Onstage Music Podcast Interview

Chris: We're thrilled to have with us this incredibly talented soprano, classical crossover singer and recording artist Natasha Hardy. Known as the ‘Queen of the Forest’, Natasha captivates the audience with her haunting, angelic and ethereal voice, and she elegantly fuses cinematic, new age, classical and Celtic influences into her self-penned, heart achingly all beautiful love songs. 

Her debut album, ‘Lost in Love’, has resonated deeply with listeners including myself and Amy, and her music continues to transcend conventional boundaries, uncovering the truth of authentic artistry. Hello Natasha, welcome to our show! 

Natasha: Thank you so much, Chris, and thank you Onstage Music Podcast for having me. I'm really looking forward to today's interview with yourself and Amy. 

Chris: You're welcome. Natasha, can you tell us a bit about your musical background and how you got started in classical crossover music? 

Natasha: Yes, of course. Funnily enough, I didn't actually want to be a singer, so it always feels quite strange when people ask me this question. I actually wanted to be an actress, so I started out trying to pursue an acting career, and I really enjoyed it. I love acting. 

When you're a jobbing actress, you see lots of little adverts for different jobs, and I used to see a lot of adverts for actresses that can sing. I could hold a tune, but I had never had any musical training. My background was just listening to music, not really performing or playing music, but because of these adverts, I decided to start singing lessons, and I then fell in love with classical singing. I loved the technique and how it was all encompassing. It felt like home to me. It felt even more exciting than acting. 

In a way, singing found me, and then that became my goal: to be able to sing, perform and write. 

Amy: I've been following you for a little while, and I noticed you talk about your two dogs. Do you find that they end up chiming in sometimes when you practice at home? 

Natasha: Actually, no they don't. They're very, very good. They're very well trained. The only time that Petal (the youngest one) howls is if Pearl has taken her toys! So no, they don't tend to join in, but they do fall asleep. So as soon as I start practicing my scales, they're like, ‘oh, okay, we're going to be here for about an hour’, and they just lay down. Then after the scales are finished, they just know, so they are kind of part of my routine. I'm very lucky that they don't join in with the scales, but it's a really good question!  

Chris: So, I love your album ‘Lost In Love’. Can you share the story behind that one?  

Natasha: ‘Lost In Love’ is my debut album that I completely wrote all by myself, and it was released about five years ago. The album was produced by my wonderful producer, Tom E Morrison. I'll tell you a little bit about the previous jobs I used to work as a singer. I had my own companies, and I used to do a lot of gigs, such as weddings, funerals and parties. I even had a business where I did 50s music, where I used to dress up like Doris Day and sing Frank Sinatra songs. 

I did that for a few years, and I really enjoyed it, but after a while I realized that I wanted to sing my own songs. I wanted to sing in my own style, and after singing a lot of operatic arias, especially at weddings and concerts, I realised that you’re very restricted to how the composer wants you to perform the song. So I thought, what I can do is mix my pop technique style with my classical training, and that's how the whole classical crossover sound came to life. Also, because I'm very heavily influenced by amazing artists like Enya with beautiful, ethereal sounds, and I love the sounds that you get in Celtic music, I wanted to make sure that the album had this kind of melting pot of these beautiful styles. 

The songs came about because I felt like I had lots of stories to tell, and I wanted all of these stories of my heart aches, my heartbreaks, and my experiences to be put into songs which the listener can literally dive into and get lost with me as I take them on a journey. 

I'm very, very proud of ‘Lost In Love’. If you listen to the album from the beginning to the end, you'll see there's a flow of how I put all of the songs together, and it's done with intent. From the first song, ‘In Too Deep’, where I'm talking about falling in love and not even realizing it, through to ‘Tempest In My Heart’, which is literally a song about that feeling of being in love. Then you come to 'Il Segretto’ (that's Italian for ‘The Secret’), and then to strong, where she's feeling very empowered. After understanding what it is to have self-love, I feel like the listener can really come with me on a journey, and that's where the title of the album came from, which is ‘Lost In Love’. 

