Singer AURORA: 'Soundtracking the end of Adolescence was meant to be'

Norwegian singing superstar AURORA has a unique and enchanting voice. She played the secret siren in Frozen 2 and can be heard soundtracking the devastating denouement of Adolescence.

It’s been ten years since her breakthrough song “Runaway”, written when she was only 11, which has since racked up three billion streams online and even inspired Billie Eilish to pursue songwriting.

She released her fourth album What Happened to the Heart? last year, and will play Wembley Arena next month. But first, AURORA answers some Big Questions…

What was the big defining moment of your youth?

Finding something that made me feel like life is worth living beyond whether things go as you planned or not, or if things go your way or not, or if you have many friends or not. When I found music around nine or 10, this calmness washed over me. I figured out that I’ll be settled for life. No matter what happens, I love writing songs. That’s a wonderful feeling to find when you’re struggling to fit in the world. It steered me on a very good path.

Who were your biggest influences?

Enya and Leonard Cohen. I often got very overwhelmed by a lot of noise. My mum would put on Enya and Cohen because that’s really calm and quiet music. That became my idea, I guess, of what music should be, something calming, something beautiful and unearthly. Enya, to me, is like elf music, she’s [featured] in Lord of the Rings, for goodness sake. And Leonard Cohen addresses issues in this music in a way that is also very feminine and poetic. I learned a lot from both of them.

Which of their songs had the biggest impact?

Enya, I really liked “Ebudæ” and “Amarantine”, songs where her voice builds the landscape. Cohen, “Suzanne” really stuck with me. It was nice to hear a proper song about a woman, about the complexity and the strength behind her. The magic with her oranges from China. I just liked to hear a woman described with such beauty and mystery and kind of fear as well.

When I was really small, before I understood English to the extent that I do now, I remember listening to “Suzanne” and looking at my mum when she was cooking or making candles or drying flowers, or whatever she was doing, and thinking, this song really sounds like my mother. And now that I understand English, I still think so.

What big social issue woke you up to the ways of the world?

I always felt like I didn’t grow up in a particularly political house, but looking back I grew up with a lot of conversations around indigenous people and indigenous land. If there’s one thing I grew up learning how to grieve and kind of repent for, it’s the pain of indigenous people all around the world, in my own country, in North America, Greenland, everywhere. It’s the same story wherever you go, which is inexplicable.

That was a huge thing in my childhood, understanding who has been inflicted pain and what that means for how the world works today. Who is still forced to simply survive, and who can keep taking and taking because they’re benefitting from our ancestors that took before us.

We have gone so far into a strange place where people are forced to feel apathy about everything. We mistrust everyone, fear everyone, and then it’s very easy for whoever is benefitting from someone’s pain to just keep going.

Some big names like Katy Perry and Billie Eilish have declared themselves fans. How does that feel?

It’s very flattering, obviously, when people who make music tell you that they have been inspired, or they found meaning, or a spark. That feels like the job music should do, to spark more music and more art. It’s like music reproducing, impregnating. You know, it’s like music spreading its semen all over the world, making sure more people make music, if that makes sense.

What’s your big idea to save the world?

We need to speak about peace in a way that is about more than peace, about liberation. Because peace for one person is that everything just keeps on like it always has, but for someone else that is a horrible situation. It was very important for me to [become an ambassador for War Child], an organisation that speaks about peace in the right way. We should be able to have a world where we don’t involve children in war; bomb and ruin cultures and countries where it impacts many generations who will then struggle to blossom.

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Biggest book?

I have so many favourite books. I really love The Barefoot Woman [by Scholastique Mukasonga]. That’s a really beautiful book just recently given to me and strangely suitable to the times we’re living in now.

I always liked The Alchemist [by Paulo Coelho]. There was something really magical about it, and then it kind of spiralled me into having a hyper fixation on alchemy and the history of alchemy for several years, which was completely a waste of time, but I get really into things and then there’s no way back.

Veronika Decides to Die by the same author, because my both my sisters have had a lot of unfair struggles through their lives, and they’re the strongest, most beautiful, most complex people that I know. I look up to them a lot. The book was enlightening, how to get into the brain of someone wondering how to find meaning in life. It made a really big impact on me.

I also love The Brambly Hedge [series of illustrated children’s books by Jill Barklem], I recommend all adults to read this. Oh, it’s gonna make you swoon.

What was the moment you felt like you’d hit the big time?

I made an album in 2016. Before I released it, and I had it in my hypothetical hands, I felt like I’d poured in everything I possibly can. But I still felt full. The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, I have more ideas.’ I saw a creative path where I’m still going to be thirsty and hungry to say things better, explore my musical self. As long as you do that as an artist and you mean it, then you’re going to be fine, because there’s always going to be one or two people who will appreciate it. I felt really safe. I could see a long creative road ahead.

AURORA on her song Through the Eyes of a Child featuring in Adolescence

Adolescence, the remarkable one-shot drama series on Netflix continues to grip audiences around the world. It’s a drama that stays with you and asks you to examine difficult questions about attitudes, actions and their rippling consequences.

The final scene of the series is soundtracked by AURORA’s song Through the Eyes of a Child, which appeared on her 2016 debut album, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend.

“I feel like it’s meant to be,” AURORA tells Big Issue. “I’m just lucky the director [Phil Barantini] and actor [Stephen Graham], beautiful man, chose to put my song at the end because when music joins hands with cinematography, together they enhance each other and impact people in a completely different way.

“The song makes a lot sense to me now. I was an adolescent myself when I wrote and recorded it. It was very touching and weird to hear my young voice there, at the extreme heartbreak of the whole show.”

AURORA’s latest album What Happened to the Heart? is out now. She plays OVO Arena Wembley on 3 May, aurora-music.com.

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