Maria Kelly: Stress and creativity don't really work side by side
The Irish singer-songwriter on her second album Waiting Room, the housing crisis, her health issues, why she started a writing night, and lots more
Maria Kelly released her second album Waiting Room on February 28. It’s one of my favourite records of the year, with Maria’s usual searing honesty shining through in sometimes dark lyrics. She says the album “is an exploration of the roadblocks, both internally and externally, that keep us feeling powerless and taking away our agency”, exploring themes such as Ireland’s health system, the housing crisis, societal expectations, and faded friendships. Maria was on TPOE 340 talking about all this as well as the writing night she facilitates in Mish Mash cafe on Capel Street, Dublin, under the title Tangent (next night, May 7 - tickets here). Below is some of the 45-minute conversation, edited for length and clarity.
How are you feeling four days out from the release of your second album?
It definitely feels different and more like an album in a lot of ways. But I feel good, I feel a whole myriad of things. It's just been so long coming and it's been just quite a long process compared to my first one, so I'm really excited and relieved to be coming up to a point where it's going to be out in the world. And I'm nervous for people to hear it now that it's that close, but mostly good. With this album in particular, as I say because it was such a long process, I feel like a very different person to who started writing the album, to who I am now. So it feels like putting it out is a real closing of a chapter for me in a really healing way. So mostly good things.
It's funny that you talk about it being a long process, because you think of a debut album as your whole life up to that point going into the debut album. Is it three, four years on from the first album? I don't know, that doesn't sound like the longest time, but it sounds like there was a lot to process along the way?
Yeah, nearly four years. So it would have been October 2021, when my first one came out (The Sum of the In-Between). But yeah, that's a good point. I guess a lot of people release albums in that way. And it's interesting, because when I say long process, I think it is mostly it was just a difficult album to make, so it probably felt longer than it actually was, but it was a two-step-forward, one-step-back approach all the time, or that's how it felt, anyway. So it just feels really, yeah, significant and celebratory, that we're like here and finally putting it out.
In terms of the album itself, what are some of the things that you're thinking of when you say, two steps back?
At the beginning of the process, I had a lot of moving parts in my life. Even the very initial steps of starting to write a new project, that took a really long time to even get into the swing of, 'OK, I'm making another thing, what do I want it to be about?' I had this trip to the Beekeepers where I was writing - which, if anybody doesn't know, it's like a beautiful house where you can go for a trip to write and create things in Co Clare. I was demoing stuff and sent some stuff to my producer, Matt (Harris (HAVVK, Birthday Problem), and he was saying, 'There's some really great ideas here, but three of these songs are sort of the same song.' I was in a really slow process of figuring out what I was writing, to the point that I was kind of saying the same thing in different ways. And it was one dimensional at the time. So I was like, 'OK, I really need to push myself more with this.'
That was even just the initial stages. And then I think of the recording stages, and I had a lot of trouble with my voice at the time. I started writing things in different registers, and hadn't realised I was writing in a lower register. Then when I got into the studio, I was having issues singing it without my voice sort of breaking at points that made me realise I needed to do some vocal lessons and strengthening parts of my voice. Because I guess for any vocal nerds out there, I was singing in my head voice, that really airy, light part of my voice, and this sort of middle part - it's like lifting weights. it didn't have any strength, so I was getting cracks in my voice. So that was a whole process of like, 'Oh my God, I can't sing! I'm making these things and I can't sing them.'
And then, we were figuring out for so long the instruments we wanted to use, how big of a sound we wanted to go for. Then when I started trying to recreate it live, I had issues around that - and when I say issues, when I look back now, they were all really good challenges and really pushed me to try other things and push through the blocks I was running into. So it was good in hindsight, but it was just challenging at the time, especially when you're younger in music, I really was relying on all these things I could already do. And this project was a real thing stop relying on all the things you can do, try other things, get better at other things, push through your own mentality of what you're good at and what you make. So it was a real revealing of self.
You've started a monthly writing group called Tangent Dublin. It's a monthly meeting at Mish Mash Cafe on Capel Street in Dublin. Why did you start that?
