Ragnhild Øhren Nordset sits down with the comfortable ease of a woman whose life has been allowed to breathe, to take stock of time between leaving her family home in Hokksund, Norway and finding for the second time that Liverpool is just as important to her as what she may have ever had. Ragz, her professional music name but also a term of wonderful endearment, smiles and a passionate light comes from her Norwegian eyes that I will come to see throughout the whole interview and beyond is fiercely proud but also humble when asked about the music she performs.
Ragz studied Management at the University of Liverpool and now is a student mentor at L.I.P.A but at any given time the musician comes out, she is in truth never truly far away, and has captured many hearts with her powerfully gorgeous voice and strong female sensibilities. I managed to catch up with Ragz ahead of her next gig.
It’s a gorgeous day and I’ve been listening to a lot of your tracks this morning and I do have to say before we start on anything else, congratulations on your music, it’s amazing. How does that feel coming as you do all the way from Scandinavia and transposing your music into English?
Ragz: “I’ll be honest with you, my musical craft didn’t start to really develop or happen until I moved here to Liverpool so my music grew up, it was born in Norway but it grew up here. So it became quite natural to do this because of the influences from here and they naturally adapted to what I had been doing in Norway. I wrote a few songs in Norway but they were few and far between. They were good songs but it wasn’t until I got here that I started working on my craft. It was Liverpool and British music that taught me how to write so for that reason, adapting my Norwegian style to the British style wasn’t really that much of a problem. I think within the language was where the challenge was and to understand how I expressed things and know that the words that I used gave the right impression or at least some impression so it wasn’t gibberish! So, the work was not in the creative process but in the editing process and making sure that I was saying what I wanted to say.”
That’s interesting because one of your most marvellous songs captures my heart every time I hear it, is the Norwegian Hymn, because and please forgive me, it’s stunningly beautiful. You say you have effectively an English voice; the way that you sing is just astounding. Have you picked up on that at all?
Ragz: “With that hymn, there is that, because it’s sung in Norwegian, I think that there’s a layer of protection that goes away with it because it frees me from the words. For that reason, the delivery of that song can be free from editing and verbal control. If I’m singing it in Norway, it wouldn’t be the same thing because people there would latch onto the words but when I do it here in Britain, I can focus purely on the emotion, does that make any sense? It’s something I should purposefully try and adapt to what I’m doing with the British songs as well, the ones I’m singing in English. There is still an element of filtering and editing within my brain which is slowly going down and I think the more I perform, the better I’ll be at that but it’s an ongoing process where you are always evolving something better than what you did last time! It’s usually the last one in my set so it’s here goes! This is the last of my energy for the night! Boom and it’s out there! If I performed it first, it wouldn’t have the same amount of free emotion in it. “
There is this fantastic abundance of Norwegian and Scandinavian musicians that have made Liverpool their home and it seems to have come across in your music especially like Kaya Herstad Carney from Science of the Lamps or Grethe Borsum from The Vinos you have this natural storytelling ability within your music and your lyrics especially because it’s almost like the weaving of a 19th century Hans Christian Andersen story.
Ragz: “That would be the Norwegian roots shining through and the storyteller within me and also I have a great respect for words and I think they can be so, so horrible if used wrong, when used right, they create a new world and if you can do that in a song that opens up for the moment you share with the audience where the story becomes something between you. So for me words should never ever be underestimated. You know it yourself, that in a bad moment you’ll say something you might not have meant but the power of those words will still affect everyone around you.”
Words can be said in a good way or in a bad way, something said in a bad way can destroy someone’s life.
Ragz: “Exactly, it’s also a cultural thing. When you say something, you need to understand the circumstances and for a song, it needs to be delivered for me with an absolute respect for what it is I’m trying to express. Someone once said when angry, you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret, if that makes sense. You’ll be powerful in the way that you say it but then the aftermath of that, the effect on other people and how you choose to express yourself it can have repercussions that you might not have intended.”
Did you grow up with this folklore and storytelling; did someone pass it onto you?
Ragz: “It’s a very Norwegian thing, my dad is a storyteller and so were my grandparents. I just grew up with people who like to share things, that’s also how most of the creative things in arts and literature in Norway, even how the language evolved, it’s all been captured thought sharing. So as it’s a massive country but with few inhabitants, things had to travel vast distances, got passed on through stories and every person who retold them – the power of the folklore.
Folklore! Was there someone in your life who gave you the inspiration to use the stories and to take up music?
Ragz: “Both my nans were quite eccentric women and my dad’s mum was definitely a big storyteller, my granddad was a minister, they would travel around and they would meet so many people go to their houses so it’s coming from there.”
Do you think that sometimes you need to have had a strong female character in your life to bring you where you are today – personally and in general?
Ragz: “Yes, I agree with you, my dad is a massive female character! (laughs) He’s a bit of a diva! I come from a very, very strong family; it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t made an impact in one way or another, not necessarily on a national or international aspect but , they are all big characters and very honest characters, if I may say so. Yes, there are definitely strong women in my life, my mum being the biggest influence of those perhaps- They are all quite colourful in their way, which is reflected in the tapestry underlining my personality”
One last question if I may, what are your plans for your music in the future?
Ragz – “I don’t think this is a process that will ever stop; it goes up and down in its dynamics and productiveness. I like working with different people, different producers to be specific. Did some electronic collaborations before Christmas that I believe will be released on an album in April. There will be much more acoustic stuff which I don’t know if I’m going to release it yet but which will feature in every single gig coming up. I do the acoustic stuff so I can stay underground and not to be attached to something like a label. It comes alive when played live, and that’s how I want to keep that. Then hopefully there will be more creations with the wonderful Mario Leal, which I did ‘Sleepdancing’ with. The writing has started.
I’ll leave you with this, when I first saw you on stage at Leaf and to watch you that night and to learn that you were going away, keeping in touch with you and you came back, you were missed! On behalf of Liverpool, thank you for coming back! You have given people an awful lot of pleasure with your music. Let’s hope the music continues to be incredible for you and your followers as it were.
Ragz – “Thank you for being a place that people want to come back to!
Ian D. Hall