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his Sunday catch the Celtic Heaven Sunday Session at Club Mullum with Aoife Scott Band and Áine Tyrrell.
Tyrell weaves her tapestry of stories through her music, bringing forth imagery that is both emotionally stirring and uplifting.
Tell me about your gig last weekend where you had to get a chopper! Was it exciting? That’s very rock’n’roll for a folk singer!
I was invited to speak at the Rock and Roll Writers Festival in Brisbane, which to me was a big honour to be recognised for the writing aspect of being a singer/songwriter. I was on a panel speaking about how not being from Australia informs my creativity and this is something I am extremely passionate about.
I have just moved to the northern rivers and this was my first experience with flooding. I naively assumed once the rain stopped that everything would reopen as I didn’t understand the tides and the effects of the river systems from Queensland and northern NSW. I also foolishly assumed that a major highway wouldn’t or couldn’t get cut off. On Friday when I learned the M1 was unlikely to reopen until too late for me to make my panel at the festival, I put a call out to everyone I knew in the northern rivers to ask were there other ways of driving to get through to Brisbane. I had no expectations that I would have a friend of a friend who had a spare seat on a helicopter travelling to the Gold Coast, but the universe aligned. A beautiful friend and local musician Ilona Harker put me in touch with Lucy Ashley and John Callahan, who graciously offered a seat on his helicopter in exchange for a donation to their charity The Northern Rivers Community Foundation. Big-heartedness is never far away.
What are the biggest misconceptions do you think about being a musician?
The biggest misconception is that online reality does not match up with the truth and we all know this from personally using social media. Everyone in a way curates and crafts their online world, but never has there been a time where that pressure to create your online world can be the difference between your having a career or not.
There may be choppers one day and then you may be lining up for food vouchers another day. The reality is that to make a living from your art is a long-term commitment. For me that commitment includes being very real and honest and trying hard to not to be part of the machine that fuels misconceptions. I think that across the board people are starving for real and honest connections; we don’t want to be sold bullshit anymore.
What are the stories that you like to tell in your music?
I suppose leading on from that discussion on honesty, I spill a lot of myself and my life onto the paper and onto stage. I have had one hell of a ride in life so far and come out with a few battle scars and stories, but I don’t dwell on the scars in my songwriting. I go for the lightness from the dark approach. I mean I write about the dark. I go there because we all have those times. We all have our own pain and stories, but I try to leave people with hope in my songwriting in some way even if it is just a line.
What is it about the spirit of the Irish – do you think that is so tied up in stories and music?
Irish music comes from a storytelling tradition, Seán Nos tradition. And we all growing up had to have a story or a song to share with the family or friends; it was expected. All those songs and stories are passed on to you in the oral tradition so it is very ingrained. Traditional Irish music is also learned by ear mostly by being around it, not by learning notes and reading music. So the spirit of storytelling is a way of sharing, keeping the tradition alive, and definitely uplifting in difficult times in our history. The Irish are pretty good at finding joy in darkness!
What is the essence of good songwriting for you?
For me a song is a good song if I have created something that is of service – I suppose in any job the aim is to be of service. The tricky thing with songwriting I think is that we have to serve the song and not the audience or ourselves; that is the only way of truly connecting with the work. I have to get out of my own way a lot to connect with whatever it is in the work that is coming through. And that echoes life as well; we all struggle to get out of our own damn way. I just always have to go back to the source of the song and serve it and connect honestly and humbly with why I do what I do.
Your best gig?
Recently, actually, I played a run of gigs which for me personally have been some of the most enjoyable gigs ever because I finally got to the stage where I have let go completely in performing. I’ve got to the stage where I give no fucks. I mean I give a lot of fucks about making music and connecting with people, but I no longer care about all the other stuff that cripples us as creatives when we put our work out there, all the self-doubt. I recognised that freedom emerging in Adelaide in the Spiegeltent first with my band, but we really were soaring by the time we got to the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, at a monthly event called Music On The Hill. It was on St Patrick’s Day, which I normally try to avoid like the plague because what I do is not green-beer drunken-leprechaun stuff, so I had no expectations, but we had the most magical night of music! It was with my gorgeous friend Aoife Scott as well, which made it even more magical and I was so delighted she is coming to the northern rivers.
What should we expect for your gig with Aoife Scott? How did you two come to know each other?
Aoife and I met playing the National Celtic Festival about four years ago. We instantly became besties and have been on similar musical journeys and share a lot of common ground as we both come from musical families in Ireland. Of course you can expect to get that Irish storytelling, tradition and song that both of us honour in our music. I think you can also expect some beautiful honesty amongst us and our sisterhood. The music industry appears from the outside to be a very fake world and perhaps a cut-throat world, but I have so many amazingly honest, true, powerful sisters who make music in this country and around the world and who are a highly supportive bunch, and Aoife is one of the sparkliest jewels in that crown! And I won’t forget the brothers either… her band have quickly become musical brothers too and are incredible and one of the northern rivers’ most exceptional humans, Greg Sheehan, will be playing percussion with me. Honesty, music, sisterhood, brotherhood, what else do you need on a Sunday afternoon?
Aoife Scott Band and Áine Tyrrell at Club Mullum at Mullumbimby Ex-Services on Sunday at 3pm.
Tickets $20 / 15 concession, kids under 16 $10 – available at club or the door.
