I couldn’t look away. I pressed play, and song after song flowed in seamless transitions, alluring me into a daze. Nieve Ella‘s highly anticipated debut album, How Long Will It Take?, lands as a brilliant coming-of-age record. It doesn’t pretend to be anything but real, vulnerable, leaning into the messy reality of being in your 20s.
With the success of the singles ‘Drive,’ ‘Bite Back,’ and the viral ‘Romance Is A Desert,’ Nieve Ella cast a net, but the 11-track album sealed the deal: the 23-year-old is bound to become a voice of the new generation. Uncompromisingly herself, Ella pours her entire soul into a blend of alternative pop, grunge, electronics, and effortless rock melodies that leave you wanting more.
How Long Will It Take? is a portrait of Ella’s lessons, mistakes, and the power to persevere when growing up feels like a never-ending battle. The heart of the record lies in its messy, chaotic honesty, where Ella spills her guts for you to enjoy.
From Shropshire in the West Midlands of England, Nieve Ella gritted her teeth to make her dream her reality. Between nationwide record store shows celebrating the album launch with stripped-back performances, Nieve Ella can’t keep the smile off her face, despite the exhaustion and low social battery.
Fueled by the admiring fans she meets each evening, Nieve Ella shares one of my favorite conversations of the year. Down-to-earth and brutally honest about her struggles with acne and hormones, she says everything as it is. No bullshit. She also speaks candidly about how the school system is failing creatives and kids who don’t thrive in rigid environments.
Nieve Ella is a dreamer, and always has been, but on top of her relentless daily manifestations, her standout talent, unstoppable voice, and attitude lead and resonate. This life is her destiny, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t leave claw marks as she climbed the metaphorical staircase. For Noctis, Nieve Ella speaks about the family unit behind the record, her hair change, and the unintentional viral moment that ‘Romance Is A Desert’ has become.
How would you compare your record store tour to your show at Reading Festival?
It’s very different. I mean a show like what we did at Reading is where we’ve really found our craft in that world. It’s theatrical and bit by bit we know where we’re coming in. We have our in-ears and it tells us exactly what’s going on compared to this, it literally feels like we’re playing in a pub. It’s very different. I think I’m being way more myself with these shows in a way. It’s so vulnerable that I’m forced to just be my natural self.
Is your stage persona something you need to switch on?
No it’s literally the most authentic version. In the dressing room, we’re all pissing about, I go to the toilet five times, and be like, right guys, come on then, let’s go, and we just walk on. I don’t think when I’m doing this, which is really cool, it’s really fun to. Normally, I’m stood behind the stage for half an hour, pacing, hoping my ears are right, and hoping everything goes well. It’s like, you’ve got nothing to lose with these shows, because it’s completely stripped back.
Do you have any pre-show rituals?
I don’t really have a ritual, I try and warm up my voice, but I don’t… I’m really bad at that. For me it’s my band are like my safety net and it’s us like that’s Nieve Ella to me, me and the band. Being around them and making things feel very calm. We’re just having fun. We make it feel like we’re kids again. We realised within these shows, and any show that we play, we’re so blessed to do this we don’t have to do this, we get to do this. That’s a blessing.
I always ask about these rituals, and I don’t remember if I ever got an answer.
I think that’s a myth. People think that touring and playing shows is this rock and roll thing, because I guess that’s how we’ve been brought up to see it in movies, but genuinely, most of us are pouring. our creativity and soul out on that stage, so we need to lock in. No-one is doing a tequila shot before the show. To be fair, I remember I was on tour with Inhaler, 3 years ago, and they were doing tequila shots. They were rock and roll.
You’re performing songs from your debut album How Long Will It Take?, are there any songs, or specific lyrics that sting when you perform them?
