Music > Interviews

Interview with Ria Ritchie

31/07/13

Have you seen those Google ads where a young boy gets a video camera for Christmas, films his mum shrieking behind her kitchen cupboards for a bit, then becomes Jamal Edwards with his own YouTube channel SB.TV? The thing is, it’s real – it’s a true story and it’s not unlike that of Ria Ritchie’s. The olive-skinned beauty, brimming with raw talent, sister to actor Reece Ritchie [The Lovely Bones / 10,000 BC] followed a similar blueprint, swapping Jamal’s camera for her guitar, amassing a huge following that caught the eye of Plan B and Jay-Z’s business partner, Jay Brown. Best of all – girl’s from Lowestoft and proud.

So Ria, we’re doing this interview ahead of your Sundown performance, which will be the beginning of September, won’t it? Yeah, 31st August it starts.

And you must be excited to play, ‘cause it’s a kind of homecoming gig for you – - Yeah, I played there last year and I don’t think they usually repeat acts, like, have them play a second time, so I wasn’t expecting to play this year but I got an email from my booking agent saying he was able to get me on the bill for this year too, which is pretty good. I was really chuffed about that, because obviously it’s a bigger and better line-up.  

Absolutely, it’s gone from strength to strength and as you said, there’s some big names on that bill and it’s really good to see yours nestled in between – you must be chuffed with it? Yeah, I was really chuffed. I got my stage time through the other day and I’m on at quarter to 4, sort of slap bang in the middle, which is a good little time to play really, ‘cause I can see everyone else play after.

So you’re gonna stick around and enjoy it? Oh yeah, definitely; all my family and friends are gonna be there, so we’ll have a little drink and watch everyone afterwards, I’m sure.

I can only begin to imagine what a homecoming gig might feel like – is it a bit spine tingling? A bit of a goosebump moment? Yeah, last year I was really nervous but as soon as I got up there it was cool; because I think it’s local, a lot of the people in the crowd knew my songs and were singing them back - like, it was really good to hear them singing back my single. It felt really nice, so I’m looking forward to it this year. Also, it’s gonna be a different setup because this year I have a full band instead of the acoustic type setup. This year I have two guitars, bass, drums and I’m playing as well, so it’ll be a bigger and better sound, more of a festival vibe.

So how are you transforming from the safety of being behind your guitar, to a frontwoman? Well I got quite used to it because from the ages of about 18-22, I was in a band; I didn’t play anything, I was just the lead singer in a covers band. I got used to performing that way, as well as behind the guitar, so I’m quite lucky really to have experienced that. I think I’ve been quite lucky with that, because some singer-songwriters find it hard to make the transition.

I’m assuming it was a Lowestoft band you were in? Yeah, yeah it was; we just did functions and local pubs and stuff when I first started singing, then I got a bit more in to my own stuff, started writing my own music and wanted to be more of a solo thing. And the band, we’d all started to have enough anyway – we’d done it for a few years and so decided to go our separate ways. It was good, ‘cause I got to gig on my own, play my own music and just and gig with my guitar, which is what I do now really.

Did you get a lot of support from Lowestoft, and the wider region? Yeah, loads. I play near enough every weekend, whether it’s in Lowestoft or Norwich – like Oulton Broad in Lowestoft I usually play at and it’s always a really nice crowd. Like, I had my EP launch at Bar 11 in Norwich a month or two ago and that was a really good turn out. I had loads of people coming to buy CDs and stuff. Yeah, I always get really nice support and you always see friendly, familiar faces in the audience. It’s good to know you’ve got dedicated fans.

And you’ll be able to vouch – because people still think of East Anglia being the backwaters of the UK – but there’s some tremendous talent coming out of the region. Raevennan Husbandes is from Lowestoft as well – I think there’s something in the water…  There’s certainly more talent in the region than people give us credit for. Yeah, yeah, when I signed my publishing deal, at the time one of my managers was from Norwich and it was sort of a joint venture between them and Tinchy Stryder, and his manager’s from Norwich! Then I was from near Norwich and we were all with this label, and the head of the label was like, ‘we’re overwhelmed with the number of people from Norfolk in this room!’ I don’t know, there’s definitely something!

There you go, you’re representing – that’s what we like. There’s another artist from the area who’s quite well known… Mr Ed Sheeran. His route was a bit different from yours, peddling CDs out the back of his rucksack – - I went to music college with Ed – we went to a music college in Stratford – and at the time he was doing exactly what you said; he had like two or three gigs a night and he’d be selling CDs out of his backpack. He worked really hard for it and he really deserves how far he’s got.

