Miriam Bryant

Miriam Bryant is one of the biggest artists on the Swedish music scene after accumulating 200 million streams in the Nordic nations alone. Now she’s returning her attention towards repeating that success on an international scale.

The next step towards achieving that goal comes with her new single ‘Black Car’. It was initially released in the rising pop star’s homeland of Sweden where it became one of the biggest smash hits of recent years. The single peaked at #2 during a nine-week run in the Top 10 as it reached 5 x Platinum status, and eventually won Song of the Year at the nation’s prestigious P3 Guld award ceremony.

One listen to the track demonstrates exactly why ‘Black Car’ both connected with such a huge audience and will continue to be discovered in the near future. Combining power, poise and nuanced emotion, Miriam’s vocal is a world class talent. Meanwhile her lyrics explore the promise and subsequent breakdown of a new relationship with a fiery, independently minded spirit.

“’Black Car’ represents the place we met – the club we always go back to and where we had our first kiss,” says Miriam. “It’s the moment when you look at me like nobody has ever looked at me before, and the moment you know you’re in love. But it’s also the arguments, the passion, the tears. It’s when you’ve given up but you don’t want to leave. It’s the realisation that nothing is forever.”

‘Black Car’ is Miriam’s second track to receive a global push after her introductory single ‘Rocket’ introduced Miriam to a whole new audience. An enticing cocktail of insistent pop hooks, sunshine melodies and full-bodied bass, ‘Rocket’ also saw Miriam’s personality shine through, with a sassy and uplifting lyric about breaking free from a relationship to make a brand new start. Meanwhile, production from Miriam’s friend and collaborator Neiked’s amplified her considerable talents.

“’Rocket’ is about this psycho that I dated,” she recalls. “I was breaking up with him for six months but I never really did it. Then Neiked and I went to Greece where we wrote ‘Rocket’ and two other songs. And then I came back and broke up with my boyfriend. It’s a break-up song that was written before the break-up.”

Does he know the song is about him?

“I don’t know and I don’t care! Well, of course he knows it’s about him, I just think he’s not intelligent enough to realise it’s about him. He doesn’t really listen to lyrics. He just likes the fact that somebody wrote a song about him.”

Eager to recharge their batteries and reignite their creativity, Miriam and Neiked had headed to Crete for a laidback songwriting session armed with little more than a laptop and some headphones. After five days by the pool and fuelled by sangria, they returned home with demos of ‘Rocket’ and two other tracks.

Born in Gothenburg to an English father and a Finnish mother, Miriam Bryant’s interests cross right across the musical spectrum. Her emo years inspired a love of the Swedish punk scene, but she appreciates the greats of every genre, from Eminem, Frank Sinatra and Pink Floyd through to classic singer-songwriters Bob Dylan and Neil Young and icons of the 90s pop scene such as Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls.

Naturally for someone blessed with a big voice, she also appreciated the talent of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, although “I would never admit it to anyone, it was kind of a guilty pleasure.”

Although her talent first emerged when she was a child, there were years in which Miriam didn’t believe she could sing at all. Even when that confidence emerged – in part due to being coerced into performing by her sister – the idea of being a professional musician still seemed like a pipedream. Working with her friend Neiked inspired her, and her debut album ‘Raised In Rain’ “kind of just happened.”

Inspired by a bad relationship, ‘Finders Keepers’ became Miriam’s first homeland hit, but bigger things were waiting on the horizon when she featured on Zedd’s track ‘Find You’ which found a huge international audience when it appeared on the soundtrack to sci-fi smash ‘Divergent’. It took Miriam, Zedd and fellow featured artist Matthew Koma on a whirlwind of a promo tour – the MTV Movie Awards, Jimmy Kimmel and more.

Although she enjoyed the experience, being part of a trio made Miriam realise that she wanted to focus on her solo career. In her words: “That’s when I learned to be more egotistical with my creativity because what I want to do is what’s most important. You have to know what you want to be doing, and you have to be 100% sure about it in order for the people you work with to do a better job.”

That stance worked wonders with the ‘Hisingen och Hem Igen’ EP (a collection of songs recorded for the smash hit Swedish TV music show ‘Så Mycket Bättre’) which saw all six tracks simultaneously chart at Spotify. Suddenly recognised everywhere, Miriam found it to be a “weird time in my life. I couldn’t even get into a cab without hearing one of those songs.” But she adjusted and got used to it. “I’m still waiting for the post-success depression,” she says, either self-deprecatingly or just tempting fate.

Currently only available in the Nordics, her latest EP ‘Bye Bye Blue’ saw Miriam return to the charts in style. Everything’s in place for Miriam Bryant to rocket to the top of the UK charts too.