Nicklas Sahl FAULT Magazine Covershoot and Interview

With new music out today and as we enter a new chapter in Nicklas Sahl’s musical journey, we caught up with the ever evolving artist to discuss ‘Don’t Mind’, living for your dreams and of course, his FAULTs.

Tell us about ‘Don’t Mind’ and your headspace when you wrote the track? 

I was in love, and I could feel how this girl and I were slowly becoming a serious thing. I was not ready for that at all. I was acting pretty irrational about it, and I was scared to death about losing my freedom. I wrote the song with my friends, and they were like “you do know that falling in love isn’t a bad thing, right?”. So, “Don’t Mind” is for me a song about letting go and giving in to what you can’t control.

You’ve spoken openly the message of ‘God Save the Dream’, however is it ever possible to reach that dream without playing the “music industry games” that separates many musicians from their grand achievements? 

I think every artist struggles with finding the balance between keeping your artistry as pure and authentic as possible when it’s also your job that pays your rent. When I started experiencing a bit of success with my music, the expectations grew around and within me, and at some point, I realized that it began to affect the way I made music. I doubted myself and my skills, and I didn’t feel like I could write a good enough song on my own anymore, so I flew from one songwriting session to the other with amazing songwriters hoping they could “fix” my songs. There came many fine songs out of that, but they weren’t really my songs, they were just… songs. With this album I had to re-claim myself and start trusting my gut again, and make the music I first and foremost love, and then I can only hope and pray that people want to hear it.

Are there ever times when chasing the dream becomes too much and you need to hide away from it all? 

Sure, there are times where I feel like I can’t live up to my own ambitions. I’m very perfectionistic and a bit of a control freak, and it can be a challenge for me to ever feel truly satisfied. However, I’m very aware of it and I think I’m getting better and better at not being too hard on myself, and I’ve got great people around me both in my personal and professional life who support me. If I were alone in my pursuit of my dreams, I think it would be a whole other story.

What’s the best piece of musical advice you’ve ever received? 

Patience and persistence. Patience and persistence. Patience and persistence. And you just keep saying that until it’s soaked in.

Looking back on your musical journey, what would you say has been the hardest hurdle that you’ve had to overcome? 

When I got my first record deal, I realized how little knowledge I had in how to lead a music project. Suddenly a lot of grown-up people were looking at me at meetings asking hundreds of questions that I had no idea how to answer. I’m by standard a real crowd pleaser, so my natural reaction would always be to ask them what they thought would be the best decision. Gradually I’m getting better at all the aspects of being an artist, and that helps me to allow myself to trust my guts and not be afraid of disagreeing with people if it’s too far away from my own visions.

How would you say your upbringing in Denmark has impacted your music today? 

I grew up in a small city on the countryside. I liked it there and it was a great and safe place being a kid, but I always knew that I one day would move to Copenhagen to follow my dreams there. I moved in 2017 and it was without a doubt the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I got my record deal half a year later and within few months my life changed completely when the music started taking off. The first two years of my career was one massive wave of good things happening. It was absolutely amazing, and I ticked off so many of my dreams really quickly. Now there are less first-time experiences and I’ve learned that a wave always must crash at some point. It goes up and down in showbiz as they say. I’m just really grateful and feel so privileged that I get to live out my dream.

What’s the biggest fear you have for your music? 

If music suddenly didn’t feel magical for me. That would scare me. An annoying part of growing older is that things you once thought were amazing and magical at some point turns out to be either not real or duller than you expected it to be. One of the last things I still feel truly enchanted by and fascinated of is music.

Do you prefer to dream big, or to set yourself a number of short term goals to reach? 

Both is equally important for me. I’m very competitive and extremely driven by my ambitiousness, so having big dreams is a crucial element in my life. On the other hand, I always have a list of ten goals I try to achieve typically within a year or two.

What is your FAULT?

As mentioned earlier I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I could mention tons of things I see as flaws or imperfections about myself, but I’m learning to embrace my flaws and my failures. Every ounce of success I’ve experienced in life has always depended on failures, and the people whom I’ve learned the most from have all experienced great failures in their lives which they’ve used to get to where they are today.