes Sam Fender and Phoebe Bridgers have done much to inspire her raw writing style. They in turn have helped pave the way or boosted the profiles of dozens of other exciting British acts, such as last year’s BRITs Rising Star winner Holly Humberstone. The Grantham artist’s heartbreak anthem, ‘Scarlett’, for example – written about her best friend’s doomed relationship – mirrors Ella’s flair for imagery of splintered romances. “My friends say you don’t care / I can tell by the way you stare when I’m talking to you,” Ella sings on ‘Fall 4 U’. Performing the track live has allowed her to unlock the confidence that has always been there, hiding behind her timidity.

“I feel like I’ve connected to my family more because they’ve heard me now,” Ella says. “Instead of me just being a child at a party, sitting in the corner not talking, they all say to me, ‘Nieve, you’ve become so confident.’ I’m like, ‘This is who I am; I am confident.’ I just didn’t want to show it before”.

In fact, I think I will keep my interviewing sourcing around the previous E.P. Of course, she released Your Room last month. Big House came out in April. The terrific His Sofa came out in May. These three singles are among the best I have heard all year. Prior to getting to one more older interview. CLASH highlighted a brilliant and hugely memorable song in their feature from May:

“West Midlands artist Nieve Ella returns with introspective new single ‘His Sofa’.

The songwriter is moving towards her ambitions, with each new song taking her closer to her goals. Out now, ‘His Sofa’ finds Nieve looks inwards at a key moment in her life, allowing fans into a vulnerable space in her life.

As ever, Nieve’s grasp of word play is exceptional, but it’s her use of melody – so pretty, and so affecting – that drives the song’s message home.

“It’s a love song filled with insecurities,” explains Nieve Ella. “It was written at a time when I felt so vulnerable, being new to a relationship I had never experienced before. It’s an overreaction and none of it is true but I wanted a song I could scream in the car, on stage, in my room.”

Constructed alongside close collaborator Joe Horridge (Wasia Project, Renao, grentperez), it’s a beautiful piece of autobiographical pop, one that moves Nieve to the next level”.

Let’s round off with another interview. I am sure there will be more in the coming weeks around the new E.P., Lifetime of Wanting. Go and check out her official website and make sure you stream it on 1st September. Nieve Ella plays Reading on 26th August. She plays Leeds the day after. Part of such a massive festival, this will be great exposure for this wonderful artist. She then heads to All Points East in London on 28th August. Having played Boardmasters Festival on 11th August, she has a 23rd August gig for Rock En en Seine in Paris. It is a busy and eventful month for one of our very best young musicians. It is great reading interviews from earlier in the year when Nieve Ella is asked what’s on the horizon. Now that a few months have passed, we can see that she has either fulfilled some of those gigs - or they are pretty close now. It is really exciting. I will end with an interview from NOTION. She discussed Dylan (another incredible young British artist), quitting college and playing festivals:

“I read that you quit college to pursue your music career. Do you remember a ‘light switch’ moment for you, when you realised this was the path you were destined to take? Or has it been more of a slow burn?

I don’t think I ever had a light switch moment to be honest, I always knew deep down that this was where I would be, no matter what capacity it was going to happen in. Joining a music course at college was something I needed for my confidence. I think when I say “I dropped out” it can sound like a negative thing, but it definitely isn’t. I was just learning more on the outside world than in class.

Signing to your first ever record deal at 18, how do you feel about documenting such a pivotal and time in your life? What do you think a younger Nieve would think of your progress?

Signing was something I never ever expected, I didn’t really know what it meant at the time to be honest. I think younger Nieve would be as confused as I still am now, I don’t really understand how it’s all happening, but I just know that it’s the positive feeling I’ve always strived and knew I’d feel one day.

I know that you had been waiting a while to release this project. Were there any challenges along the way compiling it?

I think the only challenge I dealt with and am still dealing with now is my tendency to panic that people won’t like what I’m doing or saying. At the time, no one had heard anything like it from me. Before releasing, it was just me on my bedroom floor; me and my acoustic guitar covering my favourite songs.

You started songwriting at a young age, and first picked up the guitar in 2020. So far you’ve crafted a very unique and transparent style of storytelling, how would you describe your musical style?

I just say how I feel in that exact moment, which is mostly on my bedroom floor or in my bed. I actually seem to write my favourite songs after watching a live video of one of my favourite bands/artists on YouTube which is mainly either Sam Fender or Flyte. Then I just seem to shape whatever I want to say with the feeling on my guitar.

PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Fieber

Last year you closed off 2022 with your gripping release “Glasshouses”. Was there any significance in seeing off 2022 with that track in particular?

“Glasshouses” is definitely my most personal song on the EP. The end of the year is always a pretty weird time for me as I lost my dad around that time when I was 10, so having the song come out when it did felt right.

This month you’re going on tour with Dylan, that’s exciting, what tracks off your new EP are you buzzing to play? Do you think you will have space to play any unreleased music in your set?

I’m so excited mostly to play “Blu Shirt Boy” as I wrote it about Harry Styles, and I know a lot of Dylan’s fans are Harries. I’m definitely going to try and squeeze an unreleased song on the set and see what people think!

In the last few weeks, you’ve announced some really exciting live projects such as a slot at All Points East festival, and TRNSMT festival. How does it feel to have these on the horizon?

It feels so amazing as not only do I get to play but, I’ve only been to 2 festivals in my life so I feel like this summer will be the summer I’ve always wished I had from when I was 16. It’s just a dream”.

I will end it there. The magnificent Nieve Ella is going from strength to strength. With huge gigs coming and another tremendous E.P. around the corner, here is someone that everyone needs to know about. What does the next year or two hold? Maybe a debut album. Perhaps some gigs in the U.S. and further afar. There is no telling when it comes to this wonderful talent. If Nieve Ella is not on your radar just yet, then go and follow her…