I'm really, really pleased with how it turned out, and I'm still getting a lot of great feedback from people that are still discovering my music. As an independent artist, that's always an honour to find. 

Chris: Do you believe that your first album was 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration? 

Natasha: I think you might not be far off. Although I called the album ‘Lost In Love’, it could have also been titled ‘Labour Of Love’, because it was not easy to produce. But I also feel like that’s due to me being an independent artist and having to learn how to work with musicians, producers and everything else. It’s an all-encompassing scenario; making an album and getting to share it at the end is very surreal.  

I think when you listen to music, it can really have a profound emotional effect, and I hope that's what people who listen to my album feel. If you have ever had your heart broken or if you’re in love or if you need to feel strong, then you can pick one of the songs from 'Lost In Love’, listen to it, and release your emotions or feel empowered, whatever it is that you need to feel that day. 

Amy: I know you just came out with your recent single ‘Hallelujah’, and wanted to ask about the album cover because you mentioned in your interview with Natasha Barbieri that your niece helped you with that. Oh my gosh, that pose was incredible! 

Natasha: Yes, she's an amazing young lady! She did her A-levels in photography, and I said ‘come on, let's do a shoot together’. We were out in the forest (being the Queen of the Forest, that's where I always end up going!), and we found this amazing tree, and I said, 'right, I'm going to climb up this tree and let's try out some poses’. At first it felt really difficult, and then she said, 'why don't you try this and try that?’. We were doing lots of different positions and poses, trying to find something quite artistic, but feeling like it really needed something very big and moving to go with the song. I didn't want to just be sitting there looking out in the distance, I wanted it to actually be physical thing. 

We were doing all these different hand poses, and because I love the fantasy style of everything that goes through all my art visually, I was doing all these beautiful hand gestures and everything. And then she said, just lean back and put your hand like this. She was directing me, and at that moment the sun came out. It was a very cloudy day, except for that one beam which happened to come out and it just looked really pretty. The image ended up being the one that we picked because it was the only one that had my hand up like that with the sun rays coming through. 

I thought it felt very apt, with Hallelujah and the sun, and feeling like it's a praise. It just felt perfect. 

Chris: Yes, I thought that that pose was incredible! It's amazing. 

Natasha: Thank you so much. My body literally hated me the next day, trying to do that and hold everything in was really difficult, but it came out really well, I'm very, very happy about it, and I’m very thankful to my niece for taking the photograph. 

Chris: Natasha, your song creation, is it melody or lyrics? What do you like to work on first: lyrics and then put the melody to it, or vice versa? 

Natasha: I think for me it's probably a mixture of both. Sometimes I can just be humming and it's a really lovely melody, but I don't know the words. I often make up words or use words from a song that I know to be able to work out the melody. So even if the words are incorrect, I can feel how the melody is going. 

But often for me, I feel like lyrics do tend to come up at the same time as melody. I often think of melodies and lyrics while I'm driving, which is the most annoying thing because I'm unable to record the melody at that time, and then I don't recall them later on. 

So it's a combination of both. Sometimes a lyric can come first, sometimes a melody, but generally I think the melody and the lyric come together, and then after I have that melody down, I will then refine the lyrics and make sure they make sense. 

Chris: How do you approach blending classical and contemporary elements into your music? 

Natasha: Generally, the further along in a song, it will end up feeling a little more classical just because of the way the voice opens. I really like the way I use more of a soft, pop sound, then gradually bring in more classical sounds throughout the song. Because I'm blending the two styles, I do spend a lot of my time practicing both. 

I also feel that it's become easier to blend the two styles as I've grown more confident in my own voice. I think that is part of being an artist is just trying things out, without feeling that you can't do it. That is kind of why I side more away from singing just classical, because I can really find new ways of using my voice that I haven't used before, and I'm still experimenting. 

