- Culture
- 29 May 20
The A&R Department 'On Our Radar': a Q+A with Yenkee
The Cork indie musician is fresh from being featured on the Normal People soundtrack, so Hot Press caught up with him about Cork and what he's got on the agenda in the near (ish) future.
How did you find out about Normal People wanting to use ‘Cannibal Tree’?
It was fairly out of my hands, to be honest! When it was accepted, I didn’t know whether to just leave it out there and let people discover it for themselves, or whether to tell people. I knew it was a really popular book, but I don’t think we anticipated how much everyone would be talking about it. It’s unreal. You sometimes don’t know whether or not you should submit to these things because they could turn out badly, but people seem to love it and it’s taking off.
What’s your favourite thing about the music community in Cork?
There’s only a select few places that you can play in Cork. There are either really small venues or the Opera, so you get to interact with everyone because it’s such a tight-knit community. And everyone is always willing to work on your stuff. I’m only 24, but I feel kind of old! There’s so many 17- and 18-year-olds making unbelievable stuff. It’s nice to have younger people looking to me for advice, but there seems to be a constant flow of people making great music.
What’s next for you?
I’m about to start a week of tracking vocals for an album I’m working on. Hopefully that will come out at some stage! I don’t know if it’s a good time to release an album. As soon as I can get back to playing tunes, that’s the goal. I’ve wanted to release an album for the past few years, but it just never felt like the right time. At the moment I’m in a good place musically.
