“Sometimes, it’s ok to be pissed off”: Nieve Ella is done playing it safe

Nieve Ella wrapped up her “fucking magical” festival season with a cathartic, celebratory late-night set on Reading’s Festival Republic stage, just ahead of The Dare.

“It’s been really full on but so rewarding,” she tells Dork a few hours earlier. “Seeing the crowds get bigger, doing the larger stages… It’s just so validating. The response that I’ve had this summer has genuinely made me a better performer and a better artist. It’s also just made me want more.”

Nieve’s only been doing festivals for a few years. 2023’s debut EP’ Young & Naïve’ was a collection of cutesy coming-of-age indie, but this summer, she’s bounced between rock’n’roll excess and polished pop stardom in a way that’s felt authentic. “It does feel like I’ve come into my own,” she explains. “Playing more shows and having proper interactions with people has just made me more confident.”

“There’s a lot of anger in the new stuff”

The turning point was last year’s sarky, Charli xcx-inspired ‘Ganni Top (She Gets What She Needs)’. “It was more self-assured and a little louder than anything I’d done before. I knew it was the start of something.”

She’s spent gaps between headlining gigs and festival sets writing what comes next. “It’s very cool, we’re all very excited,” she teases. The first taste of the new era is ‘Good Grace’, which was written shortly after ‘Ganni Top’ and sees Nieve tap into fury for the first time. “It doesn’t matter how great everything can be going, there’s always those insecurities in the back of your mind. The more I sing ‘Good Grace’, though, the more it heals me.

“There’s a lot of anger in the new stuff. Sometimes people shy away from it, and I’ve definitely been scared about putting out that energy into the world, but it’s real. Sometimes, it’s ok to be pissed off.” She goes on to say the new project represents “the biggest change” so far. “I think about it every single day of my life.”

As it stands, her tour diary post-Reading is wide open. “Behind the scenes, I’ll be very busy,” she explains. “I want to make sure that whatever comes next really feels like Nieve Ella. I want to go away and really get that right.” And what comes next could be a debut album. “I’ve been writing a lot. End of the year is the time to decide what we’re going to do and what it needs to be.”

In terms of great debut albums, Nieve Ella sees Wolf Alice’s ‘My Love Is Cool’ as the benchmark. “I’ve been listening to that band so much recently. Every single of of their albums speaks to me in so many different ways. You can also really see the progression from the early stuff, and three years into my own career, that just makes me so excited about where it could go. They’ve also taught me not to be scared of that change.”

“I want way more now than I did when I first started out,” she adds. “I’m ready to get it as well.”

Nieve Ella’s single ‘Good Grace’ is out now.