Freya Ridings

There’s a defiance and a fire to Freya Ridings right now that rings with the exquisite
power of finding yourself and fighting for yourself. It’s a strength borne from her
journey, forging a path through a patriarchal industry that all-too-often tried to
mould her into what they wanted her to be, a pop singer in hot-pants. But it’s also bigger
than that – an acknowledgement and an appreciation of all the women that have come
before, and a potency built on her desire to tell the stories they were denied the chance
to tell; to tap into a rich well of feminine energy and give it a voice.

“My first album had a colour palette of red and black, for fire and pain. The second album
was orange and green – earthy and organic. But this new music evokes water, the big
blue sea, with all the depth and ancient power of an ocean: it’s grief and it’s ancestry, the
known and the unknown,” she says. “There’s a lot of rebellion and female rage that I
wasn’t able to express before. I’m rebuilding myself to who I actually know I am instead of
what people tried to force me to be.”

Since breaking through with Top 10 single ‘Lost Without You’ back in 2017, Ridings has
cemented herself as one of the UK’s most impressive vocal talents, with the ability to
turn her hand to tender balladry and powerful air punch moments alike. That breakout
single has, to date, been streamed almost half a billion times on Spotify alone, while
2019’s self-titled debut album and 2023 follow-up ‘Blood Orange’ both landed in the
Top 10 of the UK Album Charts, sending Ridings around the world and landing her a BRIT
nomination for Best Female Solo Artist.

At the start, she was smitten with the joys of seeing her music connect to so many
people. “It’s funny,” she reflects, “you start off singing in your living room and then
suddenly a song speaks to people and you find fans all over the world who are
championing you.” But between her debut and its successor, the more insidious forces
within the industry had begun to take hold. She recalls being steered towards a pop
direction that sat at odds with the authentic singers she loved, like Florence Welch, Hozier
and Lana Del Raye. In sessions, she would watch her work be taken over and changed
completely by the men in the room, whilst lyrically they would tell her to make her
always-personal stories up. To just lie.

“With that album, some of it is me, and I think those are the songs that did connect with
the fans – the ones that I wrote and the ones that I loved,” she says. “But I think to do
anything good in this industry, there’s an element of rebellion that you have to hold on
to. And the more successful you get, the more they try to take it from you. Do I think this
is unique to my situation? I absolutely do not. I know this is happening to every woman out
there, but this job is an incredible privilege and I’m not letting it go without a fight.”
When ‘Blood Orange’ was released, Ridings spoke to her fans via Instagram and had
what she describes as “a full-on breakdown” about her situation. Having lost her
manager, and her label, both within the space of 24 hours, she found herself completely
on her own. It’s an experience that would have totalled many artists (and Ridings readily
admits that she was floored by the entire experience), but soon she began to see the

possibilities of the blank slate ahead of her. Crucially, the fans remained. “I was falling
through the cracks, and my fans caught me, and I couldn’t love them more for that. They
sold out an entire tour when I had no label, no marketing budget, nothing. They showed
up for me when no-one else did,” she smiles.

Leaving her hometown of London, Ridings headed to LA for a year to try and
reignite her creative light. She surrounded herself with people who truly loved their craft,
going into sessions with the likes of Jennifer Decilveo (Miley Cyrus, Hozier), Fraser T Smith
(Adele, Dave), Adam Yaron (Alex Warren), Toby Gad (John Legend, Beyoncé), Sam de
Jong (Gracie Abrams): writers and producers that wanted to hear what she had to say
and to elevate it. “You could feel the electricity and the positivity that they have, and that
really recharged me,” she says. “Even just being around them was a joy.” Slowly, the
backbone of her new music began to make itself clear: a third act that was not just about
reclaiming her own narrative, but celebrating the act of reclamation and return in itself.
“I’m tapping back in and saying: this music is mine. This is my connection with my fans and
these are the true stories of the women in my life who have built me; the love stories of
my life and their love stories too,” Ridings affirms. “Family is everything to me, and that
lineage and wisdom is everything. A lot of their fire and creativity never got to be seen
by the world because they weren’t allowed to show it. They were mothers, they
were widows and they were really hard-working women just trying to survive. But they
were also beautiful painters and fantastic piano players and inspiring teachers and what
they gave me is the freedom to really feel and explore the depths that they didn’t quite
get to express via their art.”

Written during this year of transformation, Freya Ridings’ new music rings with this sense
of urgency and ancestral strength. First single ‘Wicker Woman’ – recorded alongside
Decilvio – is a rich battle cry of resistance; a song to turn up loud and sing with your
whole chest. It taps into Ridings’ Celtic heritage, evoking vast windswept landscapes
and primal rage, yet beneath its anger lies a strong family bedrock. Finishing the track
at the eleventh hour before her studio session the next morning, it was her family that sat
down with her and helped to complete the demo “like how we would all write
together, back in the day”.

The duality of these two forces – the strength garnered from those close to you, versus
the darkness of the wider world – brims throughout this new work. It’s in the galloping
crescendoes of ‘Wild Horse’(“You’re gonna hear my name like a thunderstorm / I’m
breaking through chains, kicking down the door”), but also the fragile piano reflection
of ‘Mother of Pearl’ – a track about shared family grief that Ridings describes as “the
most emotionally gutting song I’ve written since ‘Lost Without You’”. There are varying
dynamics to these tracks, much as there are varying dynamics to life, but there’s a
steadiness and a confidence to them all that feels integral and hard-won.
Going into her third album – set for release in 2026 – Freya Ridings is not the same artist
she was before. She’s had to reach down into the depths and find reserves that she didn’t
know she had, and in doing so, she’s tapped into a rich seam of anger
and wisdom and womanhood that feels as timely now as it ever was. As she says, “Getting
to create, sing and play these songs and have them exist in the real world, that feels like
winning to me.”