Interview with Gemma Hayes
by Killian Laher

No More Workhorse caught up with Gemma Hayes, battling a cold, to discuss her new album and touring plans.

Thanks for agreeing to do the interview.  Before we chat about the new album, I wanted to catch up briefly on your early background.  How did you get into music to begin with? 

Gemma Hayes: It was those awkward teenage years. My father was in a band for 30-odd years called the Hillbillies, so there were always instruments around the house. Those teenage years loving music, and then deciding to see if I could play the guitar, and then finding myself coming back from school and being lost for hours. Everything else just fell away. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and just pick up the guitar and start playing. There was something happening at that age. So then it was a natural progression then up to Dublin for college, and then found myself doing those open mic nights.

Any artists that really made an impression?

GH: I was probably 14 when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out.  I had never heard anything like it because it was pop… and it was visceral, deconstructed. It was really poppy, really hooky, but it had this animalistic approach to it, which was so freeing. I loved it. So that made a huge impact on me. Things like Pearl Jam as well. When I went up to college, the first band I ever got to see was a band called The Frames: Glen Hansard, David Odlum. That solidified everything for me once I saw these incredible musicians on stage and their ability to connect with the audience way beyond any conversation. It was just mind-blowing. I think Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the Frames live.  And Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine.  That came late. I was 17, or 18 when I found My Bloody Valentine.

It’s been 10 years since Bones and Longing, what were those 10 years like?

GH: I was busy. It’s busy being a mum. They were slightly frustrating musically because I actually was inspired to write.  And the need to write was very much there. Because with parenthood came a lot of new feelings and anxieties. I would usually use music as an outlet for all of that. This time, my life was set up where I couldn’t get to the music. Even when the small kids were asleep, I was too tired. Then if you did stay up late writing songs, you’d pay for it the next morning when they’re in at 6am. I kept pushing it away. It was odd. I mean, it was wonderful, a new chapter of my life. I was blessed where I could stay at home and look after the kids for the first few years. It’s something I wanted to do. But I started to get a little bit ‘ghosty’, a little bit ‘slightly here, but I’m not here’.

NMW: How then did the new album come about?

GH: It was a mixture. I started to get very sad! Not making music had gone a bit too long. I always knew it’d be a couple of years, but then all of a sudden it was five years… and then it was eight years and it was too much. I remember realising that any time I did play music, I was a nicer person because that part of you is satiated and that had a ripple effect on being a nicer partner to my husband or to my kids. I was happier to be in the world when I was making music. So that pushed me. And then COVID happened, the actual practical alignment happened where we got out of a small flat in London, ended up in this house in Baltimore with a piano and a room dedicated to music.  So all of a sudden it was like, “this is the time. If I can’t make music now, then I never will”.

NMW: Where did you record the new album?  At home or in a studio?

GH: A mixture. I’m certainly no amazing engineer, but over the years I’ve managed to figure out Pro Tools to the point where if I catch a really good vocal or if I catch a really good guitar part, we can keep it and incorporate it. It was a mixture of late-night recordings in this room that I’m talking to you in. Then I would take it up to David Odlum, up in Dublin.  Then we would either use that or start it from scratch. Sometimes when you’re demoing, you can capture something that when you go into a studio and go to recreate it live, you can’t get again. There’s something in the moment of lacking self-consciousness when you’re demoing, because it’s just a demo. But all of a sudden, it just happens. Then when you try to make it amazing, it doesn’t. The song Hardwired on the album, most of the bones of that was recorded here at about one o’clock in the morning, and I have a snare on the floor, and a few nasty amps.  I was having great fun.  All the handclaps on that are just me overdubbing here late at night.

When I brought it up to the studio, I thought “Oh, there’s such a cool vibe caught up in that”. The drums are sloppy as hell! We decided to keep it and then elaborate from there.

NMW: Was anything in particular inspiring you for the album?

GH: There were a few things. The songs were written over a period of two years. Actually, speaking about Hardwired, that was a very ‘non-personal’ song, it was about the state of the world and technology and AI. At the time, there was a lot of information, misinformation, this whole thing about what’s real online. Coming out of COVID, I remember going down a few rabbit holes and starting to get into murky water, trying to figure out what the hell is going on and then catching myself and going, “Stop, this is crazy”. It’s about the idea that if somebody in power had nefarious tendencies to want to control us in some way and have us believe what they want us to believe. They can because we’re all walking around staring at these…. things (mobile phones). It’s open to bad actors taking advantage if that was the case.

I only realised when I was writing out the lyrics, that there’s a lot of ‘cliffs’ and a sense of, I don’t know what the hell is going to happen, but I’m just going to go! I think Eye For An Eye, which is the first song, is about that. It’s about standing on the edge of something and falling into it. There’s a lot of reaching for something. Does that make sense?

NMW: Are you happy with the album and how it’s been received?

GH: I’m delighted. As I was making the album, I was going, I wouldn’t know where to put it on a shelf in terms of (genre) … it’s not folk, it’s not rock, it’s just a thing. You never know when you put something like that out there, how the hell it’s going to be received, especially because I think it’s a grower. I don’t think it’s an instant thing. I think in the world of instant, I was really surprised that the reviews that came back so quickly were so positive because I nearly thought anybody reviewing this would probably need a couple of months because for me, the songs… you go into them. You start to hear things over time. For me, it was to submerge yourself in the song. Ideally, that’s what I would love for people to do. So I was very surprised. Not that I expected bad reviews, but I was surprised at the response being so positive. It was great.

