Aimée: "I’m lucky that I’ve never felt out of control since I’ve been signed - I'm running my own ship"

Dublin pop starlet Aimée Fitzpatrick has come a long way since buying her own recording microphones as a teenager. The 27-year-old signed to Universal Music following a string of blistering singles and a collaboration with ‘Maniac 2000’ DJ Mark McCabe. Boasting both break-up and empowerment anthems, her 2020 debut EP Confessions, and last year’s follow-up ‘From The Heart’, were both gems. 

For good measure, the singer also appeared on Irish Women In Harmony’s Cranberries cover, ‘Dreams’. Now, Aimée is determined to make further inroads into the mainstream with her brand new single, the dance banger ‘Nobody Else’.

“I’m lucky that I’ve never felt out of control since I’ve been signed,” she reflects. “I very much feel like I’m running my own ship. I was writing and working with loads of different producers, but I just knew I wasn’t ready. It could have been lack of confidence, but I had to wait for the right time and the right song. Then I did a feature with Mark McCabe, and that was how the label discovered me. 

“They asked for a meeting and wanted to hear my own stuff. Since then, they’ve had me in the room with amazing writers – that was how I met my producer. Everything seemed to line up perfectly. Once I found the right producer and team, it gave me that boost of self-esteem. Things just clicked.”

Aimée. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Given how new to the industry Aimée was, how did the singer-songwriter cope with Covid-19 lockdowns?

“Oh, it got to a stage where I was on jobs.ie!” she laughs. “It was tough, because it was at the very start of my career. Everything was going up until Covid hit. I had to decide whether I was going to give up and do nothing for two years, or take advantage of that time. I started writing over Zoom and making new connections. I’m glad I did, because otherwise I wouldn’t have my new single, nor would I have gone to Sweden and met Max Martin. I was in a bit of a funk for a while.”

‘Nobody Else’ is a feelgood track blending ’90s R&B with a slick, modern Swedish pop twist. Working on the song over Zoom with Richey McCourt and Swedish writer Nick Jarl (Westlife, Loreen), Aimée later flew to Stockholm to finish the song.

“I knew I was going to go regardless, because Nick, the producer and songwriter I’d been working with, lives over there,” Fitzpatrick explains. “I didn’t realise it would be a completely life-changing trip! It’s definitely one of my top cities to visit in the world. It’s so inspiring. Apart from the beauty of it, the place is unbelievably clean and safe, especially for women. The first evening I was there, I actually met Max Martin.

“Nick had arranged it as a surprise for me,” she continues, beaming. “When I got off the flight, he was like, ‘Follow me, I want to show you something’ and I assumed it was a monument. Nick knows that every song we work on, I’m always thinking, ‘What would Max Martin do?’ We pulled up outside this townhouse with massive gates, and Nick just had this giant smile on his face and said, ‘Max is expecting you.’

“We sat in his studio for hours and he listened to my new music, giving me feedback. He also played some unreleased songs with the biggest pop artist in the world, which was such a trust exercise on his part. I could have leaked it! He was super-nice. People always say don’t meet your idols, but he exceeded expectations. If Max Martin gives you song changes, you fucking make them. I called my label and marketing team to hold the song, and we made the edits literally that night.”

The single is the first song ever written about her boyfriend and “safe space”. It’s a joyful counterpoint to Aimée’s more heartbroken numbers.

“‘Nobody Else’ was supposed to be a love song, which was different for me,” she considers. “People assume I hate men, because all my tracks are break-up songs or feminist jams. I wanted to deliberately write lighter music for when the world opens up, and you’re getting ready for a night out, or blaring it in the car on a sunny day. My boyfriend would always ask when I was going to write a song about him! He loves it, and his mam is delighted. She gets a little mention in the second verse.

“We’ve been best friends since we were seven. We didn’t get together until we were 20. I’ve had other boyfriends, he’s had other girlfriends, but we always remained best friends. He eventually got out of the friend-zone, poor kid!”

•‘Nobody Else’ is out now.