Interview with singer-songwriter Hannah McPhillimy

Photography by Jonathan Ryder 


               From the rugged terrain of Northern Ireland comes a songwriter who, as The Irish Times puts it, is "a bit of a wonder." Hannah McPhillimy, however, is solidly grounded when it comes to what she does, "I still feel a fool explaining to people what it is that I do" McPhillimy remarks, "- surely, I sometimes ask myself, singing at unsuspecting punters can’t be viewed as a legitimate life direction?" But ultimately it's what art lets loose into the world, something which would have been found lacking if not for our unique, singular contribution, that makes any creative calling incredibly worthwhile. As McPhillimy puts it, "the buzz of bringing entirely new art to life, throwing it out to strangers across the world and finding, oddly enough, that it has found a place and a home with them is like no other I have known." A string of well crafted, thoughtful musical releases, the most recent of which is last years Wind Machine shows the mark of a songwriter who pens from deep within, it might be thought of as a given but not all musicians create from the depths, some play it safe on the surface, not so when it comes to McPhillimy. As she remarks to what this creative journey has taught her, main among many life lessons is that "Not knowing where you’re going is not a good enough reason to stop going there." Adding, soberly, that "life is opaque/uncertain/incomprehensible for everyone, you might as well make moves towards the things that make you feel most alive. Or if you can't do that, do the things that make for the funniest stories – that’s life lesson number two."


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? 

Hannah: My journey into music has been a very cautious one. Growing up in a wonderful but very secure household and small-town community, the idea of making a career out of music wasn’t necessarily encouraged - although to be totally fair it wasn’t necessarily discouraged either. Rather it was that the music world was one that no one I knew had ever set foot in and understandably enough, was viewed with more than a little confusion and suspicion. All strange and sparkly and frivolous and fickle. I grant you that this is better than outright opposition but it may help explain why it took me until I was twenty-two to perform my own songs in public and perhaps, why I still feel a fool explaining to people what it is that I do - surely, I sometimes ask myself, singing at unsuspecting punters can’t be viewed as a legitimate life direction? 

However, despite my and others doubts, I found that I couldn’t help myself from tiptoeing into that world - and performances at family parties, university fundraisers, friends of friend’s back gardens gradually did give way to shows at actual brick and mortar music venues, festivals I’ve actually heard of and even the odd appearance on the actual BBC. The journey has of course been fraught with the lows I had been well warned of – financial insecurity, negative feedback, periods of hyper attention followed by stone cold silence – but also with unquantifiable highs – the buzz of bringing entirely new art to life, throwing it out to strangers across the world and finding, oddly enough, that it has found a place and a home with them is like no other I have known.

So to wind this up, I think the most important lesson for me has been this – not knowing where you’re going is not a good enough reason to stop going there. As Claire Keegan puts it ‘to be an adult, [is] for the greatest part, to be in darkness.’ – the reality is that life is opaque/uncertain/incomprehensible for everyone, you might as well make moves towards the things that make you feel most alive. 

Or if you can't do that, do the things that make for the funniest stories – that’s life lesson number two. 

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? 

Hannah: My musical diet as a child was made up of Van Morrisson, Emmylous Harris, Disney Songs, Church hymns and the odd Irish ballad. Not the coolest influences in the world but they all told a cracker story. Stories are lifeblood to children and music seemed to me the absolute best way to devour them. 

I remember hearing Frances Black sing ‘After the Ball’ – an old Irish song about lost love and regret (what else?) – and feeling all the complexity of the emotions so heavily, even as a little whippersnapper of six years old. As a teenager, lyrics continued to be an irresistible draw - the Duke Special song ‘Low’ was highly significant for me somehow articulating my most private feelings towards my faith. It was then that I began to realise that songs weren’t merely passive entertainment but had an astonishing power to actually act on their audience – generating the intimacy and empathy we all feel that small longing for. 

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper?

