00:05Hi, I'm Rhiann Daly from NME and I'm backstage at Reading with Sade Oltola.
00:10How are you, Sade?
00:11I am amazing. How are you?
00:13I'm good, thank you. Yeah, you just played your first Reading set.
00:16Yes.
00:16How was it?
00:17It was incredible. I'm very grateful to be here.
00:20It was raining, so I think it was really helpful because the canopy is the canopy.
00:25So I think people came in because it was raining to watch me perform.
00:28And maybe they were like, oh, maybe I would like this.
00:30So I appreciate the rain today.
00:32For once.
00:33How did it compare to your expectations of what Reading would be like?
00:37Reading? I've never been to Reading.
00:39It was muddy and rainy.
00:43So I guess, I don't know, I knew it was going to rain, but I didn't compute that.
00:46Oh, it's raining on a field, so it's going to be muddy.
00:50So I guess that's the only thing I didn't expect.
00:52But I literally just did All Points East yesterday.
00:55So that was like one of the first festivals I've ever done.
00:57So this was like, okay, it's like a new thing.
01:00But it's like, I'm getting used to it.
01:02It's like practice.
01:03Yeah.
01:03I was going to say, you had a busy festival season.
01:05You had Great Escape, Primavera, All Points East yesterday.
01:09How has it been treating you so far?
01:11I mean, I like this little life.
01:13I think it's cute.
01:16I feel like it's kind of interesting because the amount of preparation that goes into this
01:21and then like that, I've done a 20 to 30 minute set and it's over.
01:26And it's like, okay, we go home now.
01:27But like, it's really stressful before that.
01:29But I think it's cool.
01:33I'm going to appreciate my team a lot more and these sorts of things.
01:36Yeah.
01:37You've had a big year, big summer.
01:39Generally, you open for Lexa Gates at Coco.
01:41Yeah.
01:41You open for Fouché at the Harry Styles meltdown.
01:43Yeah.
01:44What did it mean to you to be opening for artists of that kind of status?
01:47Yeah, absolutely everything.
01:48Sorry.
01:48I was literally, I am the big Lexa Gates fan.
01:53And yeah, me and my producer, we were playing her like, we bonded over our love for
01:57Lexa Gates.
01:58So yeah, I love that.
01:59And love Fouché as well.
02:01What does it mean to me?
02:02I'm just excited.
02:03Like, I feel like I'm a little girl just living out of her dreams.
02:05So my inner child is happy.
02:08Nice.
02:09And you had your debut headline show at the Grace in London in June as well.
02:13Yes, I did.
02:14How was that experience for you?
02:16That was, that meant the world to me.
02:18Yeah.
02:18Wow.
02:19It was just because, you know, like I open for people or like, I go to a festival, but
02:26like these were like hard tickets, like people, everybody there.
02:30Like I knew that they came specifically to see me.
02:32I was just so grateful for that.
02:34And honestly, in disbelief, like it sold out.
02:36I didn't expect that.
02:37But yeah, tears were shed.
02:39I was very happy.
02:40How do you kind of translate what you've learned from opening for other people into
02:43your own show?
02:45Um, one thing that I think is important is I, no matter what, um, no matter what crowd
02:52I'm opening for, I always treat them like, I always treat everybody like they don't
02:56know me, but I feel like because I'm used to like having that mindset of like nobody
03:00here knows me, I'm always trying to think about the most entertaining thing that I could
03:03do, like crowd interactions and stuff.
03:06So I like to bring that over into my, um, my own shows and stuff.
03:09Yeah.
03:10Yeah.
03:11Um, and earlier this year, you also released your EP Arrow Heart.
03:14The concept behind that came from an idea you had when you were 11 and you were like
03:18in your Ed Sheeran phase.
03:20Can you tell us a bit about the idea behind it and how Ed influenced that?
03:23Ed is, he has no idea.
03:27When I was 11, I, um, discovered Ed Sheeran.
03:30And my friend Ella put me on and, um, Ed Sheeran like when he toured, um, he had like,
03:36he would draw like the icon of what he was touring.
03:39So he drew like a plus sign on his guitar or like a divide or multiply.
03:43Um, and then he would also name his guitar.
03:44So I did the same thing, but I was like, I need to come up with like my own cool
03:48version.
03:48So I drew an Arrow Heart and my guitar and I called her Mexie and, um, I wrote a tracklist.
03:54It was like at the top of my songwriting, but it was like Arrow Heart and then tracklist
03:59one, two, three, four, five.
04:00And it was like, I wrote all four songs for it.
04:02But, um, I thought, oh, I'm releasing my first EP now.
04:05I kind of want to pay homage to her.
04:08And like that's cause that was like the first time that I don't know, I had been ambitious
04:12to like want to put out a project or something, even though it didn't happen.
04:16But like, I just wanted it to happen in my own new way.
04:19Yeah.
04:20That's cute.
04:20I like that.
04:22The first song on Arrow Heart is 2099 and that song you're kind of jumping from 1625
04:26to 2099 in the future.
04:28Yes.
04:28What was the story behind that song?
04:30Where did that come from?
04:31It was kind of like that song makes no sense.
04:34Wow.
04:35It was like, I was like, okay, when I'm writing songs, I think I translate my emotions.
04:41Like I write like what I feel, but I translate my emotions into pictures and imagery
04:45and right there in that moment, I had just found out that my partner had been unfaithful
04:49to me.
04:49So I was feeling very angry.
04:50So I associated that anger with like fire.
04:54And then I was like, oh, if I was, if it was in the 1600s, then they would like burn
04:58me like a witch.
05:00Cause like, I'm so mad that I want to kill everyone.
05:03It's so dramatic.
05:04I don't know why I did that.
05:05Anyway, I wrote that verse.
05:07Then I was like, hmm, we've gone in the past.
05:08Let's go to the future now.
05:09And then it was like, if it was 2099, I would still be really mad and I would kill everyone.
05:15Mad in any timeline.
05:16No.
05:17Yeah.
05:17I can't believe I had to explain that well.
05:19It bangs though.
05:20Yeah, it does.
05:21It does.
05:21I love it.
05:22It's great.
05:23So you have had a big year so far.
05:25What's next for you?
05:26What are your goals?
05:27What are you kind of aiming for?
05:28Yes.
05:28I have just finished writing my next EP.
05:34Yeah.
05:34I'm thinking of maybe doing like a trilogy.
05:37Nice.
05:37Yeah.
05:39And doing shows, just really developing the sort of character, the movie characters that
05:45I want to be.
05:46I'm in that stage right now.
05:47Yeah.
05:47But I can promise it's going to be amazing.
05:49Yeah.
05:49The final product.
05:50Amen.
05:50I bet.
05:51I bet.
05:51Well, thank you so much, Shade.
05:52Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
05:53Thank you so much.
