Norwich! Te head of the label was like, ‘we’re overwhelmed with the number of people from Norfolk in this room!’ I don’t know; there’s definitely something!
Tere’s another artist from the area who’s quite well known… Mr Ed Sheeran. His route was a bit different from yours, peddling CDs out the back of his rucksack – - I went to music college with Ed – we went to a music college in Stratford – and at the time he was doing exactly what you said; he had like two or three gigs a night and he’d be selling CDs out
of his backpack. He worked really hard for it and he really deserves how far he’s got.
You both share that ethic of making things happen yourself. Do you think it’s important for a young artist to say, ‘no, I’ll be in charge of this – I’ll put the effort in here.’ Yeah, definitely; with things like YouTube and the social media that’s about nowadays, it’s silly not to use it really. Anyone can do it, so if you believe in yourself and you want to do music, or anything else, then do it ‘cause you never know who’s watching. Like, I got discovered on YouTube - I never expected I would, but that’s how I was found. Promote yourself as much as you can for free.
So you didn’t really have any expectation when you first started uploading your videos then? No, not at all; I bought a cheap guitar and taught myself a few songs, recorded some covers and then the reason that I put a video up was just to watch myself back and get a bit of feedback really. It kept growing and growing and all of a sudden I was putting more videos up and stuff, and now I’ve got this big YouTube fanbase.
What I thought was so nice is that I
was looking at your channel and I viewed all your videos from oldest to newest and it’s so cool, ‘cause you can see the evolution of an artist! Yeah, definitely; that’s what I get as well, people commenting saying, ‘I’ve watched all your videos and you’ve come so far’, and things like that. It’s a good timeline really of me getting better at singing and playing guitar, and writing in general.
What do you think has been the biggest change in you as an artist, then conversely, what have you maintained all the way through? Well I think recently I’ve done stuff in the studio, like, I did a song with Disclosure called ‘Control’ that was quite different for me, because I’m used to writing on a guitar, and writing stuff from my influences. I think it’s important to explore a bit though, and challenge what you’re used to – just show your diversity. Ten I released an acoustic EP, which was more me and what the fans had seen on YouTube over the years. I wanted to give them something back, so yeah, I went down that route. So I think that’s what I kept all the way along, my own writing style and my own songs – what people are used to, and what got me there in the first place.
You need a supportive family if you’re gonna be saying, ‘Mum, Dad, I’m gonna be a musician’ – which you obviously do. Your brother’s an actor, isn’t he? Yeah, I’m literally going to see him tomorrow; I’m flying to Budapest because he’s shooting a film called Hercules at the moment with Te Rock, and he’s gonna be out there ‘til October, so I’m going there for a week, tomorrow. Te whole family is really supportive. I did go to uni at first, but after about a week, I decided I didn’t want to do it! I literally went to Freshers’ Week then my brother came to see me for a bit – my oldest brother Ross. We went for food and I said, ‘I really don’t think I want to be here doing this; I’ve been sat in my room all week writing music and playing
guitar!’ So he was like, ‘let’s go home now then. Pack your stuff and we’ll go.’ So I packed my whole life in his car and just drove home that night! Ten the next day on MySpace there was a banner for Access2Music in Norwich. I started their musician course the next day! Tat was really good – I recommend that to anyone in Norwich who wants to get into music.
So I just want to ask you about your album; I know you’ve been working really hard on it, and working with Plan B too, which is really cool ‘cause he started off as a man with his guitar too, didn’t he? So how far off do you think you are? With my album? Erm, basically I’ve got loads of songs that I’ve been writing over the last couple of years, like, a little back catalogue and I’ve explored different styles and they’re all great songs in their own right, but what I’m gonna do is – I’ve probably got the album, the songs that I want – but what I need to do is find the right producer to give them all a coherent sound and bring it all together to make the album. So I’ll probably strip the songs back to vocals and guitar, then mess around with it – keep it soul, keep it old school but maybe with some edgier beats or something, just to make it a bit more current and cool.
Now Ria, I just want to ask you finally – there’s a lyric from ‘Wrong Side of Paradise’, off your EP that says, “Take me home where I belong […] it means everything to me.” As a local girl, tell us how you feel about home… Te reason I haven’t moved away is that I love it; I’m a family girl so I like being close to family. I feel lucky to have Norwich so close because of the shopping and nightlife, and the nice restaurants, then you’ve got the Broads where you can chill, then the beach… Tere’s a lot of people that moan about it, but you can’t take it for granted because it’s such a nice place for people to live, it’s safe, and I don’t know… I’m just happy at home.
Emma R. Garwood
Festival. Sundown comes to the Norfolk Showground from Fri 30th Aug – Sun 2nd Sept. For tickets, go to
www.sundownfestival.co.uk. Read the uncut version of this interview on
Outlineonline.co.uk
outlineonline.co.uk /August 2013/ 17 Ria Ritchie plays as part of the big-name bill at Norfolk’s own Sundown
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