Before she picked up the prize for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for ‘Mine’ at The Ivors 2025, Orla Gartland spoke to NME on the red carpet to tell us about the struggles of being an independent artist if you "don't come from money" – and advice for musicians trying to break into the industry
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00:00Good afternoon, all of Garland. How are you doing?
00:01I'm good. How are you?
00:02I'm pretty good. Freezing a bit, isn't it? But we get that.
00:04It's really cold.
00:05I hear you're nominated for Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the Ivor Novellos 2025.
00:10Correct. I am. Thank you.
00:12How does that feel?
00:13It feels amazing. Yeah, I feel very much like an underdog.
00:16There's a huge amount of people in that category that I respect and love and look up to.
00:21So I'm just glad to be here. I already feel like a winner.
00:24My parents waved me off. It's my first red carpet. I'm just, I'm delighted.
00:28What do you think it is about your journey so far and what you do that's kind of captured people and earned you a spot here today?
00:34I think I try to be as honest as I can. I think as songwriters, that's a lot of people's mission.
00:39I'm an independent artist, so I'm very proud to be here on a song I put out on my own and a song I wrote on my own.
00:45It feels like there are very few steps between writing a song and putting it out, which is not the case if you're assigned to a big label.
00:52So I feel really proud of myself in that way.
00:55I had to wear a lot of hats when I put this record out and to be the kind of label boss and the artist and this.
01:00So, yeah, it was a lot of work.
01:01Never want to over-romanticize that, but I think, I don't know, it's hard to see yourself and what people relate to.
01:07And if you think too much about it, you'll give yourself an existential crisis.
01:10But I'd like to think I'm very real.
01:12I think I am just real.
01:13And I think people who, I think people can see that in the songwriting.
01:18It's not, it's not anyone else.
01:19It's not planted by anyone else.
01:22It's just a little old me.
01:24Well, it's not, the odds are kind of stacked against you.
01:26It's really hard to be an artist in general, let alone an independent artist in the, in the current climate.
01:30I mean, what's your secret?
01:32What advice would you give to people who are looking at entering the world of music?
01:36It is very hard.
01:37It's also hard to be assigned artists.
01:39And that's what's interesting now is it's sort of hard all around.
01:41I feel like artists of my level and below are severely overworked and underpaid.
01:48And I think we've all seen, there's some pretty, some pretty scary things happening.
01:52I definitely, I'm seeing less and less people survive in music that don't come from money.
01:56Yeah.
01:57And I think that's really scary for culture because you're sort of narrowing down the people that can make music to a very specific subset.
02:03They're not always the subs that I want to hear from.
02:05So it's, um, it is hard out there.
02:07I don't have all the answers.
02:09I, I have hope that there's enough people talking.
02:11And I think, you know, for example, when Ray has got up at some of these award ceremonies, shouted at songwriters, like everyone's trying to do their best to like come up with solutions.
02:21But do I have the magic touch?
02:23Not really.
02:23I do the independent thing.
02:25I get to keep more of the pie in return for doing more work.
02:27And I'm, uh, but if there was four of me in a band, I don't think I could sustain myself.
02:31So yeah, I don't, I don't have so much, so much advice, but you just got to keep going and hopefully things will get a little easier.
02:39Amazing.
02:39And what's next for you?
02:40I'm playing Glastonbury in a couple of weeks.
02:42Woof!
02:42Only the best festival of all time.
02:44So that's pretty exciting.
02:46I'm going over to the States in August to do a bunch of festivals there.
02:49I'm supporting a band called Glass Animals on their tour as well.
02:52Quite big.
02:53A lot of live shows and a lot of new things for me.
02:55So I'm feeling good.
02:56Amazing.
02:56Although, well, good luck tonight.
02:58Thank you very much.
02:59Thank you very much.
02:59Thanks for having me.