Interview with singer-songwriter Nadia Reid

Photography by Meek Zuiderwyk


                      "What’s the focus point?" asks Nadia Reid, "Is it to get on a big stage and have attention? Or is it this insatiable urge to write and play, write and play? You have to start from the very bottom. And be patient." That patience and perseverance has paid off in the form of Reid's second album, Preservation, where experience from roads less traveled finds relief in returning home to the ones we love.  "I’ll never know what it's like on the other side of the songs that I write," says Reid, "but for me, [it] is a huge healing process... There’s this place I have to tap into. Sometimes I get there and sometimes it feels impossible. I don’t know what it is. But when I’m there, I’m present and songs tend to flow, and it all feels right." An unstoppable inner strength pours through the songs of Preservation, asking "How dark, how heavy?" if it's true that music is an anchor, than Reid's is no exception, a tried and true, durable sound that echoes inside of us, familiar terrains come to new light.


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? You've remarked that much of your current work is about strength, observation and sobriety, about being able to see the future again. Is music the great translator of these realizations for you?

Nadia: Every day I feel some sort of gratitude towards the fact I am a songwriter. Some days it bowls me over, others it's just a small thought. Through releasing my second album I had to reflect on a come to realize how much music has comforted me through most of my life. As a 5 year old, I remember listening to my mum singing loudly along to Des’ree, then in high school learning the guitar, and later singing became an outlet for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a therapy, it was the thing that kept me in school.

​To turn an experience into art has got to be the best feeling in the world. My relationship with music that moves me always involves this feeling of nostalgia or familiarity or feeling understood. I’ve never been able to explain that feeling of listening to a song by someone you don’t know, but you feel like they’ve written it for you. Writing and recording Preservation was at a time when I was getting back on feet, I was healing and learning more about my self. It was a sort of emotional growth-spurt. ​

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?

Nadia: The way I discovered the band The Be Good Tanyas was through the film Because of the Winn Dixie. I remember being floored by their voices and sound. That was an important early moment for me. ​

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? 

Nadia: There is this faint memory of singing one of the first songs I wrote, The Rise & Fall, to my boyfriend at the time and then I sung it to him, we were about 16, so shit was crazy, it was really late at night on the bedroom floor, and I think we were both moved by it. That’s a memory that’s stuck for me. People still ask for that song at shows sometimes and it’s like re-reading your diary from when you were 16 years old.

​AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? 

Nadia: I’ve grown up in a really strong musical community. When I left school I moved to Lyttelton, the port town of Christchurch. That’s when I met Ben Edwards who later would produce both of my albums. There was a band called The Eastern, who my good friend Hanna Harding (Aldous Harding) was singing in, there was Delaney Davidson, Marlon Williams, Tim Moore, and Anthonie Tonnon (from hometown Dunedin). I learned then that music has to be an obsession before anything else. I witnessed what a true artist looked like. Music has to be a daily thing I do regardless of anything else. You have to live it. That’s the focus. Writing and playing. Playing live around the world is just a bonus.

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 

Nadia: There’s this place I have to tap in to. Sometimes I get there and sometimes it feels impossible. I don’t know what it is. But when I’m there. I’m present and songs will tend to flow, and it feels right, and often I know something will stick when I become obsessed with the lyric or phrase or song. Or I feel moved, or excited by it. I might record it on my phone and listen back as I’m walking or something like that..

AHC: You've remarked that places of newness must be where all the good stuff happens, that artists must be uncomfortable, mustn’t stay in their local environments too long, could you talk about how exposure to what we've yet to encounter, about ourselves and the unknown, helps expand the worlds inside us? Do you think that beyond artists, this might be true of us all?

Nadia: From my own experience, looking back, all the best songs have come from situations where I’ve been outside of my comfort zone. When I’ve been lonely, or disappointed or confused, or filled with joy. Music aside, I think a lot of people can relate to this statement.

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, even if only partially, an imperfect vehicle through which to translate the taste of a particular feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?

Nadia: Absolutely. I’ll never know what its like on the other side of the songs that I write but for me, writing songs is a huge healing process. I can’t bear to think what it’d be like without this form of expression. With the music and songs that move me, often the writer has undergone some kind of pain or experience or realization, and there’s that connection, the language of music, where I feel completely understood and comforted, inspired, moved, excited… you know what I mean? That spine-tingling moment. I live for that shit.

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?

Nadia: Putting on a Judy Collins’ record and cooking dinner.

AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?

Nadia: What’s the focus point? Is it to get on a big stage and have attention? Or is it this insatiable urge to write and play, write and play? You have to start from the very bottom. And be patient. For me, none of this was the plan, it was just the only thing I was good at, and at times it was a way to pay rent (sometimes). I see a lot of people who like the idea of being in a band but won’t go through all the hard stuff. As for self-doubt… That’s a daily thing for me, part of me feels it’s a sort of protective mechanism, saving me from becoming an asshole.. but sometimes it’s just annoying. Ask me in five years…

AHC: You just released your latest album Preservation last month, could you talk some about this record, how long it took to write and record, what the binding themes of this work are for you personally? Do you have any new projects moving forward or ideas that are percolating for the future?  

Nadia: Preservation is the two years straight after making my first record Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs, I went through a big life change, separating from my boyfriend, moved cities. It absolutely destroyed me. Positively, I learnt a shit load about myself and had to really make peace with who I was in the world, who I wanted to be, so that’s what the album is. It’s getting back on my feet and standing a little taller. There are definitely new songs and I’m really excited about the future.


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"Preservation' is out now on Basin Rock - purchase here: http://www.basinrock.co.uk/nadia-reid-preservation.html
Nadia is touring all through 2017 https://www.nadiareid.com/tour-dates/