Monica Heldal spent her first time in the U.S. performing at Voodoo Music and Arts Experience.
Heldal said she was happy to receive a spot at Voodoo and appreciated the audience that came to her 11:45 a.m. set. With her first festival experience, she said the atmosphere was hectic. With multiple stages and continuous performances on each one, there’s a lot of movement. However, she said there’s nothing as fun as playing a festival.
After the festival, Heldal is staying in the states for another month opening for John Butler Trio, another artist who performed on Nov. 2 at Voodoo. She said as an opening act, an artist doesn’t always know what to expect, but crowds have been listening and seem to like what they hear. After her American tour, Heldal will return to Norway, her home country, and start her Norwegian tour a few days after.
Heldal said her sound is a bit hard to describe as one thing, but it is heavily guitar-based.
Guitars have had an immense influence on Heldal her whole life. She said her parents and family play the guitar and guitars were always around the house. Heldal was always eager to play and at 12 years old was gifted her very own guitar from her parents. By 16, she had written her song, “Silly Willy,” that she still plays today.
“I think it’s a lot of fun to just kind of sit down at home and try to experiment with different tunings on the guitar and figure out a new sound you can use for a song,” Heldal said.
With that guitar base, Heldal is able to create a sound that’s a mashup of genres.
“I would say it’s a mix between a lot of different types of music like rock, blues, country, folk, pop, singer-songwriter. It’s a bit of everything,” Heldal said.
Heldal said she plans to keep this collection of genres when she starts recording a new album after touring. Because the guitar sound is what she knows, she has no plans to stray from it.