As she releases her third album, the singer discusses cracking TikTok, her Swedish heritage and run-ins with Reese Witherspoon.
In the summer of 2019 Nina Nesbitt went to visit her grandmother in Sweden. But what was originally intended as a holiday soon became something else.
At the suggestion of her new publishers, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter, from Livingston in Scotland, met up with local songwriters for some studio sessions.
The results were instant and captured her dual identity in a way her music had not before - her father, Mike, is Scottish and her mother, Caty, is originally from Sweden.
"Sonically some of it is quite Scandi, quite Swedish, and a lot of the visuals are inspired by that," she explains from a sparsely decorated living room, a piano tucked in one corner, "but you can definitely hear the Scottish folk storytelling."
"Even if it's a pop song, it's still a story and not necessarily the kind of story you would hear in a pop song normally. Songs like Dinner Table, for example - it's like a folk tale of three women of different generations. There's quite a lot of that on there.
"I was definitely inspired by walking around Edinburgh as a kid and hearing buskers singing folk songs and the storytelling has definitely come from that side."
Those sessions in Sweden produced her upcoming third album's biggest tracks - Pressure Makes Diamonds, Teenage Chemistry and the title track, Alskar.
Alskar, which means "to love" in Swedish, felt an apt title for an album that explores love in all its forms - as well as Nesbitt's relationship with her Swedish side.
However, she is now realising many Brits struggle to pronounce the word (for reference, it is EHL-skah, with the stress on the first syllable). In another nod to her maternal heritage, she also sports an extremely Scandi blonde bob.
"To be honest, I chose it because the last album title was two sentences," she jokes, referring to 2019's The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change.
"It just got really long! I was like, 'Right, one word for the next one'. I decided to choose one in a different language just to be annoying."
In a more serious tone, she adds: "It means 'to love' in Swedish. I am half Swedish, half Scottish and have spent quite a lot of time out there in the past couple of years. I was writing there and really gelled with the producers and writers and absolutely loved it.
"It's interesting when you have one parent from a different country and you go there and experience that side of things, that different culture. It just makes you think, 'What if I grew up here? Who would I be? What would my life be like?' It's interesting exploring that side of things.
"The album is about love in all its different forms, whether it be romantic love, friendship, family, self-love, whatever."
Since the release of her second EP, The Apple Tree, in April 2012, Nesbitt has become an in-demand songwriter for the likes of Jessie Ware, Don Diablo and The Shires, notching up half a billion streams worldwide.
Recently, she wrote a song with Deacon Phillippe, the DJ son of Reese Witherspoon, and the Big Little Lies actress even recorded a TikTok dance to the track.
"And she follows me on Instagram which is really cool - really surreal," Nesbitt adds excitedly.
Nesbitt's dual heritage also bookends the album. The record begins with Gaol, which means love in Scots Gaelic, and ends with the title track, which references her Swedish side.
For the former track, Nesbitt used TikTok and Instagram to crowdsource hundreds of voice notes from fans all over the world, each saying "I love you" in languages ranging from Estonian to Korean.
Nesbitt has been a digital native ever since she began gigging around 2011.
"It has honestly completely flipped the industry on its head and everyone's scrambling about trying to figure out how to use it to promote their music," she explains.
"There's a lot of music out there. You can get a bit carried away trying to make things go viral.
"But I just try and have a laugh and make videos that I find funny or that I would want to see myself. You can't think too much about it.
"Nowadays it's different. You don't decide what song is going to do well. Whereas before, it was like, 'Here's the three singles, here's the album'.
"Now you could put it out and maybe a song you released two years ago suddenly connects.
"There's so much music out there it's just a matter of trying to get people to hear it - and TikTok is definitely a good tool for that."
Alskar also sees Nesbitt reflecting on the pressures she faces as a woman in both her career and personal life.
Pressure Makes Diamonds was written about three years ago.
Inspired by the way Dolly Parton used serious lyrics about independence alongside upbeat music on her 1980 hit 9 To 5, Nesbitt tried doing the same with her own experiences.
"I wrote it when I turned 25," she recalls. "I felt like things were coming at me from all angles. It was my professional life but also my personal life.
"In my professional life, it was like, 'You're getting older. How many years have you got left? You've got a sell-by date' kind of thing.
"And then in my personal life it was like, 'When are you going to have a kid? When are you going to get married? When are you going to settle down?' All these things.
"I wanted to document it. It was like a stream of consciousness."
It's been a decade since Nesbitt started out. Her first years in the spotlight were particularly intense.
A split from her then-record label and a high-profile but short-lived relationship with Ed Sheeran drew media attention. But she looks back at that time as a lesson.
"I didn't really know how to navigate that time because I was so young. I was 17," she reflects.
"I had just left school, was suddenly projected into this world and everything was moving 100 miles an hour.
"It was a really exciting time but also quite a stressful time.
"I didn't really know what was going on. I didn't really know who I was or what my sign was. I was still figuring it out.
"But then it was time to go. It's very much like I've learned on the job. And I guess some people would say that's not great and I should have waited longer to perfect my style.
"But in a way it's cool that my audience has grown with me and seen the progression. I don't look back and regret anything. It was all experience."
Alskar by Nina Nesbitt is released on September 2.
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