1. Hello, thank you for your time, please introduce yourself in a few words!
Hi and thanks for having me! My name is Niila, I’m a singer/songwriter from Finland. I moved to Berlin about five years ago after signing a record deal with a German label and have mainly toured around the GSA-area. Embarrassingly enough my German is still at a kinder garden-level so appreciate the chance to do this in English.
2. Please give us an update about – new single, new album, tour dates, new videos?!
I just recently I released a new single “Lean on me”. It’s a song that would hopefully be able to spread some love and smiles during the rocky times. We shot my parts of the music video in sunny Cyprus and for the rest of the footage, I asked my friends to send the most heartwarming or fun moments on their camera rolls with their loved ones and I’m just so happy and proud how it all turned out!
3. Name 5 things we all should know about you as an artist?!
- Career wise basically everything started for me about six years back by having an amazing opportunity to open for Sunrise Avenue on their Summer Tour and Arena Tour in Germany. Back then with the help of Samu Haber and their management, I was fortunate enough to sign a deal in Germany and release my first album through a major record label. Something I had dreamed of and worked towards since teenage years.
- I love organic instruments and that’s where my heart with music is. After my first album I released few singles with few more electronic sounds but since then, I’ve gone back to the roots and where I also believe I’m at my best; acoustic guitar and voice leading the way.
- I would like to think that what you hear is quite authentic as I write and now also produce my songs myself
- Together with my brother and our close friend, we took a leap of faith two years back and founded our own record label, Wellos records, which has been so inspiring and just a dream to work on something you love together with the people you love.
- 2022, I’m releasing both an EP and my second album so couldn’t really be more excited for this year.
4. What fashion style or brand would best describe your music?
As we have just started our label and I’m fully back with an acoustic sound and organic instruments, I think the answer would be any small fashion brand that has started from scratch, using natural and organic materials, where the designer and the staff are pouring their heart and soul into the project.
5. Tell us more about your songs! Topics! Message!?
Topics came from my own life or from something that a close person to me has gone through. Melodies have always come easier for me but the lyrics are definitely the slowest part of the process. I really need my time, preferably a cabin in the middle of the woods and a bottle of wine to nail a lyric that I’m happy with and feel connected to. In the past I would also do lots of co-writing sessions and always admired the people who were just super fast with the lyrics. For someone who doesn’t know what a co-writing session is, it is when a group of songwriters get in a room and join forces. When the vibe is right and the stars align, there’s a chance for real magic there and I love it, but a lot of times I realised I left home with a great track but didn’t necessarily feel fully connected to the song or the lyric in particular. So these days for my own songs, I prefer to write the lyric by myself even though it might take that trip to the cabin haha.
6. Beside music, do you have any special talents?
Not sure about special haha but before music came and swept me off my feet, I was all about sports and especially football and skateboarding. So give me a skateboard, doctor on call and 15 minutes to warm up the old knees and I’ll still pop a banging nollie heel flip.
7. Being on stage feels like….!
..that best kind of buzz after few drinks with your friends when you kind of forget about the outside world worries, full of energy and you just wanna tell your mates how much you love them haha. But to be completely honest, for me it’s not like that every time I get on stage. I’ve had major struggles with my voice over the years and on a night where my voice is hurting and I’m just hoping to somehow pull through without a catastrophe, the vibe inside my head is rather closer to that feeling the day after those lovely drinks.
8. How did you learn to sing/ to write/ to play?
I’m self taught except for one piano lesson as a kid. The old teacher-lady was mean so after the lesson I told my mom the collab wasn’t gonna work out. But actually going back to the previous answer, maybe a few singing lessons on how to use the voice without draining it would have been useful.
9. A question you’d like to answer, but never been asked in an interview
before?! + Answer pls
Saying dreams out loud is fun and has proven to be affective. So, what is my biggest dream with music? There are way more important things in life than career, so as long as those things are in place and I would still be able to do music for a living, I know I would be 100% happy. However…if I’d be touring the U.S one day I might be even happier! So there it is Univerese, I said it. I’ll get back with the tour-dates folks!
Thank you for the interview twisted male mag!
Your Instagram: @niilamusic