NMW: Are you planning to do any touring around it?

GH: Yeah. I did a few things backwards. This album was supposed to be out last year, but I stalled it for various reasons. But I had commitments with Vicar Street and all of that. I had to do the tour for the album… without the album! I’m going to do a few small shows at the end of this year, and then we’re going to really push next year. We’ll do a proper big tour in September. We’ll do festivals in the summer. Then I have a spring tour also of a lot of dates right across Ireland. You’ll be sick of me.

NMW: Do you get a chance to listen to much music by other people?

GH: This is the weirdest thing, I’ve never been one of those people. I don’t have loads of vinyl. I don’t take time to sit and listen to an album through. I just don’t. I usually find it by accident or maybe somebody will play it in a car. But once I find an artist, then I’ll literally devour that music and nothing else. So it’s all or nothing with me. I don’t tend to go around and listen to music all the time. I don’t know why. I’m not drawn towards listening to all sorts of music.  Terrible for a musician to say!

NMW: Not at all. How about the Irish scene?

GH: A little bit. It’s definitely not new but I’m only getting into people like A Lazarus Soul recently. Oh, my God.  I know the players from over the years, but I haven’t sat down and fully listened to it. I’m really getting into that, absolutely incredible. I was listening to Niamh Regan’s new album (Come As You Are). She has a song called Madonna on that album, which I thought was beautiful. Fionn Regan, he’s a good one. I noticed he’s put out one or two songs for his new album (O Avalanche). They sound really good. I’ve always rated his stuff in terms of creating a lovely atmosphere. Fionn Regan has a very distinctive style, it’s such a gorgeous, wonderful, unique style that he has. I’m really looking forward to that.

NMW: Do you ever look back at the early days?

GH: Yeah. Sometimes I’ll be talking to musicians that were in my band, back with Night On My Side, and they’ll say, “God, you remember the time we were playing Rock ‘n’ Ring or Rock ‘n’ Park?”  But I’ll have forgotten because I’ll just remember being really nervous before I got on stage. They have all their memories, and they’ll remind me of something that would have gone completely out of my head. There was one time, I can’t remember the festival we were playing, but we were in the bus on the way to the festival, and we were listening to the Last Waltz. The documentary with Neil Young and Bob Dylan and everybody on stage with Young playing. And as we turned up at the festival, we turned off the Last Waltz and we could hear Neil Young playing! So we all jumped out of the bus. It was a magic moment.

I remember seeing Sigur Ros for the first time, and they were only starting out. It was probably 2000.  God, they’re incredible. But there was nobody at their show. It was at a festival and there was maybe, I don’t know, 100 people in a massive field. It looked really empty. Just lying back and looking up at the sky, listening to them play. These beautiful moments, it’s wonderful.

Recently, I got all the publishing back for my early albums.  We’re talking about maybe doing reissues with some demos and songs that were around the time that never found a home on any of the albums, and seeing what happens there. We’re only talking about it now, so I have no idea if it has any legs or anything.

NMW: What do you do as a hobby outside of music?

GH: I’m getting into herbs.  I’m living down in West Cork, so I’m surrounded by holistic living and all of that stuff. I started going to workshops to learn more about medicinal herbs. It’s really fascinating especially Irish native herbs that are just around on the side of the road. Even dandelion leaves and how incredibly potent they are and good for us. That’s really interesting. I’m really enjoying learning about medicinally what’s around us that we can use.  After that, there’s very little. I’m walking the dog. Right now there are lots of interviews and lots of emails over and back and then organising tours.

It’s really sweet, it’s a lovely time. I always find in the cycle of making music, the one time where there’s this ‘calm’ is once an album is done and you’ve just released it. There’s a lovely coasting now where I don’t get that itch, (that) I got to write. There’s this lovely time and it won’t last long. I’m just enjoying that sense of: I’ve done this thing, I’ve put this piece of work together. It’s like any art. When you’re around a movie set, you realise the amount of work that goes into making something that it’s just unbelievable.  And so to think about over the last couple of years, the amount of time that has been such a joy because I’m working with lovely people as well. But it’s been massive. So to have that done and out is just like, oh my God! It’s a great feeling.

I swear to God, I’m so delighted because I’m aware in this day and age, there are so many people putting out music… because it’s so easy to put out music. There’s a new appreciation, and I think also just being on the planet longer. I realised that it’s such a wonderful gift for people to want to chat about the music and for them to give me their time so that I can talk about it. I think when I was in my early 20s, I was too caught up in my own head to even think that way. But there’s a major appreciation for the album being given space in the world. It’s lovely. I’m really enjoying it, probably a bit too much!

So to open the door to music again, I’m not going to close it. And there are lots of projects in the pipeline. I want to write songs for other people as well. I’ve done that in the past because it keeps the machine oiled and it also works other aspects of creativity when you’re writing for other people. So there are lots of fun things coming up.