"The only thing I loved in life was music and I realised I had to make a choice to go with it." she explains.
For the next few years she took a job in a launderette by day, and honed her songwriting skills playing the Dublin circuit by night. Despite audiences and critics instantly warming to her gorgeous melodies and haunting songs, she gradually grew tired of the restriction of the acoustic guitar and started to put together a band. Her vision to combine the singer songwriter elements of her acoustic work with the layered harmonic discord of her favourite artists like My Bloody Valentine. It's been this aim to combine the opposing forces of fragility and chaos that has remained central to her work since.
Gemma eventually signed to Source Records early in 2001. As if mirroring Gemma's career path to date, her first two EPs revelled in the extreme forces at work in her music. The debut "4:35am" displayed her in a chilled acoustic setting. Songs like "Evening Sun" and the title track capturing the contemplative melancholia of the darkness before the dawn, and drawing immediate comparisons between Gemma and female songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez.
Such comparisons however couldn¹t be further from the truth as the follow up EP, "Work to a Calm" proved. Here she could be found with full band exploring layered distorted harmonics. Indeed if there was an argument against her being placed in the role of the stereotyped image of the female songwriter, it comes on the stunning opener "Tear in My Side", in which she repeats the same lyrical refrain over and over, subsequently underpinning the full force of the melody. It's a mood song which paints a picture more vivid than the storyteller ever could.
"I'm not really a storyteller. That's not what I do. I don't even use imagery; it's just kind of like how it is, about small moments, those feelings that everyone has." she says, "For me music has always been about taking myself elsewhere. It's never been about celebrating the moment that I'm in then and there, but celebrating the moment when it's past."
The "Work to Calm" release displayed the full force of her band at work. However it is with the Gemma Hayes live experience that the finer nuances of the full band's power becomes clear. With tours of Ireland in support of Beth Orton, Rufus Wainwright and David Gray, and last year's UK tours with both Sparklehorse and Zero 7, the band won over audiences and critics alike. Providing people with a glimpse of what to expect from the debut album.
With the release of the album "Night on My Side" the Gemma Hayes picture can be seen and heard in all of its multi-hued glory. The theme, if there is one, is of the journey of self-discovery. Whether that's the life changing journey which ends in regret as on the opening "Day One" and the following "Hanging Around", or the journey to resolution as on "Back of My Hand" and "Let a Good Thing Go".
Protection - we do a lot of it these days. Sun cream for our skin, sunglasses for our eyes, condoms for you know where - but do you remember to protect your hearing?
Click to find all the information you need to look after your hearing now so you can enjoy music for years to come
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Gemma Hayes It All...and then some
