Southern Belle: Hot Press meets Nicole Maguire

It can be out of touch, a little too cosy with the Louis Walsh brigade, and is hosted by a man that is pure awkward energy. And yet, there’s no doubt that The Late Late Show is a national institution.

For any upcoming Irish artist, playing the world’s longest-running chat show puts them on the map, gets an incredible number of eyes and ears on their act and, most importantly, makes the grandparents proud. It is, quite simply, a massive deal...

“Alright, thanks very much for that, Craig!” Nicole Maguire sighs. The Cork singer-songwriter doesn’t want to think about all that as we chat, considering she’s set to perform her single ‘Hard Love’ on the programme that very evening. In the event, it goes swimmingly, but she’s understandably nervous beforehand.

“We’re literally getting in a cab in 20 minutes and heading out there,” she says. “Because I’m new at it, I think they want me out there early to make sure I don’t completely fall to pieces!”

Hailing from the tiny town of Conna, Maguire is a determined performer. Still young and learning, she’s already been plugging away for some years, trying to get her tender brand of Americana out there.

Her website features a Samuel Johnson and John D Rockefeller quotes exalting perseverance, and she has a list of things she’s focussed on achieving. ‘Playing The Late Late’ can now be crossed off.

Another list, of her top three producers, featured one Mitchell Froom (Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney, Ron Sexmith). Though it meant double-jobbing and selling her car to pay for it, you can guess who ended up producing her debut album, What You Really Mean.

“He is possibly one of the most amazing musicians I have ever been around,” Maguire says of Froom. “But he has this way about him that’s really unassuming. You’d go meet someone else and they’d immediately be: ‘oh, I worked with this person and this person’. But you go into Mitchell’s house and you’re treated exactly the same way as all of the other artists that have worked with him.”

Such was the modesty in studio that it took Maguire time to realise the pedigree of the players Froom had assembled for her.

“Had I known who I was working with, I think I would have just died. We were halfway through the record and I thought I’d just do a quick Google on them. I went in the next day and said, ‘Mitchell! You never told me that Pete Thomas is in The Attractions! You never told me that Bob Glaub has played with Crosby, Stills & Nash for the last 20 years!’”

Some even more famous names were eager to get their foot in the studio door.

“Fleetwood Mac contacted Mitchell about two weeks before I was due to fly over. They were like, ‘we absolutely have to be in studio’. They’re all ridiculously famous and when they want something, that’s it. But Mitchell said, ‘look lads, I’ve got this artist from Ireland coming over. She obviously doesn’t have the budget you guys have. She’s had to save for 12 solid months to come over, I can’t just tell her Fleetwood Mac are on the way’. We had to change my flight and Lindsey Buckingham said, ‘look, I’ll cover the bill for that’. So Lindsey Buckingham paid for my flight to Los Angeles!”

First class?

“Ah would you stop, I was squashed in!” she laughs. “You’d think with all his money he would have just flown me over on my own!”

One homegrown artist who has offered first class assistance is Damien Dempsey. In the pipeline for two years as Maguire put funds and plans in place, her record has now been released on the IRL label to which he is signed.

“He’s had my back since I met him. I’ve seen him on and off stage, in every situation you can imagine, when I toured with him in the States. Onstage you learn how to hold your audience, offstage you learn how to hold your own. In terms of songwriting, he’s just absolutely phenomenal. I don’t there’s a song of his I don’t like.”

Maguire has previously said that, a century from now, his work will be in Irish folk songbooks.

“About a month after I said that, one of his songs appeared in a published book! I picked up this ‘Great Irish Artists’ songbook and Sinead O’Connor, Thin Lizzy and all those were there. Then at the end was ‘Your Pretty Smile’. I thought, ‘I knew it, I was just 99 years too early!’”

Sometimes perseverance pays off a little quicker than you think.

What You Really Mean is out now. Nicole Maguire plays The Sugar Club, Dublin (April 19) as part of the Levon Helm Night and headlines Leo’s Tavern, Menaleck (25); Roisin Dubh, Galway (26) and Whelan’s, Dublin (27)