I live in Bray. I moved back to the east in March time (2024) and at the time, I didn't feel like I knew that many people in Dublin anymore, or a lot of my friends had left, or just lived way far away from me in Bray, and I wanted to really feel a sense of community here again. In the back of my head, I was like, 'Oh, maybe I can start some workshop thing,' but it felt too big at the time. So I just started a writing meet up on the beach in Bray, I just put something on my [Instagram] story, and I was like, 'Would anyone like to come do writing exercises and swim?' And so many people were like, 'Yes please, that would be amazing.' So we had this gorgeous summer of people coming out here, like bi-weekly and sitting on the beach, and I'd come up with some sort of prompts and that really made me feel it out and see what I liked and what I didn't like. And then I met so many lovely people through that. When the summer was over and it got colder, I was like, OK, I want to move this inside, I want to make it more structured and official. I can't remember how I had heard of Mish Mash…
They had started doing silent reading nights.
You're dead, right, that's why. I had seen that online and I was like, I think these guys would get it. So I went in, talked to the owner Carolina, who's an amazing woman, and so enthusiastic and so helpful. I've just started it since November or December, I think, and the reaction to it has been amazing. It's been selling out every time I do it, there's regular people coming back, I can see people making friends. And it's just really given me a sense of community in Dublin. And also just ticked a box for me, because I've realised in the last year, even with the Living Room shows and with this, I just love facilitating spaces, creative spaces for people to connect. Even outside of my music, that's the point, really, for me. So it's just been so, so rewarding, like, the easiest thing I've done in so long, it's just flowing really nicely.
You're facilitating it and looking after the admin side of it. Do you partake in the writing itself? Is it something that you're doing as well creatively?
A little bit, yeah. I'm mostly hosting and facilitating the exercises. So I structured it as basically three different components. The first one is just for 15 minutes straight. We all free write. So it's just brain dump, settle in the space, write about whatever you need to write about, don't stop until the timer is done. So I do participate in that. And then the second exercise, it's sort of the main one, and it's less a writing exercise, but my thought process behind it is it's an inspiration exercise. So it's something I call the tangent jar. So I hand out these jars to each table, and I've created questions every month based on a theme, and they're questions that are designed to skip the small talk of meeting someone, so you just dive right in. Say, last month's theme was trust, just the word trust, and then some of the questions were like, how do you feel in your body when you know you really trust someone? Or what has been something lately that you have just been trusting will work out. Some of them are around that, but maybe around other things. Like, what's your favorite thing you've ever created? What's something you were finding inspiring lately? There's loads of them and they really are working in the way I am hoping they're working because I'm walking around listening to the conversations, and I'm like, Wow, people are really opening up immediately, and people are receiving it as well. And it's a really beautiful thing to watch, and just so rewarding to get to facilitate people to do that. Because I know when I moved back to Dublin, I was going to some meeting-new-people events, and I found them really difficult, because there was no bridge to jump into anything deeper. It was just like, Oh, hey, how are you? Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? What do you think of Dublin? And that's all fine, but for me, I love jumping in deep with people and I love talking about, I don't know, just what people really care about. So this was sort of my dream, like, oh, if I could go to something, what would I want to go to?
The album is called Waiting Room, the closing track is called 'Appointments'. Were you comfortable writing about and sharing the various health issues that you were going through, and was it easy writing about it?
I found it easy to write about in one way of it's my way of processing things. And I think at the time with some of those songs, I wasn't necessarily like, 'this is the beginning of something', or 'this is where I'm going to call the album Waiting Room and write a whole thing about this'. I think it was very much processing what was happening. But then, yeah, it just became a defining factor of those few years in my life that there was nothing else to really write about. When I think about my next project, I was like, 'Well, it has to be about this'.
