Anika Nielsen is a pop recording artist with something important to say. Her songwriting reflects the Gen-Z experience but with old school influences like Queen, ABBA, and Bruno Mars. A versatile pop artist, Anika works with the critically acclaimed Music Producer Mark Vogel to create songs in a variety of pop styles. Before even releasing music, Anika has had fantastic engagement across her social media and with her pre-save links. Her debut single “Are You Down” drops today!
Check out our exclusive interview with the rising star…
Bridge: Hi Anika, thanks for sitting down with us today. Let’s start from the beginning, when can you remember your love of music starting?
Anika: Hi! Thank you so much for having me! My love of music started pretty much from the time I was able to talk and produce a musical sound. I was known as the girl who was always singing by my friends, family, and teachers. People would even get annoyed at me for getting songs stuck in their head from singing them all day! Deep down, I’ve always had an appreciation for how music can really tap into your emotions, and how we can become so moved by a simple line or lyric. Having people come up to me crying after a recital as a child was an extremely eye-opening and rewarding experience that I will never forget.
Bridge: Once you decided you wanted to give music a try, what did you do next? What were some of those early steps like?
Anika: Music had always been a big part of my life, but in my senior year of high school I decided to take it to the next level and began working with my producer, Mark Vogel. I began by trying to figure out my style and what kind of message I wanted to portray in my songs, and I just started writing down small lyrics in a notebook. Eventually I was able to take some of those smaller ideas and turn them into the songs that I am so proud to have created today.
Bridge: So we know this is your debut track, why this one as the first you put out in the world?
Anika: I feel that “Are You Down” gives not only a great representation of me vocally, but musically in general. It portrays that feeling of the excitement of growing closer to someone that you are into, and the thrilling nervousness that goes along with that. I feel that many people can relate to that stage in a relationship with someone where that hope of “something more” is in the air, and “Are You Down” is really all about that.
Bridge: What have you found easiest about making music? What about the hardest?
Anika: The easiest thing is probably just coming up with lyrics because they are just constantly popping up into my head throughout the day. The hardest thing, though, is actually making sense of all of the little notes that I write down and putting them together in a way that is seamless, rhythmic, and beautiful.
Bridge: What are some challenges you’ve faced so far as you enter the music industry? How did you overcome them?
Anika: One of the biggest challenges was learning how the writing process was going to work for me. Before I became serious about pursuing a career in the industry, I had always done covers and I had never written one of my own songs. I started out by doing exercises like writing lyrics how I imagined one of my favorite artists would, or writing my own lyrics to a well known song. This eventually helped me figure out some themes and styles within my writing and helped make that process a lot easier.
Bridge: Tell us about the process of developing your own sound!
Anika: At first, it was really difficult to find the sound that felt right for me. It took a song or two for me to really realize, oh ok, this is what I want my track, voice, and lyrics to sound like all together. I really had to break down those three parts because they all really have to flow together for a song to sound right. If one part isn’t just right, then the whole song can be thrown off. Once I was able to figure out what felt the most natural for me,4 it made the whole process a lot easier.
Bridge: We hear you have a music video coming up as well, what can we expect to see and how did the concept for it come about?
Anika: Since it is my first music video, you can expect to see a lot of me! As I progress, I definitely want to showcase bigger music videos with larger storylines, but being that it is my first single and music video, I really wanted the focus to be on introducing myself to the music world as a new artist.
Bridge: Thanks for chatting today Anika, and a massive good luck to you! Where can we follow you online?
Anika: Thank you very much! You can follow me on instagram @anika__nielsen, tik tok @anikanielsen11, and you will find me on Spotify and Apple Music under the name “Anika”
