Oh Land — born Nanna Øland Fabricius was training to be a ballet dancer until a back injury at age 18 forced her to quit. When she couldn’t dance anymore, she began creating music. “The reason I started to dance in the first place was because of the music,” she tells us. “I started writing again and recording, set up a little home studio at my home in Denmark… I started recording anything that would make a sound in my apartment.”
She even wrote a song about her tragic experience, called “Break The Chain”: “He said sorry but you’re never gonna dance again / But my feet just keep me moving, trying to break the chain.”
BIG BREAK: In early 2008, she was asked by her cousin, also a singer, to be an opening act. “It was a small, tiny bar, and she thought I would just show up with a piano. But I locked us into a rehearsal space for a month and found a band, we did choreography and costumes… this whole crazy thing with weird paint, it was a whole installation… she was just like, ‘Nanna, you’re a support band!’ I just completely took over the whole thing.”
BIGGER BREAK: Ambition clearly worked — she was soon signed by a Danish record label, and released her debut EP Fauna in Denmark. And her incredible set at 2009’s South By Southwest got her signed by Epic.
Oh Land has written two songs with Pharrell, including a track called “Standing On Trains”. “He’s very childlike in his approach as well,” she says of working with the producer/N.E.R.D. frontman. “That’s what’s fun for me, to work with people who are fearless.”
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