Whilst we’re in this album cycle, there’s a song called ‘At Any Cost’ that we’ve actually been playing from the start of the year. That one hurts. That whole song just hurts because I’m being so vulnerable and I’m being real, I’m also apologetic in it. It’s very personal. Every time I sing it, I lock into, who I’m talking about, and I get in my head and it’s horrible. But it’s also really nice, now I’ve realised that these songs don’t mean something just to me, they mean so much to other people. People have been telling me how much that’s helped them, especially ’At Any Cost’. It’s helped them deal with a breakup, or a friendship breakup, also how they feel with themselves, and I think that’s helped me realise that, actually, it’s not all about me.
When you’re signing vinyls, and posters, do you ever think about when you were a teenager and you were falling asleep, dreaming about this life? Do you ever internally freak out that this is your reality?
Every single night, still to this day, I do the same thing. I dream about winning an award. I plan out in my head what would happen, who would be next to me, what I would do, what I would say. I’ve always been a dreamer, and growing up on Hannah Montana and High School Musical and shows like Victorious, that was my dream. I think there’s a part of me that’s not surprised I’ve got this, because I spent all of my time dreaming about it. I literally manifested it every single night of my life, since I was able to even have them thoughts. So I get why this is happening, because I’ve literally put my brain and everything towards this. But sometimes I have days when I think this could have not have happened, and I don’t know what the hell I would have done.
Exactly like the question you’re asking with the album title How Long Will It Take? How much work will I have to do? I think it’s great that someone’s asking these questions and women in their 20s can actually listen to it and be on the same journey as you, because we’re all on the same journey. When did you start feeling this pressure of climbing this ladder, the staircase?
I’ve always felt it. From a very young age, it started with how do I start this journey and has it already started? I’d be in my room playing guitar and I’d be like is this where it starts? Then your song gets played on the radio, is this where it starts? Then you play a festival, is this where it starts? I’ve always had that in my head, and I’m very, very curious, and I want to know things before they happen. I wouldn’t say it’s pressure, in a way that this is making me feel super anxious. It’s not that. It’s more being curious, you never know what’s around the corner and I think a lot of that side of it, I actually just let it be. I don’t really stress out about it. It’s more of the side of, I’m also just a girl and I’m also just a growing hormonal young woman who feels so much. Today I’m due my period and I feel so anxious and I know that I’ve got to go meet hundreds of people, that, to me, is what makes me feel pressure. I’ve got to still be that Nieve, but am I able to give myself, my best version of myself to these people? That’s the pressure. The music side and the climbing the ladder, if it happens, it happens. I’m doing as much as I can, and I know that’s all I can focus on.
What is the current milestone you’re working towards?
The goal right now is to get Best New Artists at the BRITS. Because also you get to perform, and I’d literally love that, and I’ve watched the Brits forever since I was a kid. Even just to be nominated.
When did the album title start to click?
It was last minute. Very, very last minute. I was trying to find it for so long, and I had so many options. We wrote ‘How Long Will It Take’ as one of the last songs. I said to my manager, Sam, I’ve wrote a song that we need to go finish, but I really love it, and it means so much to me. I think it really is the question that I’ve been asking this whole album. I said to him what it’s called and he said, that’s the album name, and I was like, is it? I wanted to call it Tender and Teeth. But then, as time went on, he was like, Nieve, that’s such a special thing, think about it, like How Long Will It Take? That’s you, bro, that’s literally how you feel.
Where did you record the album?
The first half, we recorded it in a tiny, tiny studio in Brighton. And then we moved to Jamie’s house in Lewis, which is near Brighton. He moved into this new house and they had another kind of little house built on the side of it that you had to rent out. They weren’t going to rent it out because it’s so expensive and then he said to the landlord if we could do it for a lower price and he agreed, so we rented it for 6 months. We were writing, writing, and in between that we got told that the landlord was kicking them out, so then we had to leave. Then they moved to Hastings, and we wrote the rest of it and finished it in a tiny, tiny room in his house next to his son’s bedroom. It was literally just in his house which is why it’s so special to me as well. I write about it and talk about a lot. This album was truly made in a family unit. We didn’t have money to spend in the studio, and I’m so, so lucky that Jamie and his partner let us live in the house for a year, and we finished it in their house. We stayed with them, and his partner would cook us food every single night, and still be mothering their son while she’s pregnant, it was truly a family unit, which is something that means to me so much. It makes me love the album even more.
