Interviewed ‘Music is all the time concerning the thriller’

‘Music is all the time concerning the thriller’

Gemma Hayes interviewed 

Irish singer-songwriter Gemma Hayes has introduced three London reveals subsequent month.  Thursday 4th and Friday fifth September 2025 can be up shut and private in St Pancras Outdated Church.

Saturday (6 September 2025) can be a bit extra of a raucous affair at The Lexington in Kings Cross.

Pete Harvey spoke to Gemma for Louder than Battle concerning the current single, the final album, guitars, pedals, shoegaze and omelettes.

By the use of introduction, right here is the video for ‘Central Resort’ the third single to be taken from ‘Blind Religion’ (2024) Gemma’s sixth studio album.

LTW: Was any of that footage shot particularly for the video? the cityscapes or something?

Gemma: That’s all previous footage. Alfred, the director, has used images that he took and video from a household vacation. The remainder is from motion pictures that he beloved and pictures that occurred to him whereas he was listening to the music. He’s picked some lovely moments.

When the ocean was coming in on the backside of your chair, I used to be considering ‘it’s going to get her chair moist’, however then I realised it was a inexperienced display or no matter. 

Gemma: What I like with Alfred’s visible tackle the music is representing loneliness with the subway. There are such a lot of individuals, nevertheless it’s fairly lonely. There’s one thing actually stark about that. All people’s in their very own world, surrounded by strangers. 

Properly, additionally for those who’re on the tube, like late at evening, there isn’t anyone there.

Gemma: Yeah, you received’t discover me down within the tube station at midnight.

Within the first line of Central Resort does the man have a sore throat or is he getting excessive on cough syrup?

Gemma: I reckon there was a little bit of getting excessive on cough syrup, however on the time I used to be younger and I wasn’t positive why. “There’s no spoon, you’re simply ingesting out of the bottle”.

Properly, that will be a clue. ‘Central Resort’ is a collage of numerous various things.

Gemma: As a result of we have been on tour, it’s extra simply flashes of photographs of a time. It’s almost just like the video. One minute it’s Manchester after which the subsequent scene in my head is on stage in Dublin. Someone that I cared for deeply, sadly, killed himself finally as he obtained older. However this was a time once we have been type of younger, he was heading, however he wasn’t totally down that highway of substance abuse but. He’d undergo his spell after which he’d clear up and I used to be very a lot clear and our lives merged for some time and it was great. He was a very delicate human being and I’m not stunned that generally essentially the most delicate human beings begin to self-medicate as a way to take care of stuff.

Let’s speak concerning the songs on Blind Religion (2024). How did you provide you with the form of the album? Do you continue to consider it by way of vinyl, you recognize, with observe seven being vital?

Gemma: Yeah, I imply, it’s to me, I’m old-fashioned. The album is of a bit. So there’s an arc. It begins off actually fairly form of light after which it form of brings individuals on a journey. Whether or not individuals take heed to it that means or not is as much as them. However for me, that was the way to do it.

What guitar do you write on?

Gemma: It relies upon, I really feel like every guitar has a particular character. If I need to go for a type of a tragic Nick Drake music, I’ve a very, actually previous Gibson. I picked it up in a secondhand store in America 25, 30 years in the past. It’s an unpleasant guitar as a result of any person bloody nicely varnished it with a nasty varnish.

It sounds actual honky. It’s obtained an angle, you recognize, it’s not a phenomenal sounding guitar.  So if I need to do candy plucking, I take advantage of that honky guitar simply to offer the plucking a bit bit extra form of an angle. I have a tendency to write down a whole lot of the fingerpicking songs on that previous Gibson.

After which I’ve a Dan Electro baritone guitar. Okay. Which I completely love.
If the music is nice, I prefer to have that darkish, you recognize, deeper sound on the baritone.
I even have a Thinline Tele that I’ve put a bass string on. All people mentioned, don’t put a bass string in your Tele, it’ll warp the neck. However it hasn’t. I do a whole lot of mad tuning. I can tune that proper all the way down to an A pointy.

There have to be any person passing you totally different guitars with totally different tunings on a regular basis while you’re enjoying?

Gemma: For years, I might have seven guitars and I might have a guitar tech and I might do the set record so I may possibly maintain onto one guitar for 2 or three songs. However now I’ve it all the way down to a positive artwork. I’ve a type of Christmas tree sort guitar stands proper behind me. So for some songs, I’ve the band, as a music ends, create a drone, a phenomenal form of like Sigur Rós sort drone on the stage whereas I seize the subsequent guitar and simply have it able to go.

Which shoegaze bands influenced you?

