One of the first things you notice about Freya Ridings is that words spill out of her breathlessly. Excitedly. Passionately. She can’t help herself: she has always been enthusiastic, she says. The young English musician’s earnestness is impossible not to warm to, as her fellow guests on The Graham Norton Show – Helen Mirren, Pedro Pascal and Ariana DeBos – recently found out.
“I was like ‘Ermahgerd! You’re Dame Helen Mirren!’,” she recalls with a wide-eyed grin when we meet on a sunny day in Dublin. Yes, Ridings is the type of person who uses phrases like ‘Ermahgerd’ (meaning oh my God) with no excuses or apologies. The second thing you notice is the red hair: a result of her Irish blood, she says proudly.
“I heard Niall Horan say on the radio on St Patrick’s Day, ‘Oh, everyone says their grandparents come from Cork’, but I was like ‘My grandparents did come from Cork!’,” she insists, laughing.
“There’s a mix of Galway, Cork and County Down on my mum’s side; she’s three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Scottish. And my great-grandfather was a doctor in Dublin. So that’s where the red hair comes from; I am a Celt, and I’m delighted to be back in the motherland.” She grins. “I feel my ancestors would be very happy about it.”
Ridings’ joie de vivre is a quality that has served her career well, but that wasn’t always the case. Her father Richard is an actor, known for sitcoms like Fat Friends and as the voice of Daddy Pig in Peppa Pig, while her mother Cathy Jansen-Ridings also acted before turning her attention to writing. Ridings says that her “bohemian upbringing” and her eagerness did not gel well with her peers. As well as dealing with dyslexia at school, she was bullied and ostracised and would hide in the piano room at lunchtime.
I thought I was gonna rebel and be an accountant, or something, but I was awful at maths
“Whenever there was a talent show or something I could sing at, I’d do it – and it was the one night of the year where people would actually treat me like a human being,” she says with a solemn nod. “And it was so weird to me, because growing up I felt so loved and respected in my little family home, and all my uncles and aunties were so vivacious and bohemian. And then going into a place where that was very much frowned upon; where it was not cool to be excited, or care, or feel things – and I was a kid who felt everything so deeply...”
She sighs, before brightening up with a grin. “But now, it’s a fun life. I think my goal is always to get back to that person that I was before school – and I feel like I’m finally getting there.”
Now 29 years old, Ridings had no intention of following her parents into the acting business. She pulls a face, recalling how she was encouraged to attend acting and dancing classes at a stage school on Saturdays. “I’m awful at acting,” she says, shaking her head. “And dancing, too. I’m so bad. So then I thought I was gonna rebel and be an accountant, or something, but I was awful at maths.” She shrugs. Music it was, then.
Ridings later thought she’d find her tribe at the famous performing arts college The BRIT School, but that wasn’t the case, either. Many of her classmates, she says, thought they had already made it and weren’t willing to get stuck in, learn and collaborate. Several years after graduating, however, Ridings signed a record deal when her only friend from the school brought her early songs to the attention of the A&R department of the indie label he was interning at.
Her eponymous debut album, released in 2019, set her firmly on the road to stardom, buoyed by the success of her single Lost Without You, which went viral after it was featured on Love Island. “I started getting messages from people saying ‘You’re on Love Island’ and I was like ‘Umm, no, I’m definitely not. I couldn’t get a tan if I tried’,” Ridings quips.
Success, however, came at the expense of happiness and stability in her personal life. As the pandemic broke in 2020, she found herself back in her parents’ spare room, nursing a broken heart after her long-term relationship had ended.
“It was very surreal,” Ridings admits. “On one hand, it was a shock to all of us, because the world stopped – but for me, I was going through a break-up so there was nowhere to hide. I was using the adrenaline of being on tour to run from that, and it was working,” she says with a bittersweet smile.
“Then ‘bam!’ – you’re back at home, and you’re thinking ‘Oh my god, there’s nowhere to hide: I can feel everything, I’ve f**ked up, I’ve lost the person that I love the most in the world, oh my god.’