To give context of the stuff that was happening, over a number of years, I had this consistent, like something was wrong, something was not working with my body. I had these really bad digestive issues for ages that didn't seem to do with any food. I was trying different, like, cutting out different things. I was changing my exercise routine. I was taking this supplement. I was blah, blah, blah, constant trying of different things and nothing seemed to be working. I got a scope done, and everything was fine, but it was just like my stomach was not working. And then that sort of eased, and then I had a shoulder/neck [thing] - it started as this little injury, but then it became this chronic tension and pain that never unravelled. I went to countless physios, countless osteopaths, chiropractors, I was getting regular massages. I was trying every single thing and nothing. It would be, as I said, two steps forward, one step back constantly, and there were no answers ofwhy it's not healing. Then it went down into my leg and still today I'm still figuring it out. I've luckily found a physio that I think is really good, and it's gotten better since then, but it's still something I'm unravelling. I would describe it as pain that kept moving around my body in different ways.
Now that I'm more relaxed, I'm not scared I'm gonna lose my house right now, I'm able to unpick a lot of things and see how related it all is to stress. I've been learning a lot about the nervous system and how much that has to do with everything. It was just like a myriad of chronic issues that kept moving; really stressful situations where I couldn't catch my breath to figure it out, and then, yeah, a load of other life, human things that make things more difficult to unravel.
So that's everything I was trying to cope with while I was writing a lot of this. And I guess when your focus is on all those things, and your environment is so stressful - I think a lot of the album is also just about time passing while you know all of that's happening, and just the sadness, of like, 'Oh, I think I'm supposed to be doing other things', you know, I want to make things, I want to host events. I want to be doing other things. And I think a lot of that is in the album, a lot of that sadness, a lot of that anger as well. Because I also just dealt with so many health professionals who were terrible and really sent me in a circle or gave me something that made it way worse, because they were just trying something and like, you know, compassion for anyone in any health job, because it's not easy - you're meeting me for 30 minutes, whatever. But yeah I think all of that is on the album, of just feeling stuck in so many ways.
Have you found answers to some of those issues? Are you in a better place now?
I'm definitely in in a better place now. As I say, I think so much of the percentage of flare-ups and things I was getting was really related to stress and the environments I was in. And also, just as someone who, I would describe myself as highly sensitive to things, whether it's emotions I feel in my body or environments I'm in or other people's emotions, I really suck that in. I think a lot of that is mental as well. I had to learn a lot about stress management, and I'm still learning that and nervous system regulation and all the rest. Because I think when your body is just in a state of stress for so long, you really have to teach it how to not be. As I say, I found a physio I really love. My first meeting with her, I cried with relief because she was actually just asking me questions I needed to be asked, I think. And even just being like 'that is so hard, and you shouldn't have to deal with that'. And I was like, 'Huh? Like, thank you for saying that' Thank you.' So, yeah, still figuring it out, but I would say I'm, God, 80% better than I was three years ago, and in a much better place; where I live and what I'm doing and how I feel in myself. So for sure.
Discussing the tracks ‘Something Better’ and ‘Nearly Thirty’
I don't think I've ever had a moment where I've blown up, and I think that has been in the back of my head of something that 'should' happen at some stage. And I hate even admitting that, but I know that so many artists are probably feeling similar. I just really picked apart that belief last year and and really put it down, because I was like, I have absolutely no control over anything that happens with this. And the pressure to make it do something world-changing is stopping me wanting to make anything or write. I didn't feel creative. I just felt anxious. You don't have any control over that (blowing up). And then, when I thought through it, I was like, 'I don't know if I'd enjoy that'. I actually really enjoy the level I'm at of making things and people are slowly coming to it and slowly finding it, and I feel like they're the people who really enjoy what I do. And I love doing small community events and building an audience that way. And that feels so much more fulfilling to me.
On 'Something Better', I think it was probably in around that time I was having trouble with my voice, because that song in particular, oh my god, we were tearing our hair out trying to record that in the studio. It's so ironic, the song became about how hard it was to finish this song, because that was one of the last ones to be added. We felt we were missing some sort of pop moment, or a driving radio track. We wrote that together, me and Matt. That was the first one where we were like, 'OK let's make this type of song. We're missing this type of song.' And we had never done that process. And then that was like, 'Oh god, it's the wrong key', 'Oh god, I can't really sing that bit. Why can't I sing that bit? OK let's change the key again.' OK what about this?' 'Well, this word, my voice is cracking, so can't use this word. Why is my voice cracking?' Rewrote the lyrics so many times. Ended up writing it with two of my friends, Lisa and Sean, the lyrics and stuff. I was like, I just can't get this right, for some reason, I need more help. There's a line that's like, 'tired about everything I sing about', and at the time I was like, 'I hate this song, I don't ever want to sing again.' (laughs) So yeah, lots of that feeling, I think, of just wanting it to be easier than it is, and not accepting that it takes time and work.
