She's just 23 but already eight years into her career in music. Nina Nesbitt is a well established artist in the U.K., but she's turned her gaze towards North America in 2018, touring and promoting around her forthcoming, still-untitled second album stateside.
Nesbitt has received her share of big breaks, but not without putting in the work beforehand. A budding singer-songwriter since age 10, Nesbitt began gaining a following after years of uploading cover songs to YouTube. Then a chance meeting with Ed Sheeran in 2011 got her a gig opening for the one-man pop powerhouse.
"He heard me play a song and offered me a support slot," she tells Q104.3 New York's "Out of the Box" with Jonathan Clarke. "It was really kind of him. I kind of went from playing pubs to...academy-sized venues. And then I went on tour with a DJ called Example, which was crazy because I was there with my acoustic guitar at, like, an arena filled with ravers. You have to come out of your comfort zone, and you definitely grow as a performer through things like that."
Nesbitt initially broke through with the carefree single "Stay Out." She's steadily expanded her comfort zone since. The last few years have brought more nuance to Nesbitt's song craft and lyrics. With more highs and lows of real-life from which to draw inspiration, Nesbitt released the empowering, New Wave-adjacent, club-friendly banger "Chewing Gum" in 2016.
"Moments I'm Missing" arrived in 2017. The retrospective ballad showed Nesbitt breaking into a more introspective tone. She says it was brought on by her time writing for other artists. “I went home from a session for someone else and I wanted to write a song nobody else could sing but me," she says. "I wanted to write a song that's just about my life."
The brilliance of "Somebody Special," which she performed live for "Out of the Box," is that as authentic as Nesbitt's delivery of the lyrics is, the song could be about anyone who's ever looked for something better while being in a toxic relationship.
Check out the full interview and performance in the video above.
Nina Nesbitt is returning to the U.S. in June. Get all her tour dates here.
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Here's the official music video for Nina Nesbitt's "Somebody Special":
Here's Nina considering a career change as a weather girl in Nashville, TN. It's good work if you can get it.