What was the most incredible thing that happened in between was that we found out she was pregnant, whilst we were doing the album, and…by the time when we finished it, he was born, and he was only born a month and a half ago. We basically made an album within a pregnancy cycle. It made us want it to be more epic, and want it to be more theatrical, because we felt like we were living this beautiful experience all together.All of our voices are on it. We’d create these fucking choir vocals that were literally us sat there around the mic, just doing 100 takes.
So on ‘Back to Basics’, that’s not a choir, that’s just you guys?
Yes, we we’re just singing different parts and we’ll just do different voices like we’ll pretend that we’re some really deep voice and I’m a really small voice like we just did so many of that.
On the album’s opener, ‘101’ you say ‘TV falling’. Could you explain what that metaphor means?
For me, it’s a TV and all memories and experiences live in that TV. For me, my life and this TV is this representation of everything inside, there’s so much going on, there’s so much fucking chaos. At this point of the record, I was going through a lot in my head, and I just wanted to throw myself out of the window. We can use this TV as me and my head. I just want to throw it out the window and let it smash to the ground. I wanted to start the album with, this album is a TV falling to the ground. I hope you understand that.
The album has so much attitude, and it feels so urgent. It felt like you rally had to say these things. This is exactly what you’re saying with the TV, you were to throw it out, but you instead threw out an entire album.
We’ve been writing this album for a long, long time without us even knowing it was the album. We’ve been writing for fucking years, so it’s well marinated.
The first four songs are nonstop, you can’t look away.
That’s what I wanted people to feel, is that you listen to Nieve Ella’s debut album, and you’re in it, and you can’t turn it off.
How do you write lyrics?
It kind of changes. We usually start with a sound or a part of a guitar. Finn will play guitar or Jamie will start a drum beat or something and then we just start. it’s mostly me and Jamie. I come up with an idea of lyrics and then he’ll bounce off me, and then I’ll bounce off him. With this album, we were writing it in a way that, we weren’t going in every day being like, this is what we’re going to write about. We were going through life, and most of it we spent living instead of writing. We didn’t actually spend a lot of time writing these songs.
I was going through a lot of pain, and luckily Jamie and Finn are like my best friends so I was telling them about everything that I felt and then we’d sit down start jamming and then write about it. I think it was more of a conversation that we were having through a lot of it.
When you said you were having a tough time, what were you struggling with?
I mean a lot of it was I had really bad acne. I never had acne when I was growing up. When I turned 21, I came out of a relationship that was very intense and it just hit me. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me because I changed, my hormones hit and then for two years I went through this fucking delusion of hormones, they were insane. I was going to the doctors all the time. I was going through so much. I didn’t want to medicate myself, and I was trying everything I can. I had this nutritionist that was helping me understand what I was putting in my body. We don’t realise how much hormones are actually in food, we don’t realise how much our body actually needs, as a woman, especially.
Why do you think ‘Romance Is A Desert’ blew up so much?
It wasn’t even supposed to be a single. My social media manager heard it, she said I know exactly what to do with this song. It was actually on trial reels that we posted on. People loved it. Then we made it a single. I just thought it was a silly little song. Especially the last part of the song that everyone loves. I literally don’t know. I can’t even give you that answer because I don’t know myself because every song to me is just as great. I don’t have any recollection of writing it. It just happened. It’s the most unemotional. It’s about nothing. It’s like a jokey song. I fall in love and fall in love again and again.
‘At Any Cost’ is the most tender moment of the album. Where do you feel the most comfortable? In the slower stuff or in the big boy songs?
