‘I’m taking back my joy’
After three years travelling, Nadia feels the same love performing in Aotearoa, and is grateful to her home fans
Nadia Reid says falling into music was a bit of an “accident” at high school. But that accident, followed by a “long time” of keeping at it, has formed her into an award-winning and internationally acclaimed musician.
The New Zealand musician will perform in Hastings this Friday, May 14, at Toitoi — Hawke’s Bay Arts & Events Centre Opera House, in the first show of her New Zealand tour.
Playing since age 14-15, Reid’s musical journey began in high school where she had a good music teacher, a musical upbringing and competed in Rockquest.
The creative outlet turned into her first album in 2015 then she “ended up with the right people” overseas and created another two albums, with music becoming a full-time career.
Her third album Out of My Province, which she will be performing with her band on Friday, is “definitely a travelling album” her website says, and after three years travelling, performing the album after Covid-19 is a different experience.
“There really is this sense of before and after now with the Covid situation, there’s a real line in the sand for me.
“Things have really changed for a wee while, and maybe even forever, and I’m just grateful I got to do all the things I’ve done and travel and tour so much.”
She worked on the album with Spacebomb, a record label in Richmond, Virginia.
“I had to pinch myself a few times because I felt like I’d really worked and waited for that moment to be making an album in America.
“It was a really intensive but rewarding experience, I will never forget it.”
She says she’d love to work with them again, but likes the idea of working with different producers each album, to avoid the risk of “making the same album over and over again”.
I had to pinch myself a few times because I felt like I’d really worked and waited for that moment to be making an album in America
Best Thing and Heart to Ride are the songs she is “closest” to on the third album. Written at meaningful times in her life, “they seem to resonate with people”.
When she returned to Dunedin and lived alone in her childhood home after a period of international travelling and living in Auckland, Best Thing was written walking around the street she grew up on.
Heart to Ride was written when Reid was living in Titirangi, but she doesn’t like to give too much away about the meaning, so people can take what they like from songs.
The UK music media has often given her glowing reviews.
Performing in the UK is a different, bigger experience — performing on Later . . . with Jools Holland was a career highlight and at the moment New Zealand is a bit of a “fish bowl” with everyone home and touring — but she feels the same love performing here in Aotearoa and is grateful to her at-home fan base.
This tour will be her last for a while as Reid takes a break to finish off her fourth album. Working with producer Tom Healy, the album is half done. Reid says it’s hard to say what people can expect from the album while she’s in the thick of it, but so far, the five songs there are “I’m taking back my joy a little bit”.
Inspiration comes from a variety of places, and she says people and nature are her muse, but the fourth album, written in the pandemic — “there’s been a lot of sitting around the house” — has meant a lot of gratitude and time to sit still has inspired songs.
She had always planned to tour the album in New Zealand, ideally it would’ve happened after touring internationally, but she is looking forward to the full band shows.