LA-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ny Oh (Naomi Ludlow) hails from Tauranga, has lived in London, has just released her own solo EP, and after years of hard work is about to embark on a year-long world tour playing in Harry Styles' band.
Ny Oh Photo: Supplied
When she's not touring with one of the biggest pop stars in the world she releases her own music: her latest EP Ny Oh's Garden of Eden was released earlier this year to rave reviews.
Charlotte Ryan spoke to Ludlow earlier this week. She explained she is resisting any sneaking growth of London or LA-style pronunciations onto her New Zealand accent.
"When I first moved to London I was 17, and I was just really enamoured with the British accent, so I thought 'I'll give that a go': It didn't work, it just kind of made me more Kiwi.
"A couple of years ago I moved to LA, and there's something about the American accent that I'm just so averse to, that I've regressed back into the most Kiwi possible version."
Watch her perform Sledgehammer with Harry Styles
Ludlow has found Americans sometimes find the New Zealand accent so difficult to decipher that she sometimes has to imitate their pronunciation to be understood. "Then you go home and you clean your mouth out and you say 'chur' ten times and you're back again," she says.
In high school she was focused from a young age on the dream of heading overseas as part of her journey to become a performer.
"I've always been really independent, I decided I knew what I wanted to do when I was 14 or 15, and I remember telling my parents, and they were just laughing: 'you have to finish high school, and you haven't got any money', and this was like an insane pipe dream.
"But I've always had a deep knowledge: you're meant to go somewhere and do something - that, plus the energy you have when you're a teenager, and the competitive side of me helped.
"I said: fine, I'll go and get four jobs and I will pack in school early and do that - and the day I turn 18 I'm out . And it was wild, they couldn't believe it was happening, I think."
Photo: Supplied
There were "stumbles, and reconnections" along the way, she says, but she managed to keep her focus even in the difficult times, including once ending up temporarily homeless at about 19.
"I was sat on the street with all of my suitcases, and it was an amazing feeling that I didn't expect to feel in that moment ... instead of feeling like I had nothing, I felt like I can do anything, I can start from scratch and I can build any life that I want. I felt so empowered in that moment.
"I always look back on that moment because it could have been a moment that I called my parents and said: 'help me get home', or 'I don't want to do this', but I didn't. So I just started trying on new hats ever since that point ... I started trying to explore ways for me to experience music, and different types of music."
She lived in squats, and went to music festivals, looked for different ways to get involved with different music communities and explore "all that London had to offer", and everything she herself had to offer.
That meant a lot of busking to make ends meet.
"It was good for me to learn how to grow a bit of a thicker skin as a musician - not everyone's going to like your music, and there's days when it's snowing, but you've got to play because you've got to eat.
"But the thing about busking is that at the end of the day I had to play because I love music, and so that was a beautiful reminder every day."
She kept gigging, travelling and meeting people, and played in Jonathan Wilson's band, where she was spotted and recruited for Harry Styles' band.
"I had to learn that the place to get is within yourself, it's what you have that is a light that shines, that is what other people then are interested in - that's been a bigger journey that I'm most proud of."
Place, time and people have been important along the way to writing the songs on her EP: Garden of Eden. The lead song was written in a hostel in London called The Garden of Eden, that she says was a melting pot of different personalities - with a few snakes among the grass.
"The concept of the Garden of Eden that we know of from the Bible is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and when I went to write the song ... there was some irony because this place was definitely not the Garden of Eden by any standards.
"It spit-balled into a song about the world that we live in - we're all here, living in it."
The track Australia started as a not-quite-finished song that sparked a conversation with a random stranger who became her boyfriend. He helped finish the writing and it became a duet, and then after the relationship ended, Ludlow re-wrote it to reshaped it again, for herself.
"I had to bring it back to its final form to really understand it.
"I finished it on the train on the way to the studio... it took me on such an amazing journey and it came full circle."
Releasing her EP and touring with Harry Styles have come back to back, keeping Ludlow busy.
Touring and performing with an artist at the pinnacle of pop has been an incredible opportunity, she says, and helped her refine her own ideas about where her strengths lie and what she loves to do musically.
"It's so beautiful, I'm happy in it, and I think that one has given me the confidence to do the other."
