Freya Ridings

Freya Ridings is a London-based singer, songwriter, and pianist with a notably rich, soulful vocal tone. She scored a U.K. Top Ten hit in 2017 with “Lost Without You,” which she included on her Top Three-charting studio debut, Freya Ridings, in 2019. After a leave of four years from the U.K. charts, she returned in 2023 with “Weekends” from her second LP, Blood Orange.
A native Londoner, Freya Olivia Rose Ridings is the daughter of actor Richard Ridings; she learned the guitar by watching him play. She was opening U.K. shows for Gavin James by early 2017 and released her first song, “Blackout,” that May. That month, she also made her headlining debut. Concentrating on plaintive ballads, the show doubled as her recording debut; Live at St. Pancras Old Church was released by Good Soldier Records that September. It included an acoustic version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song “Maps.” Before the end of the year, she landed in the U.K. Top Ten with “Lost Without You,” which peaked at number nine.
In 2018, Ridings issued the slow-burn single “Ultraviolet” and collaborated with MJ Cole on the moody “Waking Up” as well as issuing a second live album, Live at the Omeara. Her first studio EP, You Mean the World to Me, came out in early 2019; it was also her first release under a U.S. licensing deal with Capitol. Her breakout hit, “Lost Without You,” appeared on her eponymous studio debut album that July. The LP reached as high as number three in the U.K., while charting in several European countries, and provided another Top 20 single in “Castles.”
Ridings cracked the U.K. singles chart again in early 2023 with the disco-inflected “Weekends,’ her first original material in four years. Her sophomore album, Blood Orange, followed on Good Soldier in May. It included writing collaborations with the likes of Kamille (Dua Lipa, Sia), Phil Plested (the Chainsmokers, OneRepublic), Will Bloomfield (Sea Girls, the Vaccines), and Scott Harris (Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes) ~ Marcy Donelson