Girl in Red in Oslo, February 2021.
Jonathan Vivaas KiseMarie Ulven, a.k.a. Girl in Red, stops herself mid-apology — the kind you utter when you think you’re talking too fast or you’re unsure whether the listener gets your drift. “I’m not gonna say sorry,” the 22-year-old musician says firmly, breaking off from a discussion of her new album, If I Could Make It Go Quiet. “I don’t want to be that person who apologizes for everything. I’m not sorry. There you go, Marie. You’re the protagonist.” Even though Ulven is Zooming in from Oslo — with the camera off — her personality crackles across the miles and timezones.
Delightfully verbose, snarkily self-deprecating, and “really bad at boundaries” (her words), Ulven has carved out a place for herself in indie rock by appealing to her listeners’ insecurities and yearnings. Her Girl in Red persona — think Billie Eilish’s self-aware bluster, mixed with a healthy splash of early ‘00s college rock — grapples in equal turns with mental health and sometimes unrequited lust. It’s a combination that’s helped make Ulven a favorite of both the TikTok set and those a bit too old to grasp the platform’s purpose. As she half-jokes to this 30-something writer: “Being on TikTok allows you to stay hip and cool — and sells your information to China.”
Ulven grew up in a little town outside of Oslo and has been writing songs since she was eight (her sister heard her singing an original composition in the shower and recorded it on her phone). By age 14, she’d acquired a guitar and began writing in earnest; she started producing her own music around 2014 after using her Confirmation money to buy a MacBook. Fed on old standbys like David Bowie and the Smiths, Ulven began doing what all kids with a computer and a guitar do eventually: posting songs online. After uploading “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” — a fuzzy ode to being more than pals — to YouTube in 2018, things started picking up for the then-teen.
“I’m a very suspicious person. Probably because my dad’s a cop,” Ulven says of the offers of representation she started getting soon after. “Those first few months of 2018 were really intense and really exciting. My mom was not happy with me doing all these meetings; I was trying to finish high school.” The musician did finish school but ended up dropping out of college later that year after moving to Oslo proper. She dropped two EPs: Chapter 1 in 2018 — which featured “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” and the deceptively bouncy “Summer Depression” — and Chapter 2 in 2019. The latter included the upbeat standout track “Bad Idea!” and the deliciously spooky “Dead Girl in the Pool.” If I Could Make It Go Quiet, out April 30th, is her first full-length album. She also plays pretty much everything on the record.
“I play a little bit of bass, a little bit of guitar, piano, I sing,” Ulven says. “Oh, there’s also a cello. I bought a cello. I was in a manic period, I think. I think I’ve touched the cello once. I actually dropped my bed on it once. So, like, the only thing I’ve done is touch it once and drop a bed on it. I also bought a saxophone this year. I was like, ‘I’m going to love the sax.’ I’ve touched that once. I’m talking so fast right now. I had so much coffee today.”
Written over the course of 2019 and 2020, the album delves once more into Ulven’s feelings about her sexuality as well as her struggles with mental health. “Pretty much everything that’s inside this album is just a lot of noise — a lot of mental noise,” she says of the title. “I’m not even sure if mental noise is a thing, but sometimes it feels like you have a lot of it — not you, but me.”
The first track, “Serotonin,” produced by Finneas, tosses the listener full-tilt into the cacophony of Ulven’s brain. “I’ve never talked about my mental health like that. I’m talking about worrying that my therapist hates me,” she says. “I stopped answering my therapist because I was just like, ‘You don’t want to talk to me.’ Your mind does all kinds of weird shit.”
With characteristic openness, Ulven reveals that she began contemplating the complexities of her brain after her father was in a car accident when she was 12. “To put it simply, that shit fucked me up,” she says. “I was watching a lot of weird YouTube videos. And while watching these weird YouTube videos, about people with diseases and stuff, I was starting to get really weird intrusive thoughts about cutting my hands off. I didn’t want to go into the kitchen. I was just spiraling into feeling like a very crazy, isolated person, which is just what I’m really trying to say in this ‘Serotonin’ track — just sort of compile all these weird things that I’ve [felt]. Now I know that a lot of people have these [issues], I just feel a lot more comfortable talking about it.”
She touches on this concept throughout the record: notably on “Body and Mind” (which deals with realizing one’s own mortality) and “Apartment 402,” named for her home. “I’ve been living in this really, really small place for a long time. And it’s like, what does that do to you?” she says. “The threshold of moving anywhere sometimes gets a little bit too hard — especially if you already struggle with getting out of bed. So, it’s like laying on a floor and watching the sun hit the dust and being stuck somewhere. It’s weird, man. I keep calling you, man,” she cuts herself off. “What am I? God, I don’t know. We’ve talked for like 30 minutes. You’re my homie now.”
