Conversations with Neea River

Today we’d like to introduce you to Neea River

Hi Neea, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey to the music scene is a wild ride! It all started when I first travelled to Los Angeles over 10 years ago. I remember back then I had an iPhone 5 and Instagram was blowing up. I posted lot of travelling pics with the hashtags #losangeles #california. At the time, I had couple acoustic singing videos on my account and when I posted the pics from LA, this one local producer contacted me after hearing them. We connected and I became friends with him and his girlfriend. After leaving LA, I stayed in touch with them and one year later they told me their roommate was moving out and suggested I should move to LA and pursue my music dreams. After quick consideration, I packed 2 bags and left my small Finland village called Nurmijarvi and went to LA!

We lived in Sherman Oaks near Ventura and I absolutely fell in love with Los Angeles lifestyle. We started writing songs together and then good things started to happen. One of our first songs that we wrote together ended up being a soundtrack in a Lifetime movie. I posted about this to Facebook and Instagram, and got some attention from Finland music professionals also. I joined the Finnish creators in LA network and met a successful Finnish producer called Henri “MGI” Lanz. He had recently partnered with Warner Music and offered me a publishing deal. That was my ticket to the heart of music industry!

After that I started writing songs for others and travelled back and forth from Finland to LA for music. I’ve written songs to the top artists in my home country, artists and bands all over Asia and Europe and to commercials and movies – and now I got over 300 million streams under my belt as a songwriter! Around COVID time, I decided it was finally the time to start writing songs for myself. It was always the goal since the beginning, but I needed to have the songwriting journey to learn how to write catchy hooks and melodies.

It took me over 3 years in the studio to craft my sound as an artist. One day in the studio I wrote my debut single called ‘ All The Way’ and suddenly everything made sense. I started to release music independently – and I’m still on that path! My third single ‘Burned CD’ made Finnish pop music history, after I got placed into the Spotify editorial cover of Fresh Finds Pop. I was the first Finnish 100% independent female pop artist to land a cover on Spotify. After Burned CD blew up independently and most of the listeners came from California, I got lot of emails from labels and distribution companies from Los Angeles. I connected with all of them and started planning another LA trip to meet these people. I spend the spring of 2024 in Los Angeles networking and filming promo for my music in LA.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Being in the music industry is not for everyone. The business side of things can really affect your art and mind if it gets too heavy. The most important thing is to love what you do and to remember that music comes first. Without songs, there’s no music industry. My road to this point has included lots and lots of hard work, hundreds of studio sessions and long nights, sweat and tears, reaching goals step by step and every song released and decision has moved my career towards. I’d say my biggest struggle has been being born in a small country, where the English pop music scene is almost non-existent. Around 90% of the music in Finland is in our native language. But I also see it as a positive thing cause I’m standing out from the crowd. The reason I’m travelling to LA a lot is to get my music heard in the US, where most of my listeners are based!

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m NEEA RIVER, a singer-songwriter and pop artist from Finland. I make banging pop music and write and co-produce all of my songs. I started my career as a songwriter writing hit songs for others, and 4 years ago decided to start writing songs for myself and release them for the whole world to hear!

So far I’ve released 7 singles independently and I’m currently working on my debut album. I’m most proud of my single ‘Burned CD’ and how it turned out from the idea to an actual song. I found my old burned CDs under our family car seat and the song idea came into my head. Wrote the song that night in 2 hours with my guitar – we then produced it into a catchy pop banger!

Being a female in the music industry is tough, but I’m going towards my dreams with a force and so far I’ve managed to make pop music history in my home country. I want to encourage people, especially female creators, to work on their goals. I continue being authentic and show the real music journey on my socials.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I’m definately a risk taker. My mom told me once that “you can’t know what happens, if you don’t try”. That quote struck me and has been with me since then on every life decision I make. I’d rather try something out than regret later that I didn’t take a chance. My biggest risk has been when I left my small town in Finland and moved to LA – it was the best decision of my life and got me to this point: I’m now a pop artist who writes and co-produces her own songs! That wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t take the risk back then.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.neeariver.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neeariver/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neeamusic/
• Twitter: https://x.com/NEEARIVER
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@neeariver
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@neeariver

Image Credits
NEEA RIVER