Julie Feeney on 20 years of her debut album 13 Songs; plus Irish releases of the week (Mar 7-14)
Featuring Mantua, Somebody's Child, Search Results, Curtisy, Paddy Hanna, Cliffords, and Junior Brother
Julie Feeney won the inaugural Choice Prize in 2006 for her 2005 debut album 13 Songs. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Choice, I talked to Julie for the TPOE podcast about making the album, what the scene in Ireland and music industry were like back in the mid-noughties, and the art of making an album. You can read some highlights - edited for length and clarity - below, and listen to the full interview too. If you like, maybe considering subscribing to The Point of Everything podcast? (Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Linktree)
This is going to be about 13 Songs, and it's going to be about a time 20 years ago - when was the last time that you might have listened to 13 Songs? Can you even remember?
Actually, funnily enough, there was a friend of mine talking about somebody that he heard on the radio, and he said that it was very much my sound. And then I listened and was like, yeah, actually, that's actually kind of the sound that I did then.... So I went back and listened to some of it. And then I have some younger people - as in, younger than very, very small people - who actually really like it as well. So I find it very hard to listen to my own music, but I did listen to it maybe about six months ago, because of that. I'm always funny listening to my own music, listening to anything of myself. Even though I record absolutely everything I do, I find it hard to listen to my own stuff.
You're not the only musician - lots of musicians find it hard to listen to an album once it's been released, and I'm guessing, particularly in this case, when it's about 20 years old.
I don't think of it as being 20 years old. I just think it's part of the journey of your creative journey. When I was studying Janachek, he made his best work when he was in his 80s or 90s... I think that it's all part of your journey as an artist. It can become a thing where it's very industry driven or social media driven, and it goes against the sort of Eastern way of thinking… We're a very ageist society. And I'm not just talking about superficial things. I'm just talking about in general, if you're committed to being an artist, and I am - I've taken a side road out of there for a while, not really even at all - but I'm still an artist, and I think that is a sound, and it's part of a journey.
I find that time, the early to mid noughties, a funny time, just because it's before the internet really took off, so information can be a little bit haphazard to come across. But I was reading up about your pre-13 Songs career. You dabbled in modelling. You got three degrees, and you appeared in Riverdance. I mean, that's all fascinating in its own way, and we could probably just talk about each of them, if you want to. But tell me about how you actually got started in music. Was it a case of you were trying to figure out what you wanted to do with your career, or did you always know that it was going to be music?
Yeah, well, I did. I did a degree in music first, I've three master's degrees, and they're in psychology and psychoanalysis and sonology. Music was always at the core of it, from when I was a tiny child. So I always knew I was going to do that, but I wanted to do lots of other things as well, but music was always kind of there. My journey was - I knew it was going to be it anyway, but it was where I'd land, as in what kind of music I'd make.I was a professional choral singer that overlaps the album thing, and I did composition for contemporary dance. I worked in education as a teacher, had done a children's opera, so I'd kind of done a lot of different styles of different things, and I'd done electro acoustic composition for two years. I didn't know where I felt, because I didn't know what my sound was. I was approached a good few times to - I was approached to be in a girl band, I think twice. They wanted to make it a sophisticated girl band, that's the idea. It didn't make any sense to me at all. I just found it hilarious. So I didn't do it. I just knew that I wanted to do [music]. And I just nosed my way onto that point and just made this thing. At the time, I was in Chamber Choir Ireland. I had been in Opera Ireland, various operas as a chorus member, and I had done Riverdance. I just wanted to try it all. I wanted to learn as much as I could about music, about art, about everything. If you're a musician, a lot of times you respond to the world around you, to everything around you. It comes out through the thing that you make, whatever that thing is.
What was the music scene like back then in Ireland, in Dublin? We always hear about the cliched Whelan’s scene of the Frames and Glen Hansard. Was it different for you?
