Jasmine van den Bogaerde, better known by her stage name Birdy, is gearing up for a huge year: the 17-year-old British singer/songwriter is hitting the road with Christina Perri for a huge North American tour, beginning on April 4th and continuing through late May. While on the road, she’ll be playing original songs from her debut U.S. EP “Breathe,” like “Wings” and the cover of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” that helped put her on the map when she was 14. The tour will ultimately lead up to the U.S. release of her sophomore album “Fire Within,” which she worked on with Rich Costey, Ryan Tedder and Jim Abiss, just to name a few.
So that’s the 411 on Birdy’s career… but who is Birdy, the person? We had a chance to talk with the remarkably talented teen and learned some pretty fun things about the budding songstress — check out 10 of them below:
1. Her song “Wings” was featured in the movie trailer for the recent film “Winter’s Tale.” Birdy describes watching the preview and hearing her song as “so cool … to have it playing, and [for] all my friends to see it.”
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2. Birdy’s upcoming tour is seven weeks long, which she says is “the longest I’ve been away” from home. She’s also never opened for anyone, so it’ll be “a new experience” prepping the crowd for Christina Perri.
3. Birdy gets stage jitters before every live show, but her band usually calms her down. “They’ve been with me for two years, so they’re like my best friends, really,” she says. “We just relax and play good music.”
4. Birdy’s current musical obsessions: “Jake Bugg and his new album. I love Kodaline and their song ‘High Hopes.’ Also, I think Alt-J are brilliant.”
5. She would never cover the song “Breezeblocks” by Alt-J, because she’s too in love with the original. “I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head!”
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6. Her favorite song off her sophomore album “Fire Within” is called “All You Never Say,” which she wrote with Dan Wilson (Adele, Taylor Swift) in Los Angeles.
7. “Fire Within” focuses on Birdy’s relationships with those who are close to her, while also exploring the “experience of being away from home, and traveling, and trying new things and feeling hopeful.”
8. She usually takes a pillow and a onesie with her while on the road.
9. She likes reading — at the moment she’s reading “The Fault In Our Stars” — but she also enjoys watching movies, especially while on her tour bus.
10. Her favorite junk food is McDonald’s, and her go-to order is chicken nuggets. She also loves Taco Bell (we told her about the breakfast taco, which she said “sounds amazing”).