With a debut E.P. due out, a gig at Leaf to look forward to and college work to do, perhaps the last thing that stunning singer and guitar player needed to was to sit down and talk about music at F.A.C.T. However, it is the measure of the woman who sits down in front of me, with a certain style that seems beyond her young years, sips on a cranberry juice and is readily forthcoming about her passion for music.
Interviewing anybody before a big event can place a huge strain upon their shoulders, they don’t want to give the game away, let go of a small snippet of information in which the whole evening might hinge delicately upon but they also don’t want to appear aloof, to be condescending or appear uninterested in what they are doing. For Niamh Jones, to be someone so in control and be disarmingly considerate to the conversation is enough to understand that the generation for whom the world and its wife has thrown perhaps the biggest curve ball at in the last 80 years deserves respect for coming through it with integrity intact but also with the renewed fight that was perhaps lost in parts to the previous two generations.
Ahead of her gig at Leaf, I was able to catch up with a woman who was so admired by Liverpool Acoustic that they asked her to perform at the tender age of 15 and to great praise and commendation. With only a few precious minutes to spare so not to encroach upon a very busy few days I chatted to Niamh about music and her busy schedule.
Congratulations on the new E.P., how does it feel to have recorded your songs?
Niamh: “Thank you so much! I’m really, really excited about it because it’s taken so long since the start of the music development programme because of all the help I’ve been getting. So it’s all been quite paced really. We had four days at Parr Street Recording Studios, which were spread out as well, I think usually if someone was doing it normally, they’d probably do the four days in one go, all done. Whereas, mine was done this way as I’m still in college, so it’s just been balancing a job – I work in a chip shop as well, college and then I’ve got my music. This is obviously what I’d love to do but because of my age I’ve got all these other things which kind of take over sometimes so the studio days were quite spread out but I’m so pleased to finally have it coming out on 12th September after all this time.”
Obviously a lot of people are only used to seeing you perform live, these couple of songs now is something very new isn’t it?
Niamh: “Yes, people often say that they love my live performances and the presence, it’s actually quite hard to get that across on a recording of the songs. They enjoy the songs live but then when they’re recordings; they just kind of listen to it and you’re not there to see it or influence how they’re feeling. When it’s live, factors like the surroundings and the visuals and the good sound system and the venue are all influences, whereas this is just kind of stripped down to what they are hearing and obviously I’m not used to that, so that’s a new thing. I do some You Tube videos as well, just some rough things – me messing around the bedroom singing covers and unfinished originals and stuff, so people have heard my songs in that sense and it’s just a bit jokey and nothing serious, whereas this is forever and seeing the official copies arrive was just something so exciting.”
Who were your influences growing up?
Niamh: “Tracy Chapman was a huge one, my dad always listened to Tracy Chapman and so I grew up with her sound really. As I started playing the guitar five or 6 years ago I was developing my own sound and I remember I was just messing round writing a little song and my dad came in my room and he put Talking ‘Bout A Revolution on and that song just fitted in. It was so similar to what I had just been playing, the style of it, and it was so strange that it wasn’t even intentional, I’d just been hearing it throughout my childhood and it was a sound I’d grown up with and suddenly as I was naturally writing something similar, so that was nice to hear. Amy McDonald as well – her songs This Is The Life and Mr Rock and Roll are songs that I’ve always loved. I used to play them at talent shows and things in school with my brother who also plays guitar and I remember really loving it! They were some of the first live performances I ever did so her songs are of course going to stick with me. I suppose that’s why my lyrics and my sound have been influenced by her.
More recently, I’d say in the past four years or so, I’ve really gotten into Newton Faulkner because I just think his voice is incredible. I’m a huge fan, I’ve been to see him in Liverpool three times and met him at the Academy a few times. This year I went away to York for the weekend with my family and I saw that he was playing that night! So my brother and I just ran to the venue, got tickets and went straight in. It had only just been three days before that show that I’d seen him in Liverpool on the tour and met his brother outside at the end of the show. So when we were waiting in the foyer after the gig Newton’s brother saw me and came over for a chat as he’s remembered me from a few days earlier in Liverpool, Matt- my brother and I just ended up waiting after the show with his brother and then Newton came over and the four of us then spoke for about half an hour, he asked about my music and obviously I said how he’d influenced me and since then when I listen to him it has a totally different meaning. He’s always been so true to his lyrics as well – just things like the commentaries between the songs, in which he just explains what the song’s about and sometimes he really expands it into something and I just think that’s so interesting to hear as well.”