I'd been a composer, I'd studied with Louis Andreessen, and I'd done composition at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. So I found, OK, where's the spot where people write songs? And then I found the Whelan's scene. It was Paddy Casey and Owen Coughlin and all those kinds of people doing brilliant stuff. It was a scene, a particular scene, and there was lots of talk. I remember Gemma [Hayes] as well on her early stuff that she was doing. But for me, I was always just curious. I'd go and there'd be a session in there, and then I'd go off and I'd sing in an opera; I'm kind of a bit of a spacer or something like that. Yeah there was a scene, and I tried to find out, what is this thing that people do? But I wasn't ready for that at that stage then, because I don't think what I made fit into any of that kind of scene anyway. But I did nose around and see what people did and how they made their stuff. The music industry is a bit like a jungle. The big prize is a record deal and all that, which I obviously got in the end with Sony - the head of Sony in London signed me himself; he came over. But I just want to make stuff, just want to make things and ideally survive as well. That's what I've been somehow managing to do... I've started doing some acting now and things like that. So I've broadened out my income base a little bit to try and piece it all together.
Back in 2005, obviously, the height of the Celtic Tiger, lots of money floating around Ireland and Dublin in particular, but it was also pre-Spotify, pre-streaming, when there was still money in music, and a career in music probably felt viable. For you, maybe for others in the scene, did it feel like a career in music was not an easy thing to achieve, but something that was achievable?
It never feels absolutely achievable. I mean, no musician ever, I don't think, can just say - you can go, Yes, I'm manifesting this, or I'm definitely going to do this. But it was definitely no certainties in it. When we look back you think, Oh, things were easier then. I know we have the awful thing with Spotify, and it's absolutely shocking, it's absolutely bonkers how little people earn after the crafting - I don't even want to go down there, because it's just too upsetting almost to even think about it. But back then, the whole thing was about record labels and getting signed. Everybody was kind of on the edge of their seats, thinking in that direction, thinking in that way. So I had many things that I wanted to do. I know that I'd always be noodling anyway, I'm not going to stop myself. During the pandemic, lots of people were talking about changing careers. I thought about it, but I just decided to dig deeper, to go into the art deeper, go into the work deeper in different ways, even though my timescale was altered due to other external things. But I don't know if I would have thought, Oh, this is easy to be an artist. No, it's always been really hard for artists.
Now you have a phone in your pocket and you can make up any kind of promotion you want to get it out there. Back then, I remember walking down Shop Street with 13 Songs - and the shops in Dublin - with my album under my oscul, like a box of albums to hand out to the record shops, to ask them to sell them. This is just in 2005. There was a completely different landscape. You didn't seem to have the power then, whereas, in some ways, it feels like you've more power now, but then that's overwhelming, because it's overflooded with so many people. Things have drastically changed from then. I remember going into Des Hubbard in Shop Street. He was like, If I like it, I'll take it. If I don't, I won't. And then that guy actually really came on board. He rang me back straight away and he was one of my biggest champions from that day. 'If I don't, I won't'. So there was that kind of stuff. They're all the gatekeepers. There were specific gatekeepers that you could actually go to and ask for your help. Loads of them. Sure, most of them can't, couldn't, or weren't, (able to support). And then you'd have the couple of champions that helped you get by. I wrote a handwritten letter to The New York Times and posted it in a postbox and I included my album, and the guy opened it - I got a New York Times review. I did things like, I was over in London going into offices. I did all that stuff that people do. I was in America going into offices. It was all very physical. You had to be there. But still just as hard. I mean, the amount of disheartening stuff... but it was all part of your experience. I think if you really want to be an artist, if you are somehow able to manouevre the intricacies of life and the difficulties of life, it's not just about things in yourself, it's about how your life might turn out. Things might take a turn here or a turn there or turn anywhere. And it is, I think, so much harder if you are an artist, it's going to be much harder. But I think that the joy in making the stuff is the reward, because then that's where you feel at peace again, when you're in the middle of it, making something, writing something, performing. That's the gem that you get.
Let's get into the making of 13 Songs. The album was
self-funded through a series of bank loans, and it was
self-released. You played all the instruments on the album - that's 11 instruments; it sounds like quite an undertaking. Did you enjoy the process? Did you enjoy the process at the time of doing everything yourself?