Gemma: Massively, it could have been My Bloody Valentine, Loveless. Particularly that album. I don’t are inclined to take heed to a whole lot of music. I’ll discover an album and I’ll simply devour that album for years and I’ll almost soak up it. So Loveless has stayed with me, I’d say for 20 years. And there’s a nostalgia to it. From Loveless and to a lesser extent individuals like Sonic Youth, I don’t see them as shoegaze, to be trustworthy, however there’s a component of it.

What about Swervedriver? Did you ever dabble with them?

Gemma: Yeah, Swervedriver and there was Experience.

Swervedriver are my favourites significantly as a result of despite the fact that they’re from Oxford, they sound like they’re from the Midwest.

Gemma: I discover that with Experience as nicely, they’ve such a giant sound. As in, it doesn’t sound from a particular place on the planet.

I suppose that’s the shoegaze factor, isn’t it? It’s epic partitions of fuzz and nice for driving. It’s simply driving music.

Gemma: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, completely. However I additionally discover that music shifting. It strikes me once I hear it. I ended up doing just a few reveals with My Bloody Valentine as their assist act. It simply blew my thoughts to be a part of their ensemble on the highway. To face there and take heed to the music, it overwhelms you a lot. It’s lovely. And with My Bloody Valentine, the chord progressions are gorgeous, you recognize, and it’s very courageous. They may maintain on one chord for 5 minutes.

I like folks music as nicely, you recognize, however I get a bit bit uninterested in form of simply an acoustic guitar within the folks world, you recognize. I don’t play solo for that cause. For me, it’s all about texture. Once I go to see, let’s say any person enjoying solo, I discover myself simply getting a bit bored as a result of I believe songwriting is essential, however for me, the manufacturing on stage is essential. Even for those who simply add a double observe vocal or add a drone below a bit acoustic music, abruptly it’s in a totally totally different cinematic place. So for me, it’s vital to have individuals on stage creating sounds.

Who’s going to be with you in London?

Gemma: My full band. Drums, keys, fiddle. I’ve obtained two multi-instrumentalists. I’m actually excited concerning the UK reveals as a result of the band are simply killer.

Being again in Baltimore (County Cork, Eire) and away from London and Los Angeles you’ve needed to discover a entire bunch of recent guys?

Gemma: New-ish, one in every of them I’ve been enjoying with for 3 years and the others would have been a few 12 months and a half, so comparatively new.

You’re massive in Eire, you’re massive internationally, there are individuals coming to the London reveals from all around the world however you’re lesser recognized within the UK?

Gemma: It is sensible as a result of I didn’t do something for 10 years. There was a buzz within the UK with my first album (Evening on my Facet, 2002) as a result of it was nominated for a Mercury Prize. However then I ended touring. I’m not a touring artist, so I’ll disappear for just a few years.

Do you interact with social media?

Gemma: You must be very pc savvy and social media savvy and importing continually and promoting a life-style, promoting your self by way of, you recognize, continually speaking, continually pushing. And I’m simply not gonna try this. For me, music was all the time concerning the thriller. I’m not fascinating, personally.

Couldn’t you simply type of prepare dinner one thing for TikTok? Just like the footballers do? ‘Right here’s Gemma Hayes making an omelette’.

Gemma: Properly, there’s one thing actually pathetic, as a result of while you don’t have a whole lot of followers and also you’re simply making an omelette, it’s not as wonderful as making an omelette and getting, like, 100,000 likes. There’s one thing actually unhappy about having one or two likes on your omelette.

Do you could have a pedal board? What’s on it?

Gemma: I’ve obtained a Tube Screamer and a Blue Sky delay with lovely, beautiful woozy sounds. I’ve obtained a Vox vocal harmoniser, an equaliser pedal, a Boss loop station, an AB field and two DIs. That’s it.

So that you simply put that by means of a clear sounding Fender or one thing?

Gemma: I’ve obtained a Vox VT40. It’s a small little amp. I used to have the large AC, what have been they referred to as?

AC30? However it’s important to play them actually, actually bloody loud, don’t you?

Gemma: Actually loud and the valves on the again can warmth up and trigger points. This new Vox is absolutely sturdy. It packs a punch on stage. The BlueSky pedal has modified how I write. It’s a Strymon. They do wonderful pedals. If you would like that shoegaze sound, simply woozy delays. It’s actually modified how I sound reside now. I can actually add extra texture.

I suppose you will get the Strymon going, put it by means of the loop station after which change away to a different sound.

Gemma: That’s what I do. So that you simply create a mattress of a drone, you recognize, of simply wooziness. After which you’ll be able to have a bit plucky guitar over it and immediately, it’s far more cinematic.

Go and see Gemma Hayes in London this September. The reveals can be stuffed with absorbing and intimate storytelling from one in every of Eire’s most quietly good musical voices.

Central Resort

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All phrases Pete Harvey. {Photograph} by Gemma Hayes. Extra writing by Pete on Louder Than Battle might be discovered at his writer’s archive.