And similar to 'Nearly 30', I wrote that around the time, I know I was speaking in that Journal article, but I wrote that around the time I was living in the house where the roof nearly collapsed (laughs). I was looking around at my life being like, 'This is where I'm at in my late 20s!? This is it!? Because, at the time, I was in a long-term relationship, we were sharing with another couple, we were all working full-time, and I was like, 'I've ticked the boxes, though. I've ticked what you do at this age, right?' And still, this is my option of living somewhere, and we're all so stressed and we're all so worried, and it just felt bizarre. So I was like, 'When am I gonna feel ready? When am I gonna feel like an adult?'
That housing crisis theme is present on the album. You've got another track called 'His Parents' House', and you wrote that Journal article as well that is really, really great and awful as well. At the same time, you say that 'the instability it has caused me has seeped into every aspect of adult life. It has, in effect, forced me to live in survival mode. After all, it is difficult to relax and take a breath in any real way when you're not sure where you will be living in 12 months' time'. I'm guessing a lot of not even young people anymore can relate to what you were writing about, but just tell me about the effect of the housing crisis in terms of being a musician, in terms of being an artist. Literally making music and making noise, I'm guessing, is affected by the fact that you're sharing space with so many other people all the time, or something like the roof is falling in. All of that stuff must affect you just as an artist, let alone as a human being.
For sure. I think throughout my experience of living in different places, you just have to meld around wherever you are, rather than the space working for you. So it definitely put some restrictions on things. In some of my living situations, I've been lucky to live with other musicians a lot of the time. So there is an understanding that that's just what we're doing. You work around certain things. But I guess a lot of the places that I've lived that were just really expensive, I was always working a full-time job to do that and that obviously takes a lot of time away from trying to make things. There's only one period of time where I was able to rent an external studio, and that didn't last very long. But there was never really a point because of how much rent I was paying that I was like, 'Oh, I could rent a workspace or something where I could go do this more regularly'.
When I think about living situations and artistry side by side, in my experience, the thing that's affected that process the most is the stress that it causes. Stress and creativity, for me and I guess a lot of people, they don't really work side by side a lot of the time. Or at least, I think I make the best things where I'm relaxed in my environment and I can wander in my head and have space to create things. But a lot of the time I'm squashed up at a desk in a tiny little room. Or in my younger years, I was living in rooms where you couldn't even fit a desk. My younger years, I guess I was playing as much in college as I could, but I was never really playing at home, other than at, like, 2am when everyone was asleep and trying to be really quiet. So yeah, I guess when I think about it, it's chaotically trying to fit it in somewhere, which isn't the best work process.
Overall making the album, was it an enjoyable process, putting all of these ideas together? It sounds like, and I know it's the cliche question, but it does sound like maybe it's cathartic, that you've come through the other side from making the album.
For sure, yeah, it was enjoyable. From everything I said, it was definitely challenging. But that was punctuated by making it with incredible people, and making it with people who are also motivating me in times when I think they knew I wasn't doing the best. And also getting to do it in some really cool places. We recorded some drums in Black Mountain Studios. We got to spend a lot of time in Start Together studios in Belfast. My collaborators on the visuals and stuff, like Tara, my housemate and my lovely friend, and Charlotte, who is Under the Feather on Instagram. She's one of my dear friends and every time I do a shoot with her, I just laugh so much. So, yeah, despite the content of this album being difficult, everything around it was - I'm so lucky to get to... imagine going through that and not having an outlet to make something out of it. So how cool that I got to do that and with amazing people. And I think by doing that, I processed and healed something and got back a sense of my own agency in myself and my body. And that is a really cool thing to be able to do.