The record also includes more than a few ruminations on love — from the gorgeously depressively “Midnight Love,” about being someone’s reluctant fuck buddy, to the rather self-explanatory rocker “Stupid Bitch.” Then there’s “I’ll Call You Mine,” a song about “trusting someone and opening up to someone and letting them break your walls down and letting them break you down. But only to love you and not to hurt you,” as Ulven explains it. She hopes that this is the song that will be her trademark, the one she’ll keep coming back to when she’s decades older, “like Patti Smith,” she says.
“I’m just putting my fist into the air when the chorus drops,” she says, then cuts herself off. “Wait, hold on. I just want to show you how I look like right now.” The black screen fills with Ulven’s grinning face, framed by a gray hoodie. Her fist is raised to the camera — totally unapologetic.
Elvis Presley – ‘Mystery Train’
“My first love was Elvis, no question. In our house, we had a French-release compilation album of his songs called ‘Le Roi Du Rock ‘n’ Roll’. As a small kid, I was obsessed with ‘Mystery Train’. The way Elvis held his guitar like a gun and the percussive way he attacked the strings made me fall in love with the guitar. Many years later, I went busking around Europe on my motorbike with a tent and played my guitar in the streets. But it was all because of Elvis and those early Sun [Records] recordings – and ‘Mystery Train’ in particular.”
Blondie – ‘Autoamerican’
“There was an Our Price on Finchley Road, North London that I’d go to with my older brother and sister. That’s where I bought ‘Autoamerican’ in 1981. Blondie – what can you say? Apart from the fact that as a young boy, it was impossible not to be in love with Debbie Harry. I love the variety on this particular record – it goes through different genres. Years later, I saw Blondie play [in 2013] at a private function in New York with Kanye West. Debbie Harry was still magnetic.”
Queen, Wembley Stadium, 1986
“Queen were supported by INXS. It was before they released ‘Kick’ [in 1987]. I only went because it turned out my friend Kieran’s dad was a big-shot in the music industry and he got four tickets. I was around 17, it was a year after they played Live Aid and Queen were phenomenal.”
The Beatles – ‘Eleanor Rigby’
“All through our early teenage years, my younger brother and I were always at the top of the house listening to The Beatles. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ reminds me of the ‘80s and the views out of our house in London: looking at the grey, rain-drizzled skies. I always felt its melancholy, looking out of the window back then as a teenager. Not that I was unhappy, but I definitely responded to that in music.”
Ever meet Macca?
“I have met Paul McCartney and he was a complete gentleman. At a political party, we were watching the American election on TV and he came up to me and said [Lewis does a pitch-perfect Macca impersonation]: ‘Oh, you understand a bit or two about the TV, don’t you?’. And I just realised he’d seen me on TV and I melted. I went to bed grinning. That McCartney knows who I am is incredible. I was completely tongue-tied.”
David Bowie – ‘Heroes’
“I know 173 other people will probably also have picked ‘Heroes’ for this, but from the opening note, it’s just relentlessly brilliant. It’s the most evocative, triumphant, euphoric song – and unbelievably cool. The second album I ever owned was Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’ – and he’s remained a touchstone for me.”
The Rolling Stones – ‘Little T&A’
“I listen to the Stones a lot and I can never get ‘Little T&A ‘ out of my head. Keith Richards is quoted as calling the song ‘dumb’ and that it’s just about rock ‘n’ roll energy. It’s a celebration of carnality, I’m aware of that, but that’s the one that stays in my head!”
Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – ‘Swing the Mood’
“I can’t fucking hear Jive Bunny again! But I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. When I was in my twenties, I would go out on my own dancing to old-school rock ‘n’ roll at rockabilly nights. Then Jive Bunny came out and cut up my favourite songs into snippets and put them into this endless [novelty] medley. And then it was never off the radio, so I’d have to put it into the Room 101 of music.”
Crazy P – ‘There’s a Better Place’
“It’s an ambient rave tune with a fantastic Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory sample. I’m just that age. I left school right into the dance culture of the ‘90s and that will still always get me up on the floor.”
The Weepies – ‘Gotta Have You’
“It reminds me of moving to LA as a family with my late wife Helen [McCrory]. My daughter was one year old and my son was about to be born. We were living in Venice Canals – and I was filming out there. We had a babysitter who was a 23-year-old roller-skating, already-Botoxed sunny Californian girl. We asked her, are you listening to any good music? She gave us two great bands. One is The Shins but the other was a lesser-known band called The Weepies. That song will always get me going.”
Elton John – ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’
“I can’t say I do karaoke but I will proudly divulge that I was at karaoke in Fulham Broadway once. I went in there with a friend and I got up and sang ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ and I won a bottle of champagne for best karaoke of the evening! Very chuffed I was too. If I was back looking for another bottle of champers, I’d pick it again.”
Talk Talk – ‘It’s My Life’
“I was an ‘80s kid and I liked electronic music. I’ve always loved ‘It’s My Life’ and Andy Hollis’ vocals, as well as its slightly bombastic nature. Life’s what you make of it – seems like a good sentiment to have.”
Damian Lewis’ UK tour begins on October 2. His album ‘Sweet Chaos’ is out now via Thin Red Duke
