Interview Tina Dico

We were sad to say goodbye to you in the UK, but you made a return to live back in Denmark. Was it a welcome return on both sides, because you’re hugely celebrated there…Yeah, well it was strange at first, I don’t know why, but the obvious thing was that I was very anonymous in London but it’s so different being here and everyone knowing who I am. Just walking down the street is very different; it’s not like people come up to me and ask for autographs or anything. Actually, a lot of people just smile, which is nice – it’s lovely, you know. It’s all positive, but that raised self awareness is tough, you know, even just going for a run, huffing and puffing down the street. I don’t do it quite as often as I used to. At first it was kinda odd because I really enjoyed being in London, having the peace and quiet to write, but also having the feeling that – in Danish we have a saying that translates as having ‘air under your wings’, which I guess all of us feel with travelling and being away from home and never really settling in one place. If you’re travelling you feel like you’re going places, that things can get better, whereas the feeling I had when I got back was like “oh, so is that it then?” I didn’t have the same feeling of air under my wings. But all the things that I missed, I have now; I’m part of my friends’ and family’s every day lives, which is brilliant. I do have – no, that’s a different story, but I think I will actually be moving again, not because I don’t like it here but because there are new horizons for me.

It was a decade since you made the move over to London – you must still remember it vividly. How did you feel at that time?It was a very intense time. I was on a mission I guess; I just felt very intensely alive and living my dream and going for it. I got a publishing deal and management deal in London and they wanted me to come over and write with various producers and writers that are part of that mill. That was difficult for me because I’d always been writing on my own and suddenly I was in a strange city and I didn’t know anyone there and I was being sent to all these people to write radio hits, or whatever. That was really, really challenging and I kinda lost track for a little while about what was me and my style and why I was doing it, so it was hard. But it was great on a social level; I actually moved to Richmond, not even the centre – actually Ham, just outside of Richmond so it wasn’t as if I was in London partying all the time. I was in this place outside of London meeting all these lovely new people, starting a new life. It was all very exciting.

On ‘Welcome Down’, the acoustic part of your new double album, ‘Welcome Back Colour’, there’s a track named ‘This City / London’, there’s a line that says, “You don’t change the city, the city changes you”, so what indelible mark has London left on you? Ah, that’s so hard to say because I ended up staying there for almost 8 years, and it’s been pretty much all the way through my 20s and embarking on a completely new and exciting, but also for me, a crazy life. It’s not been easy but it’s been amazing. It’s certainly not been easy… It’s hard to explain what London is. London is the base of this crazy life I guess. Moving away also marked the beginning of a different kind of, I guess, grown up life, whatever that means. I feel like London has played a big part in this life of following my dream 100% and not going to either side. Just like diving completely into the music. Almost, in a strange way, trying to make myself disappear from this equation. It was really about the music, but I don’t know, I haven’t written my big story yet.

I was going to ask actually, the making of ‘Welcome Back Colour’ might have worried fans, as even though there are new tracks on there, making a compilation of previous works might make people think it signals the end. Is this actually a halfway point for you?It certainly feels like it. It feels like the beginning of something for me actually, and I think that’s what was important to me, that there was new stuff on there as well. It’s OK that points in these different directions ‘cause I really don’t know what’s going to happen now musically. I’ve never been as open as I am now; I feel like I’ve got a lot of things out of my system, but there are other things I haven’t done. I haven’t really worked with that many people and that’s something that I’d like to change. I’d like to have a more social approach to making music. We’ll see, but it definitely feels like a beginning to me.

I found that listening to ‘Welcome Down’, there was a feeling of isolation to it that you don’t get with ‘Welcome Up’, even on the duets. Is that just because of the difference with recording an acoustic album?How do you mean ‘isolation’?

It’s difficult to explain, because I guess my impression is subjective, but there’s less production and it very much feels like you, stripped down.Yeah, so isolation in that kind of alone-ness, like melancholy?

Yes, partly sonically in that there are less instruments, but also in the sentiment…Yeah, definitely; I don’t know, with this record I really just wanted to make something really sparse and really raw, but it ended up being not nearly as sparse as I imagined. It was a very difficult album, more difficult than I thought it would be. I wanted to revisit old stuff, but that’s also the most difficult thing to do, to go back and yeah, try and create a natural journey through old stuff from various places. I guess the whole vibe of this record and songs that were chosen to go on there is more melancholic, or at least ‘skinless’, as we would say. I don’t know what you would call it in English!

It certainly makes for a very exciting live show – how is ‘Welcome Up’ going to sit next to ‘Welcome Down’? I think it kinda depends on the tour. I’ve just finished doing my biggest tour to date in Denmark, where for the first time we went full on with the rock side of things, you know, huge production, so the second half of the show was like up, up, up, up, UP. Way more than on the CD. The first half of the show would be way more kinda acoustic, but I think that’s not what I want to do actually for these upcoming tours. There’ll be fewer of us on stage and my heart is definitely very much with the live side of things, with the communication with the audience. The thing is that the songs on ‘Welcome Down’ can be played closer to ‘Welcome Up’ and the other way around, so it’s kinda nice that they all could have fitted on the other album if I’d have just recorded it that way. I do think that this show is definitely going to be somewhere in between.

Emma Roberts

Tina Dico tours her indulgent new double album, ‘Welcome Back Colour’ and comes to Norwich on Sunday 27th Feb. Buy tickets at www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk or call 01603 660352.