Maria, Full of Grace

“Oh my God, it’s so good to be here. I can’t get enough of Dublin! Really. It’s the Guinness, and it’s just... Everything about it.”
Ida Maria Sivertsen is babbling enthusiastically. The Norwegian rock starlet has just finished a soundcheck ahead of her second Irish visit of the year, and it’s clear from her high-spirited demeanour and constant husky giggles that she couldn’t be happier to be back.

I tell her I’m confused. I read recently she’d given up drinking. But she points out that it’s only her whiskey habit that she’s knocked on the head. Besides, the medicinal qualities of Guinness can’t be discounted – especially when you’re (A) in Dublin and (B) have a reputation for occasionally going... well, slightly bonkers during your live shows.
I suggest that one reason for her lunatic shenanigans (which have previously been the cause of cracked ribs and bloodied limbs) could be the fact that she spent much of her teenage years in a repressed boarding school.
“Yeah, I think it’s got a lot to do with that. That’s a very good psychological way of looking at it,” the self-confessed smalltown girl laughs. “I’ve been very shy in the past. I’d prefer to just observe people. But now I’ve decided it’s time for me to have a bit of fun!”
If her inhibited upbringing didn’t steer her into the waiting arms of a music career, having a jazz musician for a dad must have helped the young Ida decide upon her chosen profession. “I’ve always listened to all different kinds of music, I’ve never been interested in just one type,” she confirms. “It was everything from classical to old soul music, and blues and jazz, and classic stuff like The Beatles. Just lately, I’ve got into Elvis and Roy Orbison. When I discovered it, it was like a world of perfection. And these days I listen to a lot of world music too – stuff like Fela Kuti.”
Surprisingly, though, two of acts with whom she’s most frequently compared – Blondie and The Pretenders – never featured in her musical upbringing.
“I’ve heard half a Blondie song in my life, and I don’t know The Pretenders at all,” she reveals. “I think why people come to that conclusion is because I have a girlish woman’s voice, and I play rock music. I’ve never been inspired by them, though.”
Another point which is continuously brought up in interviews is that she suffers the rare condition known as synesthesia – the mind’s ability to associate colours with sounds. Far from try to play it up, however, she’s reluctant for it to be seen as some sort of selling point.
“Yeah, I don’t really wanna talk about it,” she says. “It’s more of a handicap. I get really annoyed by chords – I have certain chords that I would never play. But I’m becoming more and more liberal with my own taste, I’ve found that certain things in other peoples’ songs work very well with those chords, so maybe I can use them in the future.”
I ask her how she feels about the constant comparisons drawn between her and Lykke Li (Scandinavian, shortened name, and “on the other side of the scale, noise-wise”), Lovefoxx (mainly due to her energetic stage antics) and Amy Winehouse (“that’s a load of shite!”).
“I think it’s very sad that Amy Winehouse is not taking care of herself, because she’s a very important figure for young girls,” she muses. “I think it’s very sad that she has to be so self-destructive.”