Lyrically your songs are very true to you as well, not just in your own music but also in the cover versions you do – the Labi Siffre number It Must Be Love – you give that song so much meaning, it’s very emotional. You get the feeling that the original artist Labi Siffre or Madness who also covered it, would never have intended it to be sung like you do. There’s something very delicate about it.
Niamh: “That song is obviously by Labi Siffre but my dad loves the Madness version and once he was playing it in the car, it was only quite recently, about a year ago, and I just heard it and thought it would sound really good stripped down as an acoustic song so I tried it out and I put it on You Tube and I got great feedback and lots of views and stuff like that. Then only recently, a few months ago, I got an email from someone saying hi, me and my fiancé are getting married and we’re playing your cover of It Must Be Love as we walk down the aisle and I didn’t know these people, I didn’t know them at all and so to hear that was unbelievable and he said they didn’t know whereabouts I was based but asked if there was any way I might come down and play it live as a surprise for the bride. So I did go down, they lived in Coventry so it was about three hours in the car, my lovely mum drove me down.
They actually had the wedding in their garden in a marquee, it was beautiful, the bride walked down and she heard the song, she saw me and she was in tears. It’s just insane to have that, I just did that cover to see how it worked and they said it just meant so much to them and that they listened to it all the time. To have that experience with a song even though it’s not a song that I wrote was amazing. I’ve not had anything like that before, that was so nice.”
How do you find being a woman in Liverpool and the music you perform, how have you found it?
Niamh: “I think it’s been a huge help being here, because the amount of musical venues in Liverpool is tremendous, you can just go in to so many and see someone playing, they just always want someone to play! There’s so many open mic nights and things as well, they have open mic nights at The Cavern which I’ve been to and also there’s a few in Formby where I live. I did loads of open mic nights there when I was about 13 or 14, and I think in Liverpool there’s always someone listening as well. If you are going to play in a venue you understand about being the background noise at a bar or a restaurant, they just want a bit of background music a lot of the time. But in Liverpool there’s always some people who do listen, it always means a lot when you think people are not listening and someone comes up at the end of a set and says that they enjoyed it, or thank you for playing, or ask where else you play as they’d like to see you again, and I think that’s something that Liverpool has over lots of other places, it has warmth, the atmosphere is amazing.
I’ll be going to university next year hopefully in Dublin, there’s a songwriting course for modern commercial music in a place called BIMM – the Brighton Institute of Modern Music and they have one in Brighton, London, Manchester and Dublin. I’m dying to go to Dublin, all my family are there in Ireland. There’s a few of my uncles and aunties here but a lot of us are based in Ireland. I think Liverpool and Dublin are very alike in the culture, the enthusiasm for music and the friendly people, I think to go to Dublin will be like a home from home. My family home will always be here, but it’s nice to get away, I want to move away, Dublin seems far away but it’s not that far; it’s just a plane journey away. So that’s the plan.
The Merseyside Arts Foundation – without it I wouldn’t have the e.p., I wouldn’t have half the gigs or the backing I’m getting now, it’s huge, I can’t say how much it has helped. On my application, I said how much I enjoy playing and writing my music and doing gigs but that I had no clue what to do with it or where to go with it, because things like the studio time at Parr Street was a lot of money to be paying out when you’re not on a label and so the fact that they helped with funding and things like that it was just amazing. The workshops and meetings with people from the industry gave me so much advice. I’ve been working with Chris Taylor this year and he’s playing at the E.P. launch with me and we’ve just clicked – as soon as he heard the tracks he got excited about it and so did I, we’re both very pleased about it and he’s actually called me back in even though I’m not in the programme any more but he called me back to maybe try out some new things for a second E.P. which is very exciting as I just thought after that it would be up to me on my own to see how it works, I’m very thrilled to have so many people behind me.”
To read a review of Niamh Jones’ debut E.P. go to http://www.liverpoolsoundandvision.co.uk/2014/09/13/niamh-jones
Ian D. Hall