Nadia Reid: The 13th Floor Interview Pt. 2

Nadia Reid has just released her highly-anticipated second album, Preservation. Yesterday we posted the first part of an interview The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda conducted with Nadia. (Click here to read Pt.1 of the Nadia Reid interview).

Now, here is Part 2 of the interview, in which, among other things, Nadia discusses her songwriting technique.

Listen to Part 2 of the Nadia Reid interview here:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: The other thing is song writing: the thing that struck me about the song writing is the first lines to a lot of the songs – and I’ve been noticing this with a lot of other things as well – I’ll regurgitate some of your own back to you, if you don’t mind: there’s, “Richard liked the sound of his own voice,” was the first line in one song; “We see things in a different light,” my favourite one is, “There’s one main street in this town. There are two straight lines in my head.” All three of those lines really set up those songs. You don’t even need the rest of the song: if you stopped there, you’d be okay. They let you know what’s going to happen with those songs. Is that how you start with your song writing: by coming up with a jumping off point like that?

NR: I don’t think so. I think it’s more… sometimes the song will come at the same time as writing on the guitar – so, I’ll just be playing guitar, and it will come out together – but more often than not, it will be writing that I’ve done separately – I do a lot of journal writing, and I’ve been getting into poetry. A lot of those lines are parts of writing I’ve done; so, it’s like this story telling aspect that I quite like. I love the fact that no one really knows what’s true and what’s made up; and I love being able to blur those two together.

MD: Are there a lot of Richards wondering if…

NR: Yeah. It’s been a point of contention. I often will have characters in my songs, and I’ll often change their names; but for this song, I kept it – the real name – and I’ve never done that before. I’m not quite sure what I was intending with it, but I was just being true to the song, and true to how I was feeling at the time. My intention is never to humiliate anyone, but it was just being true to the song; I’m not really in control of it sometimes. I mean, of course, I have a choice to not release it and release it, but in terms of the song…

MD: It is what it is.

NR: Yeah!

MD: And as far as song writing goes: is your process pretty much the same as it was when you made the first album? Have you changed anything along the way? Have you picked up anything from your travels?

NR: It feels very much the same. I think I probably learned…it’s very easy to not make time to allow song writing to happen: sometimes, if I have a really busy schedule, or I’m not getting out in nature enough, or I’m not having enough time on my own, my song writing slows down and tends to suffer. You’ve got to allow room for it to happen in order for it to happen. I can’t really be forceful about it. I know a lot of other people have a lot more rigid… writing schedules.

MD: I think Nick Cave who is the guys that gets up at nine o’clock in the morning, sits at his type writer; and at five o’clock, he’s done, and he goes off. That’s what he does. It’s his nine-to-five job; which is kind of bazaar, but it works for him.

NR: I think the morning time, for a lot of people, is the most creative time; so, it’s good to get up early.

MD: I find, as I get older, I get up earlier and earlier, and I get more done; so, it does work. There are some lines in your bio… where you write that travelling inspires you. Does it inspire your song writing, or just inspire you to do what you’re doing? What kind of inspiration are we talking about?

NR: I found that our big tour last May – our first time to Europe – was incredibly inspiring… sort of in a way that you get back, and it’s over, and you’re reaping these rewards of all the travel. I felt very stimulated by all the new people that we met, and the new cultures, and you get this broader sense of all different kinds of humans. And you’re also pushed out of your comfort zone every day, when you’re touring; well, I was, personally. Even just touring to Australia and around New Zealand, I mostly love it. I mean, I like having a base, but I think constantly moving and touring is a really stimulating experience for me.

MD: Another thing that’s in there is that you mention the album is about strength, observation and sobriety; so, that, obviously, opens up all sorts of speculations and questions. How would you elaborate on that?

NR: I guess, between the first album and the second album, there was a lot of growth. I have said this before: I feel like my mid-twenties crisis came a little earlier, and I think I overcame a lot of things that were holding me back; and I feel better for it, and I feel stronger for it. This album is about overcoming some universal issues; that if I said them out loud, I’m sure a lot of people could relate to; they’re common things. If you listen to the album, you probably will pick up on a few of them. It just feels like I overcame a few things…. Someone said that this album sounds stronger, and it sounds like there’s more confidence.

MD: And you also say, “I am a person that operates differently to others.”

NR: I think that I’m alluding to this notion that… I feel different to a lot of other people that aren’t creative. I envy these people that can get up and work nine-to-five, and their just constantly content; and I’m like, “I want what you have.”

MD: What about when you were at Laneway yesterday: do you feel like the rest of the people… you’re a part of them, or do you feel like a separate entity to what they are?

NR: I think I felt separate because I was sober…

MD: Yeah, me too!

NR: Yeah! That was why I felt separate. I had an amazing day, and I was totally in there for the music. And I was looking around at these people that are just there to get out of their heads – most of them. I think some artists envy this person that can have this steady state of contentedness, but for me, I’m very sensitive to the world; so, if I didn’t get all of this ‘up and down’, I probably couldn’t be a song writer. It’s this thing you just have to learn to live with; but also, I’ve started to feel really grateful that that is who I am, because it would probably get pretty boring.

MD: That’s why people have mid-life crises, and change their jobs after twenty years: because they’ve had enough.

NR: And… lately, with this new music foundation thing – where we’ve started to talk about how common mental illness is in the music community – I think, for a long time, it just didn’t get talked about, and it was this really hard thing to talk about. There was a lot of alcohol abuse, and all sorts of things. I think there are reasons why you’re more likely to experience these sorts of things when you’re in the creative industry.

MD: Probably, a lot of it has to do with the fact that you do feel like you’re different from everyone else, and that you’re separate and not part of some bigger group. It’s isolating and alienating.

NR: Yeah, it can be. But I think it’s awesome that New Zealand is brave enough to start something like that.