I think I had one person play cello and I had a clarinet, but I think I did play everything else myself. I did all the voices, did all the keyboards.... How I made it was, I played a few shows with a few different players, and I remember one guy said, 'Yeah, I can play guitar, I can go blah, blah, blah, blah'. But he said, 'That's not really what this is about.' He said, 'You've so much more inside.' And he kind of stormed out. He was trying to help me in a way, he was being the tough friend and I then sat down for two weeks. I barely ate, and I had a little eight-track recorder, and I recorded in every single part of the album. So by the end of the two weeks, I had a mock album of every single song played. So I played in all the lines on the eight-track. A friend of mine at the time was connected to Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, and he had secured two weeks in his studio. And so the great thing was, because I had the album, every single part recorded in on an eight-track, from my keyboard and from me just playing instruments in, that was the album. So I just recorded that properly with Ger McDonnell. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, I was just doing it. It was so clear in my head [that] this is what it was. And I just made it.
You poured your own money into this album?
Yeah, I got a credit union loan. It was me, just me. That was when I was in Chamber Choir Ireland, so who would have money to save up to do something like that? So, yeah, I did get a loan and various loans and all sorts of things just to make it happen… I have always invested my own self, my own money, my own time, my energy. I really, really believe in that. I believe in the concept of putting your all into something, and if it means that you don't have money for something else. Now, what I'm saying is completely anti any kind of business way of thinking... I've always done that, and I've always taken that risk, and I really believe that you have to take that risk. I don't think you can approach it in a too much of cutting corners kind of way. You have to pour everything into it. Even going in to get a loan, that's what I did. That might be bad advice. And other people might say that's bad advice to go and do that, how are you going to manage that? But I really believed in that because I really wanted to realise this vision that I had for the album.
And so, on to the very first Choice Prize. What do you remember about the night? It was in Vicar Street and hosted by Cormac Battle from 2FM and Alison Curtis from Today FM.
It was an amazing night. I mean, we were all very, very nervous. It was the first one as well, and there was a huge buzz. It was absolutely amazing. It really was. It was just just amazing. But anyone like that, and particularly for a first album, you're going through the motions of this thing, and it's all so new and exciting, and you're just half-relieved that you've actually made the album, and you're so happy because it had been there for so many years in your head... I remember winning, I had a physical, like, literally jumped back. I was absolutely astonished, astounded. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. And Sony had already been in contact, and there had already been a load of different people wanting to get involved. It was a lot of very pressurised meetings with people. And then when I won that, that ramped everything up… It still all felt really new to me, this kind of music industry.
On the art of making an album
For any person to make an album, and for those who don't get nominated, and for those who don't win, life is so tricky in the first place, then being an artist is like being in a jungle. It's a really tough, tough navigation. And to get to making an album, crafting an album, and pouring your heart and soul into it, and getting to that stage is a huge achievement, and is something to be really proud of, for anyone who's doing it. There's sometimes too much emphasis on industry and all that stuff - that's all so fleeting; all these things all just change and trends and whatnot. I think the main thing is just to keep making the best work that you can make, if you can get into the headspace and into the situation in your life, to get to actually make it. It's a massive achievement, and it's wonderful that it's celebrated in the Choice Music Prize. Really hats off to them for that. Because we need stuff like that. We need quality and hard work making something beautiful, making something brilliant. There's so many other fleeting things in terms of social media, so it's a really honourable thing to be making it. So I've taken a break for other reasons. I had to take a break. But I'm coming back in. I've got theatre work in development, and my next album, I've 10 songs mostly recorded, but I would have even been encouraged by people - 'well, what's the point of making an album?' or 'are you going to make an actual album?' I'm going, yeah, that's what I want to do. I think it's an amazing achievement to actually get it made.
New releases
Cliffords - ‘Bittersweet’
Cork band Cliffords are gearing up for a fun St Patrick’s weekend - they’re playing Misneach in Sydney on Sunday having been selected by Dermot Kennedy. They’re also playing a couple of other shows in Australia while they’re at it. ‘Bittersweet’ is their first release of the year, out on their label Soil to the Sun. Singer Iona Lynch says: “Bittersweet is a more abstract look at nostalgia and our last few years of living in Cork. The first few lines of the song ‘the city begged look up’ comes from something my grandad always said to me, ‘look up or you’ll miss half the beauty of the city’. Bittersweet reflects the mixed emotions of us as a band finding our way in music and in ourselves as young adults. The lyrics poke fun at heartbreaks and how dramatic and potent those feelings felt at the time.”
