Interviewed ‘Music is at all times concerning the thriller’

‘Music is at all times 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 Previous 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 Struggle concerning 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Gemma: That’s all outdated footage. Alfred, the director, has used pictures that he took and video from a household vacation. The remainder is from films that he liked and pictures that occurred to him whereas he was listening to the track. 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 track 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. Everyone’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 gained’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 consuming 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 pictures 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 finally as he received older. However this was a time once we have been type of younger, he was heading, however he wasn’t absolutely 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 shocked that generally probably the most delicate human beings begin to self-medicate so as to take care of stuff.

Let’s discuss concerning the songs on Blind Religion (2024). How did you give you the form of the album? Do you continue to consider it by way of vinyl, you understand, 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’s 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 approach or not is as much as them. However for me, that was how one can do it.

What guitar do you write on?

Gemma: It relies upon, I really feel like every guitar has a particular persona. If I wish to go for a type of a tragic Nick Drake track, I’ve a extremely, actually outdated 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 someone bloody nicely varnished it with a nasty varnish.

It sounds actual honky. It’s received an perspective, you understand, it’s not a gorgeous sounding guitar.  So if I wish to do candy plucking, I take advantage of that honky guitar simply to present the plucking somewhat bit extra type of an perspective. I have a tendency to put in writing lots of the fingerpicking songs on that outdated Gibson.

After which I’ve a Dan Electro baritone guitar. Okay. Which I completely love.
If the track is good, I wish to have that darkish, you understand, deeper sound on the baritone.
I even have a Thinline Tele that I’ve put a bass string on. Everyone mentioned, don’t put a bass string in your Tele, it’ll warp the neck. But it surely hasn’t. I do lots of mad tuning. I can tune that proper right down to an A pointy.

There should be someone passing you completely different guitars with completely different tunings on a regular basis if you’re taking part in?

Gemma: For years, I might have seven guitars and I might have a guitar tech and I might do the set listing so I might perhaps maintain onto one guitar for 2 or three songs. However now I’ve it right down to a tremendous artwork. I’ve a type of Christmas tree sort guitar stands proper behind me. So for some songs, I’ve the band, as a track ends, create a drone, a gorgeous 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 will have been My Bloody Valentine, Loveless. Particularly that album. I don’t are likely 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 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 Trip.

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 Trip as nicely, they’ve such a giant sound. As in, it doesn’t sound from a selected place on the earth.

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 a number of reveals with My Bloody Valentine as their help 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 understand, and it’s very courageous. They might maintain on one chord for 5 minutes.

I like people music as nicely, you understand, however I get somewhat bit uninterested in type of simply an acoustic guitar within the people world, you understand. I don’t play solo for that cause. For me, it’s all about texture. Once I go to see, let’s say someone taking part in solo, I discover myself simply getting somewhat 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 monitor vocal or add a drone beneath somewhat acoustic track, rapidly it’s in a very completely 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 received 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 complete bunch of recent guys?

Gemma: New-ish, one among them I’ve been taking part in with for 3 years and the others would have been a couple of yr 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 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 (Night time on my Aspect, 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 a number of years.

Do you have interaction with social media?

Gemma: You must be very laptop savvy and social media savvy and importing continuously and promoting a way of life, promoting your self by way of, you understand, continuously speaking, continuously pushing. And I’m simply not gonna try this. For me, music was at all times concerning the thriller. I’m not fascinating, 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 if 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 on your omelette.

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

Gemma: I’ve received a Tube Screamer and a Blue Sky delay with lovely, attractive woozy sounds. I’ve received 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 received a Vox VT40. It’s a small little amp. I used to have the large 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 admittedly sturdy. It packs a punch on stage. The BlueSky pedal has modified how I write. It’s a Strymon. They do superb pedals. In order for you that shoegaze sound, simply woozy delays. It’s actually modified how I sound reside now. I can actually add extra texture.

I suppose you may 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 understand, of simply wooziness. After which you’ll be able to have somewhat plucky guitar over it and immediately, it’s far more cinematic.

Go and see Gemma Hayes in London this September. The reveals can be filled with absorbing and intimate storytelling from one among Eire’s most quietly sensible musical voices.

Central Resort

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