SINGER-SONGWRITER FREYA RIDINGS ON SUCCESS
SINGER FREYA RIDINGS TELLS OK!’S KATIE LANGFORD-FOSTER ABOUT MUSIC, ‘LOVE ISLAND’ AND REJECTING DISNEY PRINCESSES
When OK! arrives at The Soho Hotel to meet Freya Ridings, we’re barely in our seat before the former BRIT School student is offering to pour us a glass of water. And her thoughtfulness after our journey across sunny London sums up the star’s winning attitude. Eloquent, funny and not afraid to stand up for herself, it’s no surprise that the 25 year old is fast becoming one of the hottest singer-songwriters around. And as the daughter of actor Richard Ridings – the voice of Peppa Pig’s Daddy Pig – performing is in Freya’s blood!
Her single Lost Without You shot into the charts last summer after it was featured on Love Island, and last month she played on Glastonbury’s John Peel stage. Then there’s her self-titled debut album, out this week.
Here, Freya tells OK! how she’s baffled by the lack of female song writers and why being dyslexic is a superpower…
Lost Without You was the most Shazammed song on Love
Island 2018. Are you watching this year?
Yes! I love Maura [Higgins]. She’s a girl’s girl. As for last year, I was so grateful for the reaction to Lost Without You. Things really started to pick up overnight. I was playing open mic nights for years, and it’s just crazy that one moment like that can change things so much. I’m pinching myself!
You were the first female artist to make the top ten with an entirely self-written song since Kate Bush re-charted in 2012. How does that feel?
There’s a huge part of me that’s so proud, but then another part of me that’s baffled as to why that’s true. You come under a lot of pressure as a woman in the music industry to write with men double your age.
I work with so many incredible women – Lena Headey [Game Of Thrones actress] directed my music video. Strong women are everything to me. I want to show more girls it’s possible to write your own songs.
Did your parents give you any industry advice?
I was brought up as a ‘writer’ and not a ‘girl’. My mum steered me away from Disney princess films. She didn’t want the first stories I saw to be about someone saving themselves by the way they look, instead of problem solving and creativity. It’s true you can have a castle but you can buy it yourself!
Have you had any uncomfortable work situations?
The first producer I ever collaborated with when I was 16 was the worst experience. I said something about the production and he literally told me to ‘f *** off’. I didn’t know what was normal [in this industry] but I hadn’t been raised to accept this. I thought, what would Beyoncé do? I stood up and said: ‘Thank you for your time but I will not be working with you any more,’ and I left. He sent this email like: ‘You’ll never do anything in the
music industry.’ You are in a vulnerable position as a young girl in a studio on your own with a man, and you just need to go in with the idea that you deserve to be treated as an equal.
There are some heartbreaking songs on the album. Have you ever had your heart broken?
So many times. And at school, being a redhead and tall – I’m 5ft 10in – does isolate you. I didn’t have friends to talk to but I love people so it was like heartbreak on a daily basis. Whatever kind of heartbreak I’ve been through, the piano is where I turn. I was watching Love Island thinking, Amy [Hart] needs a piano! Writing from personal experience is the only way I’ve ever been able to write because I can’t read music!
Does being dyslexic affect your approach to song writing?
It did at the beginning. Even now I don’t see myself as a writer as I don’t hold a pen. It’s a superpower but no one tells you. It allows you to think slightly differently, which is never a bad thing. FREYA’S DEBUT ALBUM ‘FREYA RIDINGS’ IS RELEASED ON JULY 19.