I could see empathy between you two as artists – obviously you share the same regional background, but you also both share that ethic of making things happen yourself. Do you think it’s important for a young artist to say, ‘no, I’ll be in charge of this – I’ll put the effort in here…’? Yeah, definitely, like nowadays I think it’s a lot harder, so you have to work harder to promote yourself. With things like YouTube and the social media that’s about nowadays, it’s silly not to use it really. Anyone can do it, so if you believe in yourself and you want to do music, or anything else, then do it ‘cause you never know who’s watching. Like, I got discovered on YouTube - I never expected I would, but that’s how I was found, so I’d definitely recommend to anyone to put their stuff up online and promote yourself as much as you can for free… yeah, that’s probably the best way to go about it now.

So you didn’t really have any expectation when you first started uploading your videos then? No, not at all; I bought a cheap guitar and taught myself a few songs, recorded some covers and then the reason that I put a video up was just to watch myself back and get a bit of feedback really. I kind of built a fanbase from there, and got quite a lot of views on my first video. It kept growing and growing and all of a sudden I was putting more videos up and stuff, and now I’ve got this big YouTube fanbase that’s grown from me literally wanting to… I never expected it to go the way it did, so it’s really good that I’m able to put whatever I like up and my fans can see it.

What I thought was so nice is that I was looking at your channel and I viewed all your videos from oldest to newest and it’s so cool, ‘cause you can see the evolution of an artist! Yeah, definitely; that’s what I get as well, people commenting saying, ‘I’ve watched all your videos and you’ve come so far’, and things like that. It’s a good timeline really of me getting better at singing and playing guitar, and writing in general.

What do you think has been the biggest change in you as an artist, then conversely, what have you maintained all the way through? Well I think recently I’ve done stuff in the studio, like, I did a song with Disclosure – I’m not sure if you’ve heard it? It’s called ‘Control’ –

- Yeah, yeah! That was quite different for me, because I’m used to writing on a guitar, and writing stuff from my influences, so going in with Disclosure was quite challenging in terms of it being a lot different to what I was used to. I think it’s important to explore a bit though, and challenge what you’re used to – just show your diversity. Then I released an acoustic EP, which was more me and what the fans had seen on YouTube over the years. I wanted to give them something back, so yeah, I went down that route. I made it with a woman called Dee Adam and produced it in her studio, and just put it out on my own label and that went really well. So I think that’s what I kept all the way along, my own writing style and my own songs – what people are used to, and what got me there in the first place.

You mentioned the Disclosure track – I was really chuffed to see it on my Annie Mac compilation album, ‘cause we think of you as a local girl gone far. Moments like those, are they game changers for you? Yeah, my fanbase kind of – people who would never have heard of me before, heard me through Disclosure, then they’d check out my stuff, so that was a change. I’d get a lot of people contacting me through my Facebook page saying, ‘Oh, I’ve just discovered you through Disclosure’, so that was really cool and I would never, in a million years, have thought that song would do as well as it did. At the time, when I wrote it, I didn’t know Disclosure were gonna blow up like they did and that Radio 1 would really like the track, so yeah, it was really cool. So yeah, I’m really glad I did it with them, and I’m really proud of the song.

I’ve spoken to a lot of artists who, when they’re writing material, shut themselves away from any other influences or music. But I find that collaboration can enrich you as an artist – I’m sure you feel the same… Yeah, I do a lot of writing with other artists because it does bring out a lot of other stuff that you don’t realise you’ve got. If I’m writing a song, I always listen to other people for inspiration, or any ideas really. I think it’s important, like, I’ve got quite a broad taste in music, so I think it’s good to just tune in to one type of music, see what other people do and then put your own spin on things.

I don’t often ask about artists’ influences, because you get asked all the time, but because myself, I am a soul baby, I thought I’d share a bit of that love with you. I read that you got your love of soul from your parents, as did I, dancing round the living room to Stevie Wonder with my mum – - That’s exactly what I used to do!

And then when you form your own music tastes, and buy your own music, is that when you really became interested in music? Yeah, when I first started singing – I was about 11 or 12 – I was really in to Alicia Keys, Lauryn Hill; I’d listen to them so much and it was pretty much just those singers, and old soul singers, that I’d listen to. That’s all I wanted to sing, then when we had family parties and we’d sing karaoke or whatever, when I was a lot younger, all I’d sing was Alicia Keys or Lauryn Hill and that’s definitely stayed with me. They still influence me now, and I still listen to ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ all the time. It never gets old – it’s probably my favourite album of all time. They’ve always been massive influences and probably always will be.

