In a biweekly series of features, we’re inviting Minnesota artists to introduce themselves to our audience. Today: Ber, a Minneapolis-via-England-via-Norway-via-Bemidji-via-Walker singer-songwriter who’s set to make her live debut this spring at SXSW. Her debut EP, And I’m Still Thinking About That, drops Feb. 25.

I grew up in Walker; I went to high school in Bemidji. For me, music has just always been at the forefront of everything. I started with music and guitar lessons and piano lessons and stuff when I was just a kid; my parents were pretty proactive and saw that I really liked doing it. They've always been super supportive, which has been really cool.

Really, I grew up in the world of musical theater, and I absolutely loved that. I just rinsed a lot of Broadway musical scores and soundtracks and stuff, and didn't really find pop music until I was in college. I kind of avoided it. Up in Bemidji, we had like two radio stations, so you had kind of slim pickings for everything - but I listened to a lot of folk music and Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers and anything that was kind of in that folk and indie pop world, and kind of strayed away from radio pop for a while.

I went to college at Leeds Conservatoire in the U.K. I graduated in 2020. My degree was in popular music and songwriting, with a focus on vocal performance. I started writing in my second year of college, and tried probably every genre in the book. I did a lot of collaborations with different producers, in lots of different sounds. [I’ve] definitely not settled into that musical theater world that I thought maybe I would, but I really have been enjoying writing and finding my place.

My full name is Berit Dybing, and “Ber” has always been just a nickname. It's something that my parents called me, something that my closest friends always called me. My name is a bit of a mouthful, so it felt really personal to just call myself Ber. It feels like everybody knows me already from the get-go. You feel like you're best friends with everyone.

[My songs have] been featured on Apple Music, and a couple of radio stations there. I've had a little bit on the BBC, which has been amazing and it's insane. TikTok has really just been an incredible tool. I started posting about a year ago, and that started to take off: there were strangers that were interacting with me all the time and sending me messages about anything. That's kind of been crazy, to say the least, but that's definitely where I felt like this could kind of go somewhere, which is cool.

That's a feeling that you dream of, when you study [music] and spent put your whole life into it. It's amazing to experience any sort of positive reaction. Every time I get the opportunity to think about it, I'm like, “I can't believe that this is something that I'm doing right now.” I'm really excited to see some of that translate off the internet and into real life now as we start doing shows.

I lived abroad for five years; I actually studied in Norway for a year before I did anything in the U.K. So it was a pretty prolonged [stay] abroad; I was just going to go and do a study abroad gap year before college, and that turned into five years in Europe. I stayed in the U.K. through my visa, as long as it extended, so I was there until December of 2020. I was there through lots of lockdowns, and I got the chance to live in London.

It was a sad thing to leave; I really wanted to stay. Coming back home was it felt like a really big move, and also kind of a step backwards…but it ended up being the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It was a really cool opportunity to reconnect with some family and spend time by myself. It gave me the time to sit down here and really just like write and I've all of the songs that we've been putting out and all the music that's happened.

I started releasing everything in June, and that was all new material. It's stuff that I wrote over Zoom in this [Minneapolis] basement, in this room, just on the internet with friends. [Moving back to Minnesota] gave me the time to really focus on that, and be a kind of confused 23-year-old. It made me realize that I did want to actually release music, because I hadn't done that before and I wasn't really sure if the artist thing was something that I actually wanted to do. Writing was what I had found a love for, so I was definitely chasing that songwriter pathway for a while until everything blew up and I moved back home and I finally had something to write about!

I found out that I was “indie pop” when Spotify told me I was by putting me on a couple really cool editorial playlists. I think it's just really internalized pop music: it's all about the lyrics for me, personally. I’m lucky to collaborate with some really talented friends. One of my main collaborators is Hot Dennis. We went to college together, and he's the reason I started writing music. It's been fun to find this sound together with him, because he's such a creative producer, and I get really inspired whenever I get the chance to work with him. The way his brain works is awesome.

For me, so much of it is about the storytelling. It's been amazing to have any sort of reaction to “Meant To Be,” the song that I have that's kind of popping off right now. Hearing people's reactions, and then having people share their stories with me based on the lyrics…it's been so crazy. I've been amazed at the response that we've gotten from it. It’s something that kind of blew up on TikTok and saw a lot of success prior to its release: I put it on TikTok the day we wrote it, so we kind of expedited the process a little bit to make sure that we could get it out.

Something that I love about it is that I think it says something about relationships and breakups in a way that other songs have shied away from. I think there are so many really incredible love songs and breakup songs where it's been quite black and white: like, we broke up because of these reasons. And it's usually like, “You did this to me” or “I did this to you.” But I think that whole concept of having people in your life that are phenomenal for that time period, and then it just doesn't end up working out, is something that's really resonated with people who have had exactly that experience.

I think it took me a whole year to write something about that relationship. I've just been amazed at how how many people were able to relate to it, because while I was writing it I was like, oh, no one will understand this. No one's gonna get it. “I would leave a five-star review”? Some of these lyrics just felt so personal to me, like something that I would spit out and say to this person that I was thinking about and writing about. To have that be so mirrored by so many people, and like have people post videos just using that as a sound, has been insane. To hear the covers…it really not something that's even sunk in for me.

I'm going to be playing a couple shows now, which is something that I haven't done yet: I've not gigged this music before. My first show will be at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which is really wild. Then we'll be doing hopefully some stuff in the Twin Cities this year: kind of moving this off of the internet and into real life. I really am excited to actually get to see a couple faces and do this in person, because live music is something that I absolutely loved and adored before the pandemic happened, and it's not something that I've participated in yet since things have been opening back up. I've never been to a festival, so the fact that I'm going to go play one is like, a child's dream come true. I have a couple bucket list moments coming up this year, and I'm really excited. I feel really lucky.