Night after night over the past couple of years, norwegian singer Ida Maria Sivertsen has been hitting stages across Europe. And sometimes the stage hits her back: She’s slashed her head on her guitarist’s instrument and cracked her ribs while attempting a mid-gig somersault. the 24-year-old has just emerged from two weeks of enforced bed rest after she collapsed under a punishing regime of nonstop touring and nonstop drinking (red wine by the bottle, not the glass). today at an East London pub, she’s sporting guitar-strap friction burns down the inside of her right arm and nasty marks on the back of her hands. Cigarette burns? “no.
It’s a long story,” she replies evasively, her accent thicker and trickier to decipher than usual because of the pouches of nicotine-packed snus she keeps wedged under her top lip. “I get scars really easily.”
Photographed for Spin in London, July 30, 2008
for life in the shouty but stoutly tuneful punk-pop songs on her debut, Fortress Round My Heart (Waterfall/RCA). She does her best Janis Joplin on “Stella,” a raw, bluesy track about God bartering his supreme power for one night with a forty-something hooker. this past summer, her single “Better When You’re naked,” a melodic and smartly lascivious riot-grrrl thrasher, became a British top 40 radio staple. “I try to fool people into thinking
Ida Maria started out playing open-mic nights in
Bergen, norway’s musical hot spot (home to Röyk-
sopp and Kings of Convenience), as a teen, developing
a sound that was edgier than the beige, easy-listening
beats that predominated in the city. But it wasn’t till
she moved to Sweden for college and recruited her
all-male backing band that her bloody rock’n’roll
started garnering attention outside Scandinavia.
now, health permitting, she’s hell-bent on
continuing to tour and “throwing everything of
myself into the show,” as she takes a fairly libertar-
ian view toward self-destruction. “I respect people
who kill themselves ’cause it’s their life; they can do
whatever they want with it. But I wanna be a rrrrock
star!” she shouts, her rolling Scandinavian R’s
making her sound like a revved-up Björk. “’Cause
that’s focking brilliant!”
FAST FACTS
> Ida Maria has synaesthesia, a sensory condition that makes her see colors when she hears tones or sounds. Playing her own shows can be particularly electrifying. Colors “fuck you up,” she says.
> her first touring gig was in the Norwegian Youth Choir as second alto.
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY KAREN ALDER
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