Chris: What challenges have you faced in your music career and how have you overcome them? 

Natasha: Starting out as an independent artist was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's taken me a while to understand how the music business works for independent artists, and I think nowadays one great thing is that we can release the old mentality of needing to get signed by a record label. We now understand what record labels are actually saying, which is that you're signing a big chunk of your artistry away to be able to get a lump sum of money, that they can then take and make money from. So I feel as an independent artist, that the opportunities are now much better than they ever have been. 

Fostering communities and being able to connect directly with fans is paramount for independent artists, which was unheard of before social media. It's been a game changer, and now a lot of the big labels are a little bit afraid of independent artists.  

It's about finding the right connections so that people can share your music. One of the challenges that I have to overcome is being able to not worry about how many people are listening to the music and just believing that it's going to find the right people. 

So that's probably one of the biggest challenges that I've had to overcome as an artist:  understanding the music industry, and business as an independent artist.  

Chris: How do you find yourself balancing your personal life and your music career? 

Natasha: To be honest with you, I don't feel like there is a difference between my personal life and my music career. Sometimes there're so well integrated, and I feel like I'm really happy to share my life with my fans. I love to share how I get ready for work, going out for walks in the woods, and what kind of food I eat. 

The things that I do for myself as a singer to help me physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, actually filter into my relationship with my heart, my husband, my, extended family, and my siblings. I don't feel like I have to make a huge change to make a work-life balance, because I just think life is very malleable. 

I've learned that I'm a lot happier, emotionally and physically, when I do go with the flow. We're all just humans trying to be human. Our own mindset is really important, and I think that's what it comes down to. 

Chris: Natasha, what is it that you enjoy most about being a musician? 

Natasha: navigate through this journey called life, because they help me physically, emotionally and mentally. So I really appreciate that being a singer has helped me become a better person. 

The second thing that I really enjoy about being a musician is getting to perform and being in front of people that enjoy listening to me sing. Being able to connect with an audience, I feel, is the most important thing. There are many times that I have read emails or comments from my musical family, and I'm literally in tears. Just recently from the day that I released 'Hallelujah', I got an email from a man who had lost his wife and his favourite song was Hallelujah, and he said it brought him so much comfort to hear the song, and that his wife would have loved my version. For someone to actually take the time to write that and let me know, obviously I'm tearing up as I read it, but it's also such a joy to know that I've done my job. Music is the connection which glues us all together, and being able to move someone with your music, that is the pleasure of it all. That's what I enjoy most: connecting with people. 

Amy: I know you've just recently released your new single, but do you think you'll work on anything more in the future? 

Natasha: Yes! This year, I will be releasing the rest of my covers album. So far, I have released Bright Eyes, Into the West and Hallelujah, and this year you will be seeing more songs that are going to be released from that whole album. 

I'm also writing a new album with original material. It won't be out this year, maybe next year or the year after, you never know! So this year I will be focusing on getting all of the songs ready to be produced. It's a very exciting time! Hopefully once all of the cover album songs are released, then I'll be in a position to release my next album, but I'm currently only in the process of writing the songs at the moment. 

At the end of this year I will also, hopefully, be doing a 'Lost In Love' concert. So it will be all of the songs from my debut album, 'Lost in Love', and there might be a couple of covers in there as well. That's what I'm planning to do at the end of the year. 

Chris: Thank you, Natasha, for being on the show. Amy, do you want to close it out? 

Amy: Thank you so much, Natasha, for joining us today and sharing your incredible journey. 

Natasha: Thank you so much for having me, Amy and Chris. It's been an absolute honour and privilege to be here on your podcast! It's amazing to be able to share these thoughts and moments with you.  

Amy: It's been an absolute pleasure to learn more about your music and the inspirations behind all of your beautiful songs. We can't wait to see what you have in store for us next! 

Chris: Thank you so much Natasha, it was really nice to meet you! 

Natasha: Thank you for having me!