Interviewed ‘Music is at all times in regards to the thriller’

‘Music is at all times in regards to the thriller’

Gemma Hayes interviewed 

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

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

Pete Harvey spoke to Gemma for Louder than Battle in regards to the latest 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 remaining is from motion pictures that he cherished and pictures that occurred to him whereas he was listening to the tune. He’s picked some lovely moments.

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

Gemma: What I like with Alfred’s visible tackle the tune is representing loneliness with the subway. There are such a lot of individuals, however 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 in the event you’re on the tube, like late at night time, 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 certain why. “There’s no spoon, you’re simply ingesting out of the bottle”.

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

Gemma: As a result of we have been on tour, it’s extra simply flashes of photos 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. Any individual that I cared for deeply, sadly, killed himself ultimately as he acquired older. However this was a time after we have been type of younger, he was heading, however he wasn’t absolutely down that street 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 really delicate human being and I’m not shocked that typically probably the most delicate human beings begin to self-medicate with a view to take care of stuff.

Let’s discuss in regards to the songs on Blind Religion (2024). How did you provide you with the form of the album? Do you continue to consider it when it comes to vinyl, you already know, with monitor seven being necessary?

Gemma: Yeah, I imply, it’s to me, I’m old skool. The album is of a bit. So there may be an arc. It begins off actually fairly type of light after which it type of brings individuals on a journey. Whether or not individuals take heed to it that manner or not is as much as them. However for me, that was learn how to do it.

What guitar do you write on?

Gemma: It relies upon, I really feel like every guitar has a particular persona. If I need to go for a type of a tragic Nick Drake tune, 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 individual bloody effectively varnished it with a nasty varnish.

It sounds actual honky. It’s acquired an perspective, you already know, 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 little bit bit extra type of an perspective. I have a tendency to put in writing lots of the fingerpicking songs on that previous Gibson.

After which I’ve a Dan Electro baritone guitar. Okay. Which I completely love.
If the tune is good, I wish to have that darkish, you already know, 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 lots of mad tuning. I can tune that proper all the way down to an A pointy.

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

Gemma: For years, I might have seven guitars and I might have a guitar tech and I might do the set checklist so I might perhaps maintain onto one guitar for 2 or three songs. However now I’ve it all the way down to a advantageous artwork. I’ve a kind of Christmas tree sort guitar stands proper behind me. So for some songs, I’ve the band, as a tune ends, create a drone, a phenomenal type 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 might have been My Bloody Valentine, Loveless. Particularly that album. I don’t are inclined to take heed to lots of music. I’ll discover an album and I’ll simply devour that album for years and I’ll almost take in 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 effectively, they’ve such an enormous sound. As in, it doesn’t sound from a selected 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 transferring. 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 street. 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 beautiful, you already know, and it’s very courageous. They may maintain on one chord for 5 minutes.

I like people music as effectively, you already know, however I get a little bit bit bored with type of simply an acoustic guitar within the people world, you already know. I don’t play solo for that purpose. For me, it’s all about texture. After I go to see, let’s say any individual enjoying solo, I discover myself simply getting a little bit bored as a result of I believe songwriting is essential, however for me, the manufacturing on stage is essential. Even in the event you simply add a double monitor vocal or add a drone below a little bit acoustic tune, hastily it’s in a totally totally different cinematic place. So for me, it’s necessary 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 acquired two multi-instrumentalists. I’m actually excited in regards to 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 complete bunch of latest guys?

Gemma: New-ish, certainly one 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 huge in Eire, you’re huge internationally, there are individuals coming to the London reveals from all around the world however you’re lesser identified within the UK?

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

Do you have interaction with social media?

Gemma: It’s a must to be very laptop savvy and social media savvy and importing consistently and promoting a life-style, promoting your self when it comes to, you already know, consistently speaking, consistently pushing. And I’m simply not gonna do this. For me, music was at all times in regards to the thriller. I’m not attention-grabbing, personally.

Couldn’t you simply type of cook 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 once you don’t have lots of followers and also you’re simply making an omelette, it’s not as superb as making an omelette and getting, like, 100,000 likes. There’s one thing actually unhappy about having one or two likes in your omelette.

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

Gemma: I’ve acquired a Tube Screamer and a Blue Sky delay with lovely, beautiful woozy sounds. I’ve acquired 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 via a clear sounding Fender or one thing?

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

AC30? However it’s a must 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 superb pedals. If you’d 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 via 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 already know, of simply wooziness. After which you’ll be able to have a little bit plucky guitar over it and immediately, it’s far more cinematic.

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

Central Resort

~

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