08.12
Nadia Ali is the former front-woman for the band IIO, whose massive hit ‘Rapture’ tore up dance charts around the world back in 2001. Nadia is back on the scene as solo artist and has just released ‘Fine Print’ from her forthcoming album ‘Embers.’ The single features hot remixes by Serge Devant, Carl Tricks Fritzy, Alex Sayz and TyDi. I promised you an interview with her and here it is!
Check Nadia’s video introduction for Fine Print and preview the remixes here!
INTERVIEW (PART ONE)
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INTERVIEW (PART TWO)
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I wanted to know a little bit about your musical influences, who did you grow up listening to? Who are you influences at the moment?
Well I grew up listening to a lot of Indian music and a lot of Eastern music because I come from a household that is from that part of the world. I definitely was exposed to a lot of different types of music because I grew up in Queens and in Queens one of your neighbors is Jamaican, another of your neighbors is Asian and another is Latin, we get literally every kind of influence possible. I got into my rocker years as a teenager. I was a big fan of alternative and grunge music, and then I mixed them all together.
Nowadays I’m influenced by a huge diversity of artists I definitely, believe it or not, love folk music and country music I also really enjoy a good pop song so all of those things count.
Who are some of your musical guilty pleasures?
I’m gonna get in trouble for this, you see some of these people I know people are gonna be like “Why are they guilty pleasures, they are so good!” I’m just gonna admit to some of the people that I really love. I really love Bryan Adams, I love his music, he is I think a huge eighties pop rock icon, so I really love him. I really love country music, and some of the artists that I love are actually Taylor Swift, but she’s more pop, I love the Dixie Chicks all that stuff is really good
I know you started out in a group, IIO what was that experience like being in a group?
Sure, well I originally started recording music it was meant to be for my solo project, and what ended up happening is I happened to do a dance song. That song was just meant to be for fun and it ended up being Rapture. That song took on a life of its own so we were asked to create a project name for doing stuff that was more dance, because the stuff that we were working on was actually quite different from dance music. So it was actually meant to be a temporary thing, but it ended up lasting four years, that’s kind of the way things happen. We did that for a while and it was awesome and I loved being able to make electronic dance music. Then that just kind of segwayed into my solo project, which is what the original intent was, you know to do that music in the first place.
I know that you are working on a new album right now, and its been a long time coming I know that you finished with IIO a while ago, why was it such a long process for you to finally make the album that you wanted to make?
That’s a good question, it took a long time because I was experimenting a lot with different productions and different sounds and I wrote over 50 songs for the album, and it was constant process of eliminating songs and also figuring out which ones you wanted to really develop, and that takes time. Most of the producers that I worked with were in different cities so there was lot of traveling involved. There was also a lot of touring involved while I was making the album, so it was kind of like when you are really busy you have to strike when the iron is hot. You gotta go do all those show so it ends up taking you away from the studio which is probably the biggest reason why it took a while to get it down, but I’m definitely very excited about it.
What is the title of the new album, can you tell us that?
The title of the alum is ‘Embers’ and I called it that because I wanted to address the fact that most of the songs that I wrote were about relationships that I’ve experienced and how they leave like tiny embers inside me still. I’m very excited about the fact that I was able to write so much of what I was feeling it was definitely therapeutic and also a really fun process working with the producers that I worked with, and the songwriter. I worked with Scott Fritz, whose also called Fritzy, he’s based out of Chicago and we wrote tones of songs and it was just a really wonderful organic process. We sat in the studio for hours and hours and we co-produced a number of the tracks on the album. I also worked with Sultan and Ned Shepard and they were wonderful, they are doing their own thing in electronic dance music but when we got into the studio we literally wrote those songs on the piano and a guitar, Sultan plays guitar and Ned plays the keyboards so it was a really fun process working with them, they are so talented. I was really pleased with the fact that they were able to produce four of the songs on the album. Lastly, I worked with a Swedish producer named Alex Sayz , he is so talented, he’s really young and he’s got all of these thing going on with this own music and when I heard his production I asked him to work on my album. He ended up doing three songs. I’m really happy with those combination of those three producers
What are some of you favorite tracks from the album?
Personally I love all my songs but there are some that I just can’t get enough of. My favorite song on the album is probably ‘Point The Finger’ and it’s not released as a single yet, but its one of my favorites. It’s a very empowering song and it’s supposed to make you feel like maybe the person didn’t really know you and maybe they are not the person that they thought you were. I love so many of them but I especially love ‘Fantasy’ which is actually a ballad on the album it’s a really beautiful song, I wanted to have a variety on my album, I didn’t want it to be a typical dance record, so I went a little experimental.
I’m sure people will be excited to hear that kind of music from you
Yeah stuff is always gonna be remixed, so it will suffice for the dance lovers.
You just mentioned that you write your own music, how does the process work, where do you get the inspiration to write songs?
Many of the songs start out with a story that I have in my head, I usually take those stories from my personal experiences and I really have to have some kind of concept of what the story is because then it becomes really easy for me to write out the lyrics. Sometimes it happens the other way where I have a whole harmonic structure and I’ll just come up with the music and I’ll just hum the melody without really having any words to the song, but then the music itself will inspire a story so it can work both ways. Sometimes it’s really the co-writers you’re working with, when I got into the studio with Sultan and Ned Shepard we would talk about something and it would trigger a concept and I would just elaborate on that and come up with a song like that. It usually happens very spontaneously!
We really enjoy Fine Print and all the remixes, and are excited that it’s a single, are you planning to do a video for it. I know you did one for the last Single ‘Love Story’
Yeah actually we are talking to some directors, it’s hard to say because you want to make sure you get the right person to do the video, I’m definitely looking into it and I guess we’ll have to see in the next few months. I definitely would love to.
Do you have any live shows planned at the moment, or is that something you are going to be looking at in the future?
Yeah I’m singing the national anthem at the Staten Island Yankees Stadium in New York and that’s gonna be exciting, and I’m also doing a show for the DJ times convention this Sunday in Atlantic City and that should be a lot of fun. My booking agent has told me that they are a few different shows in the works of Egypt again, as well as Trinidad. I actually just got back from Colombia, and it was so amazing and I really have to tell the people of Colombia, especially the city of Medellín, my deepest gratitude for all the people that came out there, they are just amazing, South Americans just have this lovely spirit to them, the love music and love to celebrate.
That sounds exciting, were you part of a festival?
Yes it was part of this festival called, Feria De Las Flores, the Festival of Flowers, and basically its when all of the country comes to just observe all of these beautiful flowers that are growing. There are a number of concerts that take place all over the city, so the city is basically gridlocked the whole weekend, but it’s a lot of fun. It was a really special weekend, and it was my birthday weekend.
One last thing I wanted to ask you is did you have anything you wanted to say to your fans, any message you wanted to get out there?
Yes, I wanted to say thank you so much to my listeners that have stuck with me since the IIO days, I’m so excited to share the album with you in a few weeks I have wanted to share the album for so long, I’m just really excited to get that out to your guys. Also please visit me on my website, I do take the time to check my websites so it’s always good to get some fan interaction.
Thanks Nadia!
Connect with Nadia!
Nadia Ali -- Love Story
