Aine Cahill on being one of Ireland's most interesting young performers

“The other day, I was waiting to meet someone when a woman with two children walked past. The mother stopped and said ‘Hi’, and I wondered if I knew her; one daughter also said ‘Hi’, and I realised I didn’t know them at all. And the youngest one just said, ‘You look like Áine Cahill.’ And I’m just thinking, ‘Yeah, I am Áine Cahill’. It’s so weird, having people coming up to you on the street that you don’t know.”

For the Cavan performer, adjusting to hometown hero status is… “Oh God no, I’m not at that level yet,” she interjects. “The lads are hometown heroes.”
The lads in question, if you’re wondering, are The Strypes; in the Breffni County, that matter needs no such explanation. And a small-town upbringing might go some way to explaining why things have been a little difficult to process since an appearance on BBC’s Glastonbury coverage catapulted the honey-voiced 21-year-old to far beyond where she expected to be at this point in her career.

“It was surreal,” she recalls of the spot on the Beeb. “Being from Cavan, which is so small, you only dream about something like that. It seems so unattainable, it doesn’t even crop up in my wildest dreams.”
It’s worth noting that musical ambitions haven’t necessarily dominated Áine’s dreams for all that long. With underage county football credentials to her name, it was sporting ambitions that were strongest.
“Anything I knew about music was from pop tunes on the radio,” she reveals. “I was a big fangirl, actually; Lady Gaga, Lana del Rey and Marina And The Diamonds were what I called my ‘trinity’. But when I was 15 or 16, I switched; I decided I wanted to do music, and that was that.”

At 16, she got her first keyboard for Christmas. For someone whose voice has come in for such exalted praise – comparisons to Adele abound – it might come as a surprise to know that most of her initial exploits were strictly instrumental.
“I would’ve said I couldn’t sing to save my life,” she smiles. “In First Year, I tried out for the school choir and didn’t get in. Although, when I think about, I don’t know why I tried in the first place since I really had no interest anyway!”
While we’d love to characterise that choir head as the new Dick Rowe, Áine insists the decision was most likely correct; it wasn’t until a few years later that she finally found a voice.

“Something triggers inside you, and that’s where your voice comes from. By the time I was 18, I was singing and writing songs. I went through a hard time in school, with myself, and I think that was the reason why something clicked. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s strange.”
That inspiration may not have gone unnoticed by eagle-eared listeners, as hints of those teenage experiences are littered throughout her growing catalogue.
“If you listen to my songs, I think you can hear it. Nobody really knew what I went through – because I wouldn’t have said it – but music was what allowed me to release it and get it out of my system. Listen to a song like ‘The Pictures’, where the theme is that idea of ‘get-me-out-of-here’; ‘Runaway’,while it’s baed on Bonnie and Clyde, it’s the same thing again.

Indeed, there’s no shortage of Hollywood inspiration running through Áine’s debut EP Paper Crown, the first warning shot released two years ago. Her stark, emotional songwriting, and a beguiling style which sees dashes of retro jazz and blues mix with contemporary pop – all underpinned by her impossibly rich and soulful vocals – didn’t take long to turn heads. What’s followed hasn’t disappointed either, and follows along similar lines; even ‘The Black Dahlia’ – the recent release that we can now officially call an international hit – is filtered through a distinctly Tinseltown lens.
“Some people say Elizabeth Short was an aspiring actress. I took inspiration from American Horror Story, whose take was that she’d do whatever it takes to get where she wanted or needed to be. She trusted the wrong people, and ended up the way she did. I love the dark side of fame.”

It’s not as though days are spent flicking through horror stories in a search for inspiration, though. In fact, the only time Ms C – who, her manager Paul Cox points out, could talk for days – keeps an answer to one word is when asked if she finds songwriting easy; a nonchalant, “Yeah”.
“I never sit down to write a song, so to speak; it’s more about when something catches my eye – or my ear, as the case may be. The title ‘The Black Dahlia’, was in my head for three days, and the way I see it is that if I remember it that long then it probably needs to become something. ‘Paper Crown’, the title track of my EP, just leapt from my Instagram feed one day. If something hits me, and I’m inspired, I can write a song in 20 minutes. I don’t know if anybody knows where that comes from.”

Whatever the process, it’s working. BBC scouts caught a glimpse of Áine in London, and started putting the feelers out regarding a live performance while at Glasto. Signed, sealed and delivered – and with everyone she knew informed of the pending appearance – she was scheduled to grace the screens on Saturday evening… until 52% of the UK decided there was something else to fill the airtime.
“Brexit meant all the programming was pushed back,” she explains. “We were waiting the whole of Saturday, walking miles and miles across the festival killing time. We watched Tame Impala, and Adele, and just as she was finishing up we got a phone call – we were on the next day, just ahead of Coldplay. I was delighted, and relieved too; you had to worry they’d ran out of room for us. And we were after telling everyone, so we didn’t want to look like liars!”

Unusually, considering the stage, nerves weren’t too much of a factor – she confesses to being far more apprehensive before an appointment on The Ray D’Arcy Show.
“When I am nervous, by the way, you can tell by watching my hands,” she whispers. “Sometimes I have to put them in my pockets; otherwise they’re going 90.”
Unblemished by fear, her performance was a triumph; one wonders if there’d have been quite such manual solidity if she’d even began to understand how it would change her life.

“I turned my phone on, and it was crazy. As much as you know it’s a big thing, you can’t begin to prepare for that sort of effect. I still can’t fully get my head around it. Apparently I was trending on Twitter. What?! When I said I was a fangirl, I wasn’t kidding; in my teens, I would’ve been trying to get Lady Gaga’s new single trending or something. Now I’m the trend? I don’t get it.”
There’s no misunderstanding, though, when it comes to the importance of capitalising on the buzz created.

“It’s such a big break, so we’re 100% focused on making the right moves next. I wouldn’t have had any idea of how the industry works for a long time, but I’m now learning what the craic is now, and seeing the ins and outs.”
Áine won’t, you feel, have to wait for hometown hero status too much longer.

Áine Cahill plays The Grand Social, Dublin on September 9