I was listening to ‘No Way’ on your Facebook page actually, and it reminded me of songs like ‘Butterflies’, from Alicia Keys’ debut, where she sort of pared it back a bit. So, you’ve got great influences from your parents, but you also need a supportive family if you’re gonna be saying, ‘Mum, Dad, I’m gonna be a musician’ – which you obviously do. Your brother’s an actor, isn’t he? Yeah, I’m literally going to see him tomorrow; I’m flying to Budapest because he’s shooting a film called Hercules at the moment with The Rock, and he’s gonna be out there ‘til October, so I’m going there for a week, tomorrow. I’m gonna chill on set with him and my mum, so yeah, like you said, the whole family is really supportive. My brother’s in acting and my older brother and my Mum and Dad have all been… because I did go to uni at first, but after about a week, I decided I didn’t want to do it! I literally went to Freshers’ Week then decided I didn’t want to do it!

So they’d bought your kettle, they’d bought your iron – - Yeah, bought me a kettle and everything; everything was sorted! I’d even taken a year out before and that’s when I’d started teaching myself guitar, but I booked into a Sports Science degree and then once I was there, I lost all interest in sport and knew I wanted to do music, so my brother came to see me for a bit – my oldest brother Ross – he was on his way back from a meeting in London and came to see me for a bit. We went for food and I said, ‘I really don’t think I want to be here doing this; I’ve been sat in my room all week writing music and playing guitar…’ and probably going out for a few Freshers’ nights and stuff! So he was like, ‘let’s go home now then. Pack your stuff and we’ll go.’ So I packed my whole life in his car and just drove home that night! Then the next day I remember I signed into my MySpace – I didn’t know what I was gonna do – but on my wall there was a banner for Access2Music in Norwich. It said ‘doing auditions now, last few places available’, so I called them up, went there for a little audition thing and then started their musician course the next day! That was really good – I recommend that to anyone in Norwich who wants to get into music.

Yeah, and they’re churning out some great bands still. So that worked out well – that was definitely a gut instinct reaction from you! Yeah, it was scary at first, but I don’t regret it at all.

So I just want to ask you about your album; I know you’ve been working really hard on it, and working with Plan B too, which is really cool ‘cause he started off as a man with his guitar too, didn’t he? So how far off do you think you are? With my album? Erm, basically I’ve got loads of songs that I’ve been writing over the last couple of years, like, a little back catalogue and I’ve explored different styles and they’re all great songs in their own right, but what I’m gonna do is – I’ve probably got the album, the songs that I want – but what I need to do is find the right producer to give them all a coherent sound and bring it all together to make the album. So I’ll probably strip the songs back to vocals and guitar, then mess around with it – keep it soul, keep it old school but maybe with some edgier  beats or something, just to make it a bit more current and cool.

Yeah, that’ll be cool – it’s amazing when you hand something to a producer, seeing what they do with it because they’re like another musician in the band really, aren’t they? Yeah, they’ll hear something that you won’t and they’ll be able to do something you can’t. I’m lucky really because my publishers have got loads of contacts that they can sort of steer my way and put me in touch with, that could potentially be the producers of my album, so it’s cool. I’m meeting up with a few this month, so it’s cool – we’ll just see how we get on really. So hopefully early next year for the album, possibly.

So EMI are your publishers, aren’t they – are you signed to Takeover Entertainment, or are you currently still unsigned? I’m unsigned to a record label, I’m just signed to a publishing deal which is a joint venture between EMI and Takeover, so I’m still an unsigned artist, if you like.

That’s mad, isn’t it?! I’m sure you’ll have plenty of options soon, and will be able to make some good decisions. Yeah, definitely! Now Ria, I just want to ask you finally – there’s a lyric from ‘Wrong Side of Paradise’, off your EP that says, “Take me home where I belong […] it means everything to me.” As a local girl, tell us how you feel about home… The reason I haven’t moved away is that I love it; I’m a family girl so I like being close to family. I feel lucky to have Norwich so close because of the shopping and nightlife, and the nice restaurants, then you’ve got the Broads where you can chill, then the beach… There’s a lot of people that moan about it, but you can’t take it for granted because it’s such a nice place for people to live, it’s safe, and I don’t know… I’m just happy at home.

Emma R. Garwood

Ria Ritchie plays as part of the big-name bill at Norfolk’s own Sundown Festival. Sundown comes to the Norfolk Showground from Fri 30th Aug – Sun 2nd Sept. For tickets, go to www.sundownfestival.co.uk.