Bird on a wire

We’ve got a live one. Wallis Bird’s recent show in Crawdaddy was not your usual anaemic indie singer-songwriter shoegazing exercise. Nope, the Ballyhogue native would not rest until she’d coaxed, cajoled and bullied the crowd – many of them partisan Wexford ex-pats, it has to be said – out of their shells.

And her band, which includes the virtuoso Vinne brothers from the Black Forest in the rhythm section, plus backing singer and viola maestro Aoife O’Sullivan from the Liberties, have been drilled to the point where their 90-minute set felt like a fleeting festival slot. Even those with an aversion to acoustic-based songs embellished with Ballyfermot rock-school chops in 9/8 time could colour themselves impressed.
“I poked the shit out of them last night,” Wallis laughs over breakfast next morning in the Universal offices, a diminutive blonde with a thick scalder accent who occasionally calls to mind Holly Hunter’s character in Miss Firecracker. “I had them linking arms and everything, it was gas, I never did that before. I love to see some kind of reaction, even if people tell me to shut up. I’m so fed up going to gigs where people are just dead. Music is a communal thing, I want people to go away saying they loved it or hated it, I won’t have somebody going away saying, ‘Ah, it was alright.’”
Bird is something of a nomadic character who was born in Meath, but moved to Ballyhogue in Wexford at the age of five. After a stint in Germany, she relocated to London.
“My parents bought a pub down in Wexford, so we all upped sticks from Meath,” she explains. “My parents did up this absolutely gorgeous house in the middle of the mountains. When I was in the country, y’know, if you’re in a country school you have that narrow-mindedness, and I got a lot of hardship because I was a bit different, my whole family are a bit weirder than your average family. I suppose we were a bit controversial because we were so open about everything and we were a bit rougher if the truth be told, we weren’t a posh family. But I always had like-minded and open minded people around me, people with good taste in music who didn’t give a shit what other people thought. When I was living in Enniscorthy in the ‘90s there was quite a good grunge scene. I got introduced to so much great music. I was like a fuckin’ eejit before I came up to Dublin, like this little country girl. But it didn’t take long to settle in.”
Bird left town when she was almost 21 to study at the Ballyfermot Rock School. Consequently, her music is more expansive and sophisticated than most of her contemporaries with roots in the singer-songwriter ghetto. Alongside Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos, the listener can discern traces of jazzy scat vocalese and an advanced rhythmic sensibility.
“I only really found my sound when I moved to Germany,” she says. “I started to think more about what I was doing. I was almost 23 before I realised what I sounded like. But London is such a pain in the arse sometimes, they’re so like the musicians’ police there that if you don’t stand out or do something different or if you’re not good enough you’re just going to fall through the cracks – nobody gives a shit.
“But I’ve such a great team. We were doing everything independently, I set up a record company and we were recording the album, doing promotions, booking gigs, I had the website done. I spent months and months over and back sorting out the contract with Island before I could get something that put me in control so I could keep this team, because they’re talented as hell and I trust them. It was really important for the record company to realise that it’s a partnership. To be honest with you, we’re just havin’ a fuckin’ ball. I mean, the whole lot of us live together, so we know each other inside out and get on so well. It’s a really cool time in my life right now.”

The Moodsets EP is out now, with an album to follow in September.