“I’d sacrificed so much, and I realised that I hadn’t even seen my family in so long. And I’d let this relationship that I adored crumble. And I’d been part of that, going ‘I have to give this music everything! It’s everything!’ But it left me so isolated, and it left me without connections, and I thought ‘This is the complete opposite of what I was going for’.”
[ Freya Ridings: Our New VBFOpens in new window ]
The pandemic, she says, allowed her to “reprioritise” her life. Half of her excellent new album Blood Orange was written in that “isolated, heartbroken head space”, with songs like Face in the Crowd documenting the agony of hoping that her ex would still show up to her gigs. The other half tells a story of redemption: not only did she rekindle the spark with her partner, folk singer Ewan J Phillips, but last November, she married him.
The break also gave Ridings a newfound confidence in her own ability as a songwriter. Writing happy songs for Blood Orange, she says, initially caused some self-doubt.
Starting this album, I was in a dark, painful place
“I always felt embarrassed to feel happy, because sad songs are like, my living,” she says, only half-joking. “I always felt ‘Jesus Christ, are people gonna allow me to actually be happy?!’ Then again, my only goal with this album, and each song, was say something that scared me to say.
“I’ve done that now – whether it’s ‘I’m ridiculously lonely and I have no friends’ – great, really embarrassing – or ‘I’m looking for my ex in every supermarket’ – also embarrassing.
“So to admit that I’m happy after years and years – and a couple of years of Zoom therapy – I realised that I was the common denominator, and I can break this pattern of isolation and allow myself to trust someone and love someone. And actually allow myself to be happy, and not fear that; because I feel like that was almost my brand. I’d kind of done that with myself; ‘This is who I am. I’m the sad song girl.’ But I have to go home with that; I have to go to a hotel room with that, and sit on my own with it after it all calms down. And I don’t wanna live like that forever – it’s dark.”
Ridings knew that she wanted to make her second album differently, in every respect – including musically. In the past, she has been compared to Adele, Florence + the Machine and London Grammar; Blood Orange adds some new flavours to the mix.
“Half of this album was produced in a shed, because I wanted it to be the music I really wanted to make, and you don’t always get that opportunity in some of the bigger studios,” Ridings explains.
“So we went a bit rogue. I was like ‘F**k it’; I just wanted to make an album that I was proud to put on. I was really proud of the songs on the first album, but I think production-wise, I let other people’s voices take the lead because I was learning how to record, which is a skill in itself.
“So on this one, I wanted real people: real brass, real handclaps, the string players are my friends and people I’ve met. So it’s much more collaborative, this one.”
Ridings spent months in Los Angeles tweaking the album and collaborating with different writers, as well as seeking guidance from producers like Ryan Tedder, who advised her to “lean into the more organic, indie acoustic 70s side of things”. It was important to balance that 70s vibe – influenced by everyone from Elton John and Minnie Ripperton, to contemporary records like Michael Kiwanuka’s Kiwanuka and Harry Styles’ Harry’s House – with pop songs, and tracks that her fans can still relate to.
One song, Perfect, is one of her most vulnerable to date, touching upon her issues with body image over the years. It is important, she says, to sometimes make music that sends a positive message out into the world.
“Starting this album, I was in a dark, painful place,” Ridings says, nodding. “And I was very scared to make this album, because I really wanted people to like it. And then I let go of that, and I leant into the bravery of saying the things I was terrified to say. F**king hell, it’s scary,” she grins.
[ Freya Ridings: ‘I wasn’t cool when I was younger. No one wanted anything from me’Opens in new window ]
“But also, the world keeps on spinning, no matter what. I think people see bravery, and they know when you’re playing it safe. So I’m just determined not to play it safe with this album.” She leans back in her chair with a satisfied grin. “And that’s hopefully what I’ve done.”
Blood Orange is out now. Freya Ridings plays Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre on September 18th, and The Big Top, Limerick on September 21st