To be honest with you, I think I feel most comfortable in the slower stuff. In a way that I feel most me and most me, because I’m very emotional person. But the bigger songs are the chaotic part of me that I wish I was all the time. I wish I was crazy all the time because it’s such a good feeling. But most of the time I’m sat there in silence with my headphones on, knocked out the window, reminiscing and romanticising and every single thing of my life.I love performing the big boy songs, I love dancing, being dramatic, being a diva. I’m learning a lot about myself. I think that’s a new thing.
You also changed your hair, you went from off blonde to black. Was it on purpose to change it for the album rollout or was it just something you felt like you had to change?
A bit of both. I was breaching my hair for 5 years. I’m naturally brown, dark brown. I had no hair left. So I knew I needed to stop this. But I’m also releasing a debut album, and the songs are very different. They feel like younger me. . They feel like 16 year old me. I had black hair. I was wearing black and it was so me and I felt no one could touch me. These songs feel like that. These songs feel like this invincible, powerful, confident Nieve. No one can take this away from me. I was like why don’t I just go back to what that was for me when I was younger? That’s why I did it, really.
You said you feel like the school system fails the kids who are a bit different. Could you please elaborate?
I guess the whole thing about the school system is that you’re treated the exact same way as everyone else. In my school, you couldn’t do your thing, you had to sit there, no phones, no communication. I think that is the most insane thing that the government and the school system have ever chosen to do for children is to treat everybody the same, we are all different. We’re all on different parts of the spectrum. We’re all complex people. And we don’t all suit this one thing, who does that? It’s like making everybody work in a cafe or everybody work in a call center. That’s impossible. It’s something I feel very passionate about.
The way that I communicate is through doodling and I see things in a completely different way. I’m really bad at learning from somebody telling me something. That’s why I think I played up so much in schools, I’d be kicked out of class all the time because I couldn’t sit there in silence. I’d be doodling all on me and I’d be kicked out of class because of it. There’s not a lot of places for creatives.
One day one of my goals is to campaign to make schools way more creative. Babies in nursery, you’ve got rooms for babies that have colors and there’s tanks of fish and it’s all very immersive and stimulating. You go to secondary school and it’s nothing. We need music in the corridors while walking to our class. We need to be able to be free and be our souls because that’s truly what I believe we are. We’re souls. We’re not parasites that randomly turn into a fucking human.
That’s why I feel so grateful for the life I live because I could have easily just stayed in that rigid place. I’m from a small village and there’s literally no creatives that I really know. I could have been working the fish and chip shop. I could have been working in a bar, or be a hairdresser, which I was going to be. I’m very, very lucky that I found a bit of fire within me to go, and leave.
Was TikTok something you started because you’ve seen someone else with a platform posting singing videos?
I don’t think at the start, I didn’t realise what I was doing. I used to do YouTube as a kid and I’ve always wanted to do things like that, to be on camera. I originally started making TikToks with my little brother. We did random funny things and I brought it then into school because I knew that it was going to get views. I was very tactical and I knew I wanted to be out of the school, I wanted to sing. So if I can somehow get some followers, which I knew, filming in school when you’re not allowed, will get me viral. So I did that.
I remember the day I got kicked out of school because of the videos, my teacher made delete all of the 30 or 40 videos I had. She threatened me. She was like, this is going on your criminal record. They locked me in a room the whole day and took my phone.
When they let me back into school, I didn’t post those videos again, so I recorded singing videos. At the time, I was following Billie Eilish, Grace Abrams, and Lizzy McAlpine. They were posting things on their Instagram. They didn’t have any songs released, only had stuff on SoundCloud. And I was like, okay. If they can do it, I can do it. Then that inspired me to actually post. All those people that followed me because I was doing videos of school now are forced to listen to me sing, and some people now still come to my shows from that point, they still remember me because of that.
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Words: Karolina Kramplova
Photography: Millie Jamieson and Yana Van Nuffel