“I think men are taking us slightly more seriously”: Nina Nesbitt talks empowerment, her new album and touring

She may not have had a studio album out in four years, but this year, the 23-year-old, Scottish singer-song writer will finally release her long-anticipated second album.

 

‘Empowering’ is one of the words the singer uses to describe her new album, which seems fitting as female empowerment is something that is important to her.

In 2015, Nina attended the Women in the World Summit as a guest speaker, and three years on, she believes there are signs of improvement in the way female artists are treated and treat each other within the music industry.

The singer says that in her early days, she was discouraged from supporting another artist because she was deemed to be “competition”.

“I think women and our attitudes towards each other has changed because before, when I’ve started for example, there was another artist similar to me and everyone would be like ‘oh no we don’t like her’ and ‘you can’t support her, don’t go to her gigs!’”

She continues: “there’s more than one space now and I think women actually coming together and supporting each other, we can be more successful that way because we are all giving each other a leg up.” 

“I think the way we think about other artists is improving and I think men are taking us slightly more seriously creatively. I think there’s still a long way to go but I work with amazing guys in the music industry who respect what I do.”

Female empowerment has also been at the heart of Nesbitt’s recent project with Spotify, where she released two singles recorded with singers, Charlotte Lawrence and Sasha Sloan at the Spotify Studios in New York.

“That was exciting because it was part of Spotify’s first ever collaboration release so it was all about girls coming together and working together.” She smiles. “That was really cool because there was a billboard in Times Square and that was the best part of that.”

After being discovered by Ed Sheeran aged 17, Nesbitt released her debut album, Peroxide, in 2014, which peaked at number one on the iTunes chart. But now, four years on, Nina says her sound and style have changed naturally.

“When I wrote Peroxide I was 17, 18, and now I’m 23 so it’s just kind of been a natural transition for me. I’ve got to experiment with different sounds and evolve through that.”

In the four years since the release of her first album, Nina has remained very much in the spotlight. She’s supported Justin Bieber on his tour, released two EP’s, embarked on a US tour and currently, a UK tour.

“I think it’s nice to be back in the UK because it’s a different type of crowd. The US is kind of like starting again, some nights it will be like 50 people, some nights it’ll be 200 and every state is really different.”

She explains: “I feel like the UK audiences you have to kind of win over a little bit more- American’s are very enthusiastic which is amazing to play to but when you do win the crowd over here, it’s quite an achievement.”

Throughout the two years that followed the release of Peroxide, the singer admits that it was a bumpy ride that lead her to becoming solely a song writer, after leaving her record label in 2016.

“I did Peroxide and I actually got shelved for two years in a label and they just wouldn’t put anything out. I made another album in that time and it just never came out.”

“I left them and was like ‘I’m going to be a song writer…because like, I can’t be arsed with all this.’”

Through writing songs for other artists, Nina got to experience the freedom she didn’t have when she was signed to her former label: “I wrote songs in my mind for other people”, her tone appears to lift. “Through doing that, I didn’t really have any boundaries of oh would I say that? Or, is this for me? I was just trying to write good songs.”

From this, Nina wrote her popular single, The Best You’ve Ever Had and her most recent single, Somebody Special, which have a combined listenership of over 50 million plays on Spotify.

“I wrote that one [Somebody Special] in Nashville, in America, which is like my favourite place in the world.”

“It’s about when I got back with my ex-boyfriend, who’s now my boyfriend again”, she laughs. “It’s about the feeling you get when you first start dating someone, where your kind of in this bubble where everything’s amazing, even if it’s not.”

“I think so often we go for people that treat us like shit and think that that’s love but it’s about actually finding someone who treats you like you deserved to be treated.”

Despite last year teasing that her new album would be coming out in early 2018, Nina says the album is scheduled for release at the end of this year.

She explains that the reason she’s stalling the release of the album is so she can release more singles from it first: “when you drop an album now, there’s no more singles because they’re all out so in order for me to have a long campaign, I’m dropping the singles track by track and releasing the album when it feels right.”

The ballad ‘Is It Really Me You’re Missing?’ which she was scheduled to play at her Manchester gig, is Nina’s favourite song from her upcoming album.

“It’s about how I got signed again and decided that I wanted to put the album out, so that’s quite a special song”

According to the singer, the recording process for her new album, has been “really chilled out” and in an obvious reference to her time with her previous record label, she exclaims: “It was a really easy album to make because I wasn’t stressing out…no one was like waiting for me to hand it in.”

“I got it [the album] ready and signed to a new label, it was a really easy thing to do.”

Looking towards the future, Nina says that her dream collaboration would be with Swedish song writer, Max Martin, who has produced hits for the likes of Britney Spears, Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey.

Nina speaks very highly of him: “He’s basically written every hit ever, you should google him!”

It’s clear from speaking with Nina, that she is fiercely independent with a lot of music and exciting projects up her sleeve. Watch this space.

 Nina’s latest single ‘Somebody Special’ is available on iTunes and Spotify.

Watch the music video below: