IDA GRATTE TALKS USED TO THIS
"The starting point of my healing"
Daniel John
Your previous single, 'Time', which came out just before this, was written during a real low-point for you, if not the low-point. When did you write this song?
'Time' was absolutely written during my low, but that song was in a way also the starting point of my healing. On the beach of Brighton 2024 while I wrote 'Time' I realised what I really needed and since that day I’ve been healing a bit day by day. Then 'Used to this' came to me last summer. When I felt happy for real for the first time in a long time. Not fully healed, but so close to be the Ida I had been missing. I started to see the parts of myself that I liked when I was young, when I was present with the here and now, slowly coming back again and that’s the feeling I wrote about.
Both of these singles are part of a forthcoming album that's starting to come into focus. Will this album’s narrative unfold in this kind of a chronological order?
You are right, this album will be the most vulnerable one for me so far. I’ll let the listeners close to my healing process, closer to nature, and also closer to my critical thoughts about the society we live in. I won’t say too much but 'Time' will be the first song, so we start at the point where I started to heal.
A documentary about you, 'In Her Own Key', was just also released. A documentary is really not something many twenty nine year old artists already have to their name. How did the documentary come about?
The idea came from the producer of the documentary Isak Friberg when he first meet me in the beginning of 2025 on another recording, he got inspired of my lifestyle as an indie-artist who’s doing everything myself and live fully on my music. He asked if he could follow my summer to capture it, to make more people see how it is, the ups and the downs of living fully on your passion. At first it felt a bit scary, because I wasn’t fully healed, and I asked myself if I’m to young for a documentary. But then I realised it was maybe the perfect timing. I don’t wanna show only the easy parts of life, because life isn’t always easy and that’s normal and should be talked about too. So after some thinking I said yes, join me!
Even if the deeply personal always been present in your music, what is it like to open up to this extent. I’d think there’s more control around how your music is released and presented?
As an artist, I’m of course used to show my thoughts to the world. But this was a new way of doing it. In my songs or on my social medias I choose what to release or post. Here Isak had all the control. And when I saw the results I was so happy that I dared to trust him. He captured my life so organically, it was so unreal seeing my life from outside. I realised how hard I’ve been on myself over the years and how much I’ve been doing that younger me would be so proud of. And it also made me see some things I’ve achieved that younger me would not care about at all, the things the society made me think I should be most proud of. It was nice seeing that, to confirm that I’m on the right path now.
This documentary traces a journey in and out of a state of exhaustion. What do deem is important in maintaining balance between all the different parts of being an artist?
Everyone is different and that means we all need different things to stay afloat but one thing I think a lot of artists and creative people have in common is that it’s hard to separate the artist you from the personal you. For many years I thought I was music. And that was where I got lost. I never slept, worked out or ate the way a human needs. I got stuck in the creating brain. I needed to create all the time to feel like I did not waste my time here on earth. I still struggle with it sometimes because I love to be in the creative bubble. But now I know that I do the best art when I feel good. And to feel good I need, and here is where we are different, time in nature, swims, yoga, second hand shopping, time around kids, friends and family, eat a lot of ice cream in the sun and so on and when I do that nowadays I feel enough just by existing. So I hope every creative person also finds this peace and can be present even outside of creating. Because for me that’s been the way to stay afloat.
How did your path as an artist first set out?
I’ve always been singing, my mum sang in many choirs and put me in them too when she saw that I loved to sing as well. My first role and solo in a musical was when I was five. Then I learned how to play guitar in high school and since then my guitars have been my best friends. I started out playing covers at restaurants, weddings, parties, retirement homes and then I started to write my own songs after high school, and started to add those songs on the gigs. In time the cover gigs ended and I got booked to play my songs and started to release them. Then one day I realised I wasn’t a cover musician anymore. I worked as an artist. At first I thought it was nothing you could do for a living. So I told myself lets enjoy this time of my life as long as I can do this. And now eight years later I’m still a hard working indie artist and got no plans to change that.
Do you feel like you’re in a good, positive place creatively now?
Now I take things so much slower then before and I already feel that it’s so worth it. I can be present in every session in the studio, on stage and in my free time. I am so happy life took me here, even if it’s been a hard road the last couple of years I would not change a thing. I’ve learnt how to listen to my body and I’ll never stop listening. It made me become who I am today. And I like this new version of me.
Will there be another summer tour this year with a chance to hear these newer songs live on stage?
Yes, I used to say my life is a never ending tour. You can see my upcoming shows on my website.