Somebody's Child - ‘Porcelain (Losing All My Patience)’
Somebody’s Child aka Cian Godfrey are gearing up to release second album When Youth Fades Away on March 28 via Frenchkiss Records. This is their fourth and final pre-release single from the record, a slice of Sam Fender-esque pop rock that sounds made for radio. Godfrey says: "‘Porcelain’ was the breakthrough track for us determining the shape of the record. When it was written, everything else seemed to fall into place around it. It embodies the danceability we were going for throughout, and to me it evokes a necessity to get up and move. I remember somebody once calling it 'rave-rock', which I liked."
Paddy Hanna - ‘Harry Dean’
Former Autre Monde frontman Paddy Hanna releases his fifth solo album Oylegate on April 11 - ‘Harry Dean’ is the second single to be released from it, following ‘Oylegate Station’. He says ‘Harry Dean’ was born from a descending piano motif inspired by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. “The romantic but bittersweet feel of the music then helped me to find the lyrics. I recalled the time I sold my beloved Guild Archtop guitar to make the rent, I thought of how I would cope if I were to lose my family, and everything came together in a pleasantly downbeat fashion. The finished product didn't end up sounding like Ryuichi Sakamoto, but his influence can really be felt in the song and the album’s) production.” Paddy Hanna launches the album with a show at Whelan’s on April 17 - tickets here.
Mantua - Galtee Virtual Muse
Mantua is Cork musician Elaine Malone’s ‘other’ project - check out the second self-titled album from 2021 here. She says latest album Galtee Virtual Muse, released via the cassette label Fort Evil Fruit, was created in two great furious romantic burst, the consequence of heartbreak and hope. Nine moody tracks long, it’s dark, lofi, and full of murmurings. Elaine did everything on the record: Autoharp, organ, guitar, keyboards, drum machines and channelling.
Search Results - ‘Wrinkle’
Following up their Hot Night EP in December, Dublin’s Search Results return with their ‘Wrinkle’, their first new tune of 2025. One of the best new bands in the country, they don’t hang around with ‘Wrinkle’, a Strokes-esque song that clocks in at 1.50 minutes. They support Junior Brother in the Button Factory on Friday, March 21.
Curtisy & HIKII - ‘Beauty in the Beast’
Fresh from his performance at Vicar Street on the back of his Choice Music Prize nomination for debut album What Was the Question, Curtisy is back with the first taster of a new project. A collaborative mixtape with HIKII, Beauty in the Beast is out May 30. Preorder it over at Spindizzy and get a limited-edition DVD case. Physical media baby! Curtisy says: “I don’t think any of us have ever worked this hard or cared about something this much before and I hope that comes thru, we couldn’t be happier to be giving this to yis.” He’s also announced a UK and Ireland tour.
Junior Brother - ‘Take Guilt’ (live at Vicar Street)
Not a new track - ‘Take Guilt’ came out last September, one of my favourite songs of 2024 - but Junior Brother gets the video treatment by Myles O’Reilly, who directed, filmed and edited the clip. The Junior Brother band comprises Junior, Phil Christie (the Bonk) on keyboards, Tony McLoughlin on backing vocals and Dan Walsh (Fixity) on drums. Junior Brother plays a couple of gigs next week: They’re Live at St Luke’s in Cork on Thursday, March 20, at the Button Factory, Dublin, on Friday, March 21, and at Belfast’s Black Box on Saturday, March 22. The video also heralds some news - Junior Brother have signed with Strap Originals, the label founded by the Libertines’ Pete Doherty, with the press release noting: The collaboration promises exciting new music in the near future.
Links and articles
Laura Slattery finally throws away her VHS player: “The lesson to take from Peak Video hinges on that cherished sense of control.”
Los Campesinos on the costs of their one-off gig in Dublin last month (which I missed because I was stuck at an airport in France after an annoying late connection)
Aoife Barry talks to Liz Pelly about her new book on Spotify, Mood Machine: ‘I realised Spotify was making my music taste more boring’
Liz Pelly on the Nialler9 podcast
Nicolas Jaar on the revolutionary potential of music within an exploitative system
Nicole Glennon reviews Gracie Abrams at the 3Arena
Zara Hedderman talks with Richard Dawson
Prince Documentary Director Speaks Out About Canceled Netflix Project: ‘It’s a Joke’
Steven Hyden on Jason Isbell’s ‘Divorce Record’, Foxes in the Snow
Maria Kelly on TPOE 340 talking about her brilliant second album Waiting Room