Gemma Hayes: "I felt unsure that there was any place for me, or that I had anything to offer"

“It’s an odd one, I think,” Gemma Hayes remarks at the outset of our interview – describing her long-awaited sixth album, Blind Faith.

She’s coyly underplaying it of course, but she has a point. The Tipperary-bred singer-songwriter’s new LP – marked by experimentation and compelling new perspectives – is undoubtedly her most unique project yet. It has also, as she explains, been her most challenging, but ultimately cathartic experience in music, with its creation ending a decade-long stretch of silence in her discography, following 2014’s Bones + Longing.

With two strong EPs already under her belt, Gemma emerged as a thrilling new force in Irish music with the release of her lauded debut album, the shoegaze and alt-rock-informed Night On My Side, in 2002. A Mercury Prize nomination followed, as did collaborations with the likes of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and Bell X1’s Paul Noonan, and a string of acclaimed, independently released projects over the course of the subsequent decade.

She’s found serious streaming success too – with her 2012 version of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, recorded for the hit US series Pretty Little Liars, garnering over 22 million listens on Spotify.

But Gemma found her relationship with her craft strained on more than one occasion.

“The first time I got frustrated with music, I was wrongly blaming music,” she recalls. “It was the industry I was pissed off with. But for some reason, I lumped in creativity with it as well. That was just an immaturity on my part, to go, ‘I’m done! I’m not doing this anymore!’

“In hindsight, I realised, ‘Well, that wasn’t fair – because music itself has never done anything but bring me joy and good things in my life.’ It was just that, at the time, the industry seemed so harsh. It was requiring so much of me – and I’d be quite a private person.”

Gemma Hayes. Credit: Rich Gilligan

Later, as a mother to two young children, Gemma’s ability to express herself through music was tested once again.

“I simply didn’t have the time,” she resumes. “I did have the want, though, which was really frustrating – because it was such a creative time. Once I had kids, it was like my heart and my sense of compassion grew. And I became incredibly aware and creative – because once your heart opens, straight away your creativity opens.

“But I was really, really busy for those first few years, with a toddler and a newborn baby,” she continues. “Even when they did eventually sleep for a few hours, all I could do was stare at a wall, and eat. That was it. I wasn’t fit for anything else.”

Regaining her confidence was a gradual journey. She knew she wanted to work again with her long-time collaborator and producer David Odlum – a former member of both The Frames and Kíla. But returning after nearly a decade, she “actually felt nervous meeting him again.”

“I felt unsure that there was any place for me, or that I had anything to offer,” she tells me. “It was a very weird time. I remember the first time recording with David Odlum in the studio, after ten years, my voice was quivering. He later said to me that he was really thrown by that. He’d never seen me so vulnerable and unsure of myself. I just felt really nervous and scared.”

As they progressed, however, the pair eventually found their rhythm.

“I got a bit of myself back, in terms of creativity, “ she says. “I’m very aware now that there’s certain aspects of a person that have to be nurtured and nourished, or else it just withers away. I don’t want to go back to that place where I close the door on it, and expect it to just be there after ten years. Because it wasn’t – it was emaciated when I opened the door. It needed love, attention and nourishment. This album was that process.”

But here were other practical barriers that threatened to get in the way of Blind Faith. While David Odlum is based in Dublin, Gemma has called West Cork home since Covid. As such, it was a spread-out process, with recording sessions slotted in whenever circumstances allowed, and responsibilities could be juggled.

“At the start, I was like, ‘Ah, this album is taking so long to make! It won’t be relevant, even in my head, by the time I put it out,’” she reflects. “But because it had time to breathe – like a wine, or a whiskey, whatever they do! – I got to experiment a little more with the textures over time. More than I would have been able to if I had gone into a studio for three weeks and just hammered out an album.”

Gemma had initially planned for the LP to be released at the start of the year, in the run-up to her 2024 Irish tour, which included a headline show at Vicar Street.

“But it just didn’t work out that way,” she says. “David Odlum ended up getting a brilliant job with Sam Smith. So he headed off out into the world on this tour of a lifetime, musical directing for those shows.

“That put a pause to the album,” she continues. “But I then picked it up with David’s brother, Karl Odlum, a few months later, and we finished the album. He really picked up the reins. They’re just as talented, and they both have that really beautiful sensibility when it comes to sound. Also, they’re both very funny – and music and laughter are a really good combination.”

Gemma Hayes at Vicar Street. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Blind Faith was also shaped by some heavy, real-world issues. ‘Hardwired’, for instance, finds Gemma – in her own words – “freaking out about technology.”

“We’re all craving dopamine hits,” she says. “Scientists are telling us about it – how the whole world is being affected by social media. Kids are getting really caught up in that need for a dopamine hit like never before.

“During lockdown, I found that my screen time tripled,” she remarks. “It was because I wasn’t going anywhere, and I also wanted to keep up to date with the news and what was going on. So I was on the phone quite a lot.”

She soon found herself pulled into the darker side of social media.

“I started going down rabbit holes of what I thought was information – and then realising: ‘This is actually misinformation. Or at least I think it is?’ And then I got really confused. Like, ‘Hang on a minute. Why is this very educated person saying one thing, but this other very educated person is saying another thing?’

“I was really freaking myself out,” she continues. “But I realised that I wasn’t alone in this. There’s a lot of people who are going down rabbit holes as well.”

Although nine tracks made the cut for Blind Faith, Gemma tells me that a total of 30 songs were written for the album – and she’s already been “tipping away” on more future material.

She also reveals that, somewhere down the line, her career could take a less expected turn...

“I’ve been saying this for 20 years, but I’d really love to put a three-piece punk band together, as a side project,” she says. “Just for the fun of it. We’d all write songs together, and then just go out and have a bit of craic. Nothing precious about it!”

She lists Niamh Regan, Aoife Nessa Frances, Ailbhe Reddy, Denise Chaila and Fontaines D.C. among her current Irish favourites – but she hasn’t settled on who’s making the cut for the punk trio.

“It would have to be people who are happy to literally do two-and-a-half-minute songs – just really basic stuff,” she laughs. “Even if you’re a brilliant drummer, you have to play shit. It’s all about the attitude! So I’ll have to put out an ad for people – maybe in Hot Press?”

• Blind Faith is out now.