"I Love Change": Nieve Ella on Her Debut Album, How Long Will It Take?

After first picking up the guitar during lockdown, Nieve Ella quickly found her way into the music landscape by sharing covers online before releasing her debut single “Girlfriend” back in 2022. Since then, the West Midlands singer-songwriter has built a growing fanbase with her honest, guitar-driven sound, released several EPs and taken her music on the road, supporting peers like Inhaler, Dylan and girl in red. Now, she has reached another milestone with her debut album How Long Will It Take, a deeply personal record exploring anger, vulnerability, relationships and the ever-changing process of growing up. We sat down with the singer before her acoustic set at Dussmann in Berlin to talk about the journey so far, the stories behind the album, life on tour, and learning to embrace change.

HERE'S THE FULL INTERVIEW:

You released your debut album How Long Will It Take? two weeks ago. How did the album come about, and when did you start working on the record?

Nieve Ella: Mentally, I started it like two years ago. But we officially started locking last June. We only finished it like six months ago. I guess it has been a year and a half of just living in that world. Nobody knew what it was at all, and I was not able to tell anyone what I was doing for what feels like two years - a very long time for a person just to be writing all the time.

You released a couple of EPs before the album; what do you think changed in the process of creating this album compared to your other projects?

Nieve Ella: It being a debut album in itself is a statement. You can go either way with it. You can just release a debut album, and it's kind of the same thing that you've done before.

For me, I chose it to be a completely different thing- a statement of: this is where I was before. I have been doing this for four years. As a young person, you grow, and you change all the time. But my musical style and my likes also change all the time. I'm a very curious person, and I think I wanted to really show that part of me: “I'm not just one thing, and I'm not just this guitar-y, indie, bedroom-pop-y, girly pop in her room all the time. I actually am this angry, kind of depressed person sometimes. I wanted to show that other side of me because it's important.

Your curiosity showed up in the album title as well. The album is called How Long Will It Take? It feels like a question you can ask at multiple stages of your life. What does that question mean to you personally, and how has the answer changed while making the album or even after it came out?

Nieve Ella: I think it's changed because the question for me at the start, when I wrote that song, I was like, “How long is it going to take for me to stop being the person that I don't want to be in an angry way?”

I was a very angry person, and I was taking a lot out of the people that I love, and I thought that was a forever thing. Then I realized all you have to do, for me, was take somebody out of my life that I was kind of fighting with a lot of the time.

Change can literally happen within, like, the quickest decision. You could walk away from someone, never see them again, and your life is completely changed. That's what I've learned. I thought things take forever and ever and ever. Same with, like, my acne. I have really, really bad acne, and that's what the song is also about. I felt like I was coming out; all my rage was coming out of my skin.

All I had to do was go get help. Now I'm so much better. I think at the start of the album I was like, “God, these things take fucking ages. What the hell? Like, am I going to be like this forever? This is going to literally be my forever state.” - it's literally not. Like, a year on, I'm a completely different person. You just learn that changes can happen very, very quickly.

So you are not afraid of changes?

Nieve Ella: No, I love change. I actually, I kind of want change. I need change. I can't be the same person because it's boring for me. I get very bored. I need change. I need constant evolution in myself because that's how I think I'm going to grow and become the person I'm truly meant to be.

Andy: You have a song on the album called "Angie"; fans were really excited for that one because you teased it before releasing it. It is an emotional, bittersweet track about longing, separation, and leaving someone behind.

What do you think it is, especially with that song, that made people really connect with it even before they listened to the studio version?

Nieve Ella: I think it's a very simple, easy-listening song where it says what it says, but also the melody feels familiar. It feels like this home space. I think a song like that is very inspired by my likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Lizzy McAlpine, where they're very emotional but really simple.

And it just says what it says. You can sing along to it and feel like you can connect in multiple different ways. I think I'm not really saying exactly what it's about, which I think is what people like a lot of the time: having their own side of it and being able to connect in their own way.

You just mentioned artists such as Lizzy McAlpine and Phoebe Bridgers as your inspirations. Are there any artists you would like to work with one day, any dream collaborations?

Nieve Ella: I'd love to work with Phoebe (Bridgers). I would absolutely love that. I love her so much. Lizzy, I would love to work with her, but I feel like she's got her own thing going on. I think I would sit there and just let her write for me. I wouldn't even be able to do anything because I'd just be starstruck. Ellie, the singer from Wolf Alice, I would love to work with her. I think she's amazing, and she's a big inspiration for who I am now and for my confidence.

