Nieve Ella: “I wanted to feel powerful and feminine”

With a newfound sense of self, Nieve Ella navigates a year of evolution and empowerment.

Words: Ali Shutler.

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“I don’t actually know where I am,” admits Nieve Ella moments after checking into her hotel, which, confusingly, is named after a city hundreds of miles away. To further her defence, there has been a fair bit of geographic toing and froing in the past few weeks as well, with Nieve supporting girl in red on a massive European tour that’s already visited the likes of Wembley Arena. If you were there, you already know how comfortable and commanding she looked on that huge stage. One thing’s for sure: Nieve Ella knows exactly where she’s heading. 

After a breakout 2023 that saw her release a pair of gooey, gentle indie rock EPs that dealt with wide-eyed romance (‘Lifetime Of Wanting’ and ‘Young & Naïve’) alongside tours with Inhaler and Dylan, 2024 has been even busier. She’s been creeping up festival line-ups and

opening on bigger tours, but she’s taken all this rapid growth in her stride. “It’s all happening in such a lovely way,” she beams.

The highlight of her year has been her own headline tour, though, which had to be doubled in size due to demand. “Playing any show is amazing but getting to play to a crowd of people who knew every word to the songs just made me feel at home,” says Nieve. “Even when I’m playing arenas on this tour, all I’m imagining is how some of these fans will be coming to my next headline run, or we’ll all be back in the same venue together one day in the future.”

New EP ‘Watch It Ache And Bleed’ is the perfect soundtrack to those grand, communal ambitions. More spikey and playful than what’s come before, the eight-track record pulls inspiration from previous tourmates Inhaler as well as Wunderhorse’s swaggering alt-rock. “It feels darker than what’s come before,” she explains, describing her previous records as shades of blue while this one is the colour of blood. There are also no love songs.

Instead, ‘Watch It Ache And Bleed’ follows the stages of a breakup. “It’s the story of what happened, how I felt and what I wanted to say. I’ve never done something like this before, because I was always so scared of saying the wrong thing or hurting someone’s feelings,” she explains. Nieve got over that for this batch of songs, though. “This EP has been so therapeutic, and it’s helped me so much. “

It’s an evolution for Nieve Ella, whose music previously felt defiantly optimistic, but she doesn’t think change is a risk. “I’m just talking about my life, and it’s the same stuff that everybody goes through,” she offers. “I was sitting in the van listening to Lizzie McAlpine’s ‘Older’ earlier, feeling like she just got me, and it’s amazing when music does that. I want people to feel understood when they listen to this record.”

Her 2023 single ‘Big House’ was originally a song about love and romance, but over the past few months, it’s become an anthem for the type of community her music now inspires. “Most of us are young people just trying to find a place in the world, and we, myself included, have all found that in this fandom. It’s lovely, and that’s all I really want.” 

“We can be messy, hot and fun. We don’t have to be perfectly cute and Instagram-able”

Perhaps the biggest statement from this new era is swaggering pop banger ‘Ganni Top (She Gets What She Needs)’. “What’s really funny is that when we wrote it, we were just pissing about,” says Nieve, with the track coming from a late-night jam session with writing partner Finn Marlowe and producer Hugo M Harvey.

“At the time, I wanted to feel confident. I didn’t want to feel like this cutesy, girly musician who only writes about love; I wanted to feel powerful and feminine,” she says. “And if I’m going to do something, I’m going to fully do it. I was just writing about how sexy I felt at the time. I was red wine drunk, though, so, of course, I was going to feel sexy.”

She was really scared when she first started teasing that song because it is different, “but at the same time, I wanted it to reach new people,” Nieve says. “It ended up reaching people I never expected, like older men who really didn’t understand what I was going on about.” Unsurprisingly, they dismissed the track as crap and set about either comparing her to other female musicians like Wet Leg or dismissing her as an ‘industry plant’. “The more that happened, the less nervous and scared I felt,” she shrugs.

“I just can’t put into words how powerful it feels to play guitar and feel sexy when so many people have told me it’s not what girls normally do. I just thrive off it,” says Nieve, who’s also started toying with fashion a lot more this year. “There’s not been a single moment I’ve felt uncomfortable on stage since the start of summer, because I’m fully embracing who I am.”

“I wanted to be this indie guitar girl for so long, and while there’ll still be a lot of that going forward, ‘Ganni Top’ proved that I can do something different,” she continues. “It might sound different, but I still put so much of myself into ‘Ganni Top’ and people connected to it. It’s the validation I needed. Now I’m excited to figure out what else Nieve Ella can be.”

As celebratory as ‘Ganni Top’ feels, there’s still a darkness to it, says Nieve. “It came from a place of me wanting to feel free but really, I just felt trapped. It’s really important for me to put out a song that encourages people to be who they want to be and feel good about themselves. The world is bleak as hell, so you need music that feels liberated.”

It all started with Brat Summer. “As soon as Charli released that album, you could feel the mood change. It’s like women everywhere collectively remembered that we can be messy, hot and fun. We don’t have to be perfectly cute and Instagram-able. Then Chappell broke through, who knows exactly who she is and doesn’t give a shit what other people think of that. Those two women definitely helped me understand who I am,” says Nieve, who’s currently unlearning the “crazy” beauty standards she was brought up with, living in a small town in England. 

“So many people from back home have left comments taking the piss out of my bleached eyebrows or tooth gems, but I’m just being myself,” she shrugs. This new era of Nieve Ella is a celebration of her voice, her autonomy and the power that wields. “This past year, I kept feeling lost and confused, but sharing this EP and connecting with people over it; it’s making me feel whole again.”

As for next year, nothing is planned beyond a move to London, writing more songs and working out when to release them. A debut album isn’t currently in the works, but it could be.  “I know that whatever comes next isn’t going to be just another… I’m writing towards something big,” she teases. “For the first time, I’ve got so much I want to talk about. I’ve become so confident with my voice, and I feel so free right now. I’m excited to see what comes next.”

Taken from the November 2024 issue of Dork. Nieve Ella’s EP ‘Watch It Ache And Bleed’ is out 17th October.