With more and more fans falling in love with RuthAnne, it might be surprising to hear that the award-winning Dublin-born singer-songwriter is behind some of the largest hits from acclaimed artists such as Niall Horan, Britney Spears and even FAULT 26 cover star Martin Garrix. Today with the release of  ‘Take My Place’ we caught up with the young songstress to find out more about her inspirations, process and of course, FAULTS!

 

Hi RuthAnne, who has been your biggest inspiration?

Hi! My biggest inspirations have been people like Alicia Keys, Lauryn Hill, Carole King, Jeff Buckley, Coldpay, Kings of Leon, Destiny’s Child, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Justine Timberlake.

 

You’re about to head out on tour, favourite thing about performing live?

I think my favourite thing about performing live is just having the interaction with the crowd, something you don’t get if you’re in a studio. And getting to see how different songs connect with people, like you can see it in their face and their eyes. And I actually love making people cry – I kind of want tears. Just being able to talk to the crowd and then just sing, that’s what I love.

 

Is there a different process when you go from writing for other people to focussing on your own music?

I used to think it was different but it is actually pretty much the same. The only think that’s different is when you’re writing for someone else, when they’re in the room with you, you’re trying to tell their story – so I’m not gonna tell my story with the artist in the room, I want to tell their story so I have to kind of be the therapist for them but for my process I have to be my own therapist and pull out my own stories, but it is the same process.

 

What’s the biggest challenge that you encounter when writing for yourself than writing for other artists?

The biggest challenge used to be that I wasn’t really sure what direction to go. I always knew I wanted to do soul, but when you’re writing for other people you’re just used to doing so many different genres, so the problem comes when you’re writing for yourself – how do you just stick to one genre? Cos you’re so used to switching. Writing this album sort of happened by accident – it was through heartbreak and a lot of things fell into place and it kinda just came out and then this sound just formed naturally, which was just all my biggest influences fused together. So the only challenge now is just having my own identity and not always being compared to my songwriting identity, y’know.

 

How did you come to working with Niall Horan?

I had written some songs on the ‘Four’ album for One Direction, but I’d never met him. Actually wait – I met him drunk one time at The Brit Awards and I spilt a drink on him, so I met him then and then my co-writer Matt Rad, who he’d previously written a lot with, was having a session with him for the new One Direction album, and so he asked if I wanted to go and write with him and Niall. I was like yeah. Went in and wrote with him, the stuff didn’t really work for One Direction but we became friends and then when he was doing his own stuff he just sent me a text saying he was doing an album and did I want to come and write with him for it. On the first day together we wrote “You and Me”, which is on the album. On the second day, we wrote “Seeing Blind” which is the duet that’s on the album. So it just worked and we’ve been really good friends ever since!

 

Releasing my album because it’s been a long time coming! Getting to perform more, sing more. Getting to just tour more – see different places and travel. I love travelling. And just taking some time to be the artist, as well as spending some more time back in Ireland which will be nice.

 

What advice would you give your younger self?

Relax and enjoy it! I got a lot of success as a writer really young and I didn’t really know how to enjoy it. I was stressed all the time because I was like “oh when you get it you have to keep getting it”, but I think I would tell myself to just relax and enjoy and trust the process. When I was younger I used to think I had to rush and do everything in the now, but now I realise everyone’s journey is different and everyone has different times where things are gonna happen for them. So just trust the process and grow into yourself and find and be your true authentic self.

 

What is your FAULT?

I get impatient. That’s my fault I think. I’m the type of person who will distract kids to skip queues at Disneyland, because I hate queuing and want everything now!