You were really comfortable sharing "Angie" before it was released. What was the song off the album that you were the most scared for fans to listen to?

Nieve Ella: To be honest with you, I was really afraid of people listening to “Drive” and “Bite Back”, which were the first two singles of the album because they were very different. I have, like, a rap verse in “Drive” - I've never done that.

The first two songs on the album, "101" and "Drive", are sonically connected, as the outro of one is the intro of the other. How are they thematically linked?

Nieve Ella: I think that they're very open-ended with each other. Neither of them really resolves in any way. A song like “101”, for instance, changes key, and it doesn't end; it goes into another song. And “How Long Will It Take?” in itself is a question that is open-ended. And I think the whole album in itself has no answers. It's me asking the question the whole time: “How fucking long is this going to take?” Or, like, “I don't want to be this person; how do I get out of this?” It feels like there's no way; I just want to go back to just being, like…I just feel so lost. It's open-ended, you know, all of the songs.

The record altogether feels very cohesive, how difficult was it for you to finalise the tracklist? Did you have to let go of songs you really liked?

Nieve Ella: We had to let go of a couple of songs that I wrote and were very set on for a long time. There was a song called “Face in the Fold” that I remember we wrote, and we were like, “This is it. This is what the album is.” And it didn't even make it on the album. But I think what's beautiful is, like, you know, this is my first debut album. I hope to make 10, 15. So I'm not too precious about letting things go because I know that things can live on again in their own way - and maybe they will come back around again. It was very difficult, but also it's perfect. I think it ended up being exactly what it needed to be, and I trust that, and that doesn't scare me.

Andy: I think the fans trust you as well. And you never know because, for example, Gracie Abrams released "Close To You" years after. Maybe it will fit another record.

Nieve Ella: Exactly. Literally, I always reference “Close To You” because I'm like, “That (song) was so long ago. And it makes so much sense for her now still.”

Songwriting is a very big part of your artistic identity. What was the hardest song for you to write on that record?

Nieve Ella: I think that writing-wise, a song like “Love:Hate”, it was very easy to write in a way that just came out of me, but it was really hard for me to actually say in the room because I was admitting something that maybe I wouldn't really want to admit of being, like, “I need someone”, which is kind of seen as a weak thing when you're supposed to be this confident, powerful, independent girl. It was really hard for me to record that, and I should say it was “At Any Cost” as well. That was kind of the same thing. It was just really hard for me to admit those things I wouldn't really want to say to anyone, especially in front of my best friends, who I wrote and produced it with.

Do you think you water them down then? Is it hard for you to be really honest?

Nieve Ella: No, literally, and that's why I work consistently with Finn and Jamie because they don't water me down. They lift me to my highest potential, and they allow me to express myself at the highest level and be as honest as possible. I wouldn't be working with them if I had to water it down.

Andy: You do have a very beautiful team by your side. For example, your band, Finn, Matt and Fran. Your bond seems very special.

What’s one of your favorite memories you share with them, maybe even while creating the album?

Nieve Ella: My favorite memory…to be fair with you, it's not even about the album. I think one of my favorite things we still talk about today is that we went on tour with a band called Inhaler. So, that tour was literally the start. It was the first tour that we went on as a band. It was my first full tour as an artist, and it changed our lives every single day. Every single night we'd play in front of a crowd that didn't really know us, and we were able to just have fun, be young, learn about Europe and shows, and learn from a band we love so much. That tour really made us as close as we are now. We really fell into being best, best friends. It was just so good, so amazing. I wish I could go back.

Andy: You just mentioned you have been in a position of being a support act, for example, for Inhaler, for Dylan, or for Girl in Red. And during that, you've been trying to build your own headline world.

What's the biggest lesson you've learned, for example, from playing for Inhaler?

Nieve Ella: I think the biggest lesson is that as much as you have your time on stage, and it's supposed to be the peak of your energy and your emotion and everything - you're allowed to then leave the stage and go to bed, not speak to anybody, be completely just with yourself, because I think there's a lot of pressure around touring, on it, on it, on it, partying, going here, going to all the cities; you have to explore, because you're in, like, Switzerland; you've never been here before!