Hannah: The first song I ever wrote was a co-write with my friend Laura in primary school – it had both a jaunty ‘call and response’ and Jesus in it. Laura and I sadly couldn’t reconcile our artistic differences (she wanted to lose the Jesus bit) and although I continued to write (many) more songs I wasn’t able to recreate the creative firework of the partnership that was Smith and McPhillimy. It wasn’t until my late teens, I discovered jazz and was propelled in a different direction; murder ballads. Writing for a fictional world, rather than a world I thought I knew, opened the door to more melodic and instrumental experimentation and helped me to see that there weren’t really any boundaries to where you could go with song-writing.

AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, family members, teachers/mentors etc? 

Hannah: Jan Carson (who’ll you’ll find out a little more about later) is an author from Belfast and has been an invaluable inspiration to me as an artist. The arts world can be trendy and ephemeral and exclusive but Jan always strives to make every event as life-affirming and welcoming as possible, without ever compromising on the quality or delivery of the material. That is a hard but incredibly admirable balance to strike and she pulls it off every single time.

I also have to give a shout out to the singer-songwriter Anthony Toner and Music Producer Stuart Reid who always take the time to chat to me when I am in a crisis. Anthony with his good humour and encouragement has pulled me out of many a dark, existential hole while Stu has been wonderful at pushing me to think bigger and greater and with more courage than I have been doing up till now. 

An artist who I do not know but is dear to my heart is Leslie Feist and I find her mantra that mistakes are not mistakes ‘if you make room for them’ incredibly comforting. 

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak?

Hannah: For me, a good song has to have the right amount of unpredictability versus satisfying your expectations. This can happen in different ratios depending on what you’re trying to express, but the point of great songs for me is to make me take stock and make me think. If something is too formulaic or predictable or contrived I will switch off right away – however, I know from the weaknesses in my own writing, that there is a place for an anchoring chorus or consolidating with repetition so that people can follow where you are trying to take them. The challenge for me is to hit that sweet spot between totally expressing everything I want to say and making it discernable to somebody who is not me.

I can relate to there being a sudden moment when I think I’ve hit on a good song, although it isn’t often confirmed until I play it publicly. That’s when you really know in yourself whether you’ve communicated something well or if you’ve made a second rate piece of rubbish. I wish the reckoning could take place in a less humiliating setting but unfortunately I don’t think that’s how it works! 

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? 

Hannah: What a wonderful question. Yes, one hundred percent I think music is a healing art. This is my prayer for my music that in some bizarre way that it would be restorative for people. I think the reason it can do this is that music – incredibly – is a totally acceptable and actually celebrated way for us to completely reveal ourselves to each other, warts and all. In what other walk of life is this bare-all, vulnerability applauded? In what other platform is it so effectively communicated?

I think also yes to the second part of your question, in that the writing and creating helps us give expression to what’s inside us, which is in itself life-giving. However, I think the bigger impact on the writer is finding that what you have expressed has been heard and found a home with another human – when this happens it really is a form of salvation or ‘a kind of communion’ as the composer Evan Chambers likes to say.

AHC: There is a really beautiful story behind your ep Disappear Here, could you tell people the back story of this work and what inspired you to bring it into the world? 

Hannah: ‘Disappear Here’ is the result of a collaboration between my friend and novelist Jan Carson and I. Jan approached me in the lead up to the publication of her first novel ‘Malcolm Orange Disappears’ to see if I would be interested in writing some songs that would be grounded in excerpts of her writing and could be performed alongside her readings. Jan has a massive involvement with older people here in Belfast and so she was keen to make the performance piece Dementia friendly. This desire, along with Jan’s highly imaginative and evocative writing, made it a very easy project to say yes to.

Over the course of a couple of months I wrote three original songs and interpreted a couple of others which were then performed (and later recorded) in four different settings throughout Ireland, to which older people were catered to - we then recorded them in support of th Alzheimer’s Society. 

You can find a link to the recordings here: https://hannahmcphillimy.bandcamp.com/album/disappear-here

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? 

Hannah: My memory is shockingly bad but quite recently I was on tour in the USA thanks to the very kind support of the Irish Arts Center in New York and it was pure joy. After a stand-out gig with them I went to Washington D.C. and played a show in a mansion full of chandeliers, secret passage-ways and housed Prince’s purple jacket, Janis Joplin’s guitar and a hair from Elvis’s head among other things. It was one of those shows that I lapped up from beginