Etham
This interview is very special to me because Etham is one of the first artists I discovered. I ran into his “Cold Love” video performance in 2015, and I was blown away by his talent. I told all my friends “this guy is going to be huge”. I started following him on Soundcloud and I remember there was only one or two songs up. I then waited for him to drop official singles. “Control” is still one of the most amazing songs ever released. His Stripped EP is the best.
A few years later, Etham is still that amazing talent I discovered in 2015. His vocals are some of the best in the game, and his live performances are insane - especially when it’s just him and his guitar or piano. He recently released his latest single “Marathon Hearts” and the first thing that caught my attention is the amazing production. The second thing is the brilliant songwriting. And as usual, Etham’s vocals never disappoint. “Marathon Hearts” gets better each listen, so go stream it !!
“Marathon Hearts” is now available worldwide :)
Introduce yourself - what's your story?
My name is Etham, i’m 24 and I guess my story is I’m just a music man with a few things that’s happened to me in my life that’s driven me towards making music.
What did you grow up listening to?
My mum played The Beatles so much when I was a kid to the point where I don’t really listen to them much anymore but The Beatles and John Lennon was the music that first had me hooked and I remember when I first watched the music video to “Imagine” with my Mum and it just took me in a different way. To Elton John, Oasis, The Verve, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queen, It was all different types and I was lucky to grow up with some of the greatest era’s of music.
When did you start writing songs? What made you want to write in the first place?
I started writing when i was about 12 and one of the first artists that made me wanna start writing was James Morrison. He just had a huge hit with “You give me something” and I used to love singing it and because it’s on acoustic guitar I’d cover it and from then for some reason it just pushed me to wanting to write a song like that, I don’t know why I felt that way but I guess I just thought if I had a song like that then at least 1 person might like it and that’s how it sort of formed.
When did you know you could sing?
When I was about 11 I used to just sing along to the songs I’d learned on the guitar and one day I was in my room and my dad came in and just said “was that you singing?” I said yeah then he just said “that was pretty good, go on sing another one” and basically just kept practicing ever since.
At what point did you know you had to be an artist and release your original music?
Probably when I knew it didn’t make peoples ears bleed when I sung. Music was so huge in my life growing up, I was lucky to go some amazing concerts from such a young age and always thought that’s gotta be the best job in the world and when I knew I could sort of sing around 10/11 I knew that’s what I what i wanted to do.
Who was the first person to ever believe in you?
My family.
What biggest lessons have you learnt since the beginning of your career?
To not be my own barrier that’s stopping me to be better. Just go for it instead of being so afraid and predicting outcomes etc.. It never works and you only end up going backwards, keep going forwards.
"Marathon Hearts" is your new single - what's the inspiration behind this song?
For the next EP I wanted to move on from just acoustic releases but also keep that intimacy in the tracks and Marathon Hearts felt it had a great balanced to showing more of a vision for my next project but also not losing what my previous fans are familiar to.
Could you describe the songwriting/production process for this song? Who helped you create it?
So me, Emily Harbakk, Fredrik Anstensen and Vegard Hurum all brought it together bit by bit and each part felt exciting, a couple demos later it really started to shape up.
What made you want to release "Marathon Hearts" as a single?
It felt right for the next step in this project. I wanted to see how people reacted to me finally having drums on a track and to also hint at slightly new direction.
As an artist, what is the hardest part? And what is the best part?
Hardest part is letting fear get the best of you and the best part is letting go.
What are your thoughts on today's music industry? If you could change one thing, what would it be?
I think it’s great, it’s more open to let audience’s find more amazing artists and it’s giving a lot more opportunities to upcoming artists. The only thing i would change is try and have TikTok create a world inside the app that specifically focuses on musicians because there’s clearly a huge audience on there and to maximise opportunities for musicians it would be great to have some sort of music channel going on.
What is the proudest moment of your career so far?
Touring with James Morrison.
What advice would you give to artists?
Just listen to yourself and if it’s screaming out that music is the only thing then you can’t let anything hold you back, you really got to give it your everything and I’m not even anyone but if you try hard enough you can make a great living and enjoy it.
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