I learned from them that they could just come offstage and go to bed. And if they want to go to the bar, they will, but just go to bed and not speak to anyone. Just do your thing, be yourself, and when you're on that stage, that's when you need to perform and work. You need to look after yourself, basically.

What's the biggest difference between how you step on stage and how you feel when you step on stage then versus now?

Nieve Ella: Confidence. Knowing that people are there to see me, and I'm not afraid to have times where maybe I can just sip a bit of water and feel like I don't have to please the crowd all the time. I feel like when I was on the support tours, it was constantly, like, “We've got a time limit, I've got half an hour to prove who I am, sell myself,” and now I get to play with a room set; people will literally just wait for five minutes if I just want to have a chat and they like that. There's a lot of confidence in that now.

How do you think your definition of success has changed since you started making music? Is there something you care about now that your younger self wouldn't even think to prioritize, or your younger self prioritized, and now you're like “It doesn't matter!”

Nieve Ella: Now I prioritize my health, my head, my body. Before, I'd just be eating crap, I'd be not sleeping at all, and I'd be like, “Yeah, it's fine,” I'll just wake, I'll be up until 2 am, writing and singing, and then I'd get up at 12 pm and be like, “I've literally got nothing to do with my day”, and now I can't do that. I have to get up, and I have to look after myself because there's a lot that goes on when you're in this industry. Your brain is constantly working. You need power, you need health, you need sleep. I've just learned to look after myself.

How did you do that?

Nieve Ella: I had to go through a lot of freaking crazy times. I went to a dietitian; actually, it was last year, when I was actually writing the album, which is also what the album's about. I just basically found people that could help me pull myself together: therapy and just doctors, really.

On your album cover, you are lying on some stairs with the spotlight on you. How did that come about? What's the story behind that?

Nieve Ella: The story originally was I wanted to be on stairs that were never-ending, never starting, so you don't know where it starts, and you don't know where it ends, because the whole thing is the open-ended question: “How long is it going to take?” And you don't know the answer to anything, right? So, you don't know the start; you don't know the end. I wanted to show that, but also stairs represent that you're going somewhere. You're wanting to travel, and that's what I want to do. I want to go somewhere, I want to keep going, and I want to keep going up those stairs and finding my way through this beautiful experience of being an artist and being a creative.

But also, there's kind of sadness in it, the whole point of me lying down on there and feeling like I'm exhausted; it's like... because it takes a lot. It's a lot to be walking up those stairs constantly. You get tired, and that's the state of the album. I was absolutely exhausted with what was going on around me.

Have you watched The Truman Show? The movie, The Truman Show?

Andy: I have not, but I always wanted to watch it.

Nieve Ella: It's this whole thing of, like...

Andy: There are, like, fake worlds?

Nieve Ella: Exactly. The last scene is him walking up these stairs and exiting this fake world. I was like, “God, my whole life was like a Truman Show.” It literally felt like it wasn't real at all.

Andy: We usually ask artists for their favorite songs to recommend to us, but we recently started covering film & TV shows. So we have to ask...

What are your favorite movies of all time, or just right now, that you would recommend to our audience?

Nieve Ella: Twilight.

Andy: Which one?

Nieve Ella: Twilight. Like, the first one. Or Breaking Dawn Part 1.

I love Breaking Dawn Part 1, but the thing with Twilight, you have to watch all of them to understand. You can't be watching freaking Breaking Dawn Part 1 and be like, “Huh? How did they even get there?” So I'd say Twilight. I just watched a movie called Wildwood. It's a new film that took 16 years to make. It's beautiful and about this girl and her little brother who get stolen. I was crying the whole way home. I really love this film; it's called Love, Rosie, as well. It's one of those films that you just go to that's beautiful and also just good for yearners, which I love. I love the trope in it, like best friends to lovers, come on. It's so good.

If someone listens to your album for the first time today, beginning to end, is there a particular feeling or realization you hope that they leave with?

Nieve Ella: We all hurt. We all feel, and that's so fine. We're born with feelings. We're born with emotions, and we have to feel them. We're lucky to feel them. I truly think we're very, very lucky to have so many emotions.

Andy: Amazing. Beautiful. Thank you so much for taking your time.

Nieve Ella: Thank you!

LISTEN TO NIEVE ELLA'S DEBUT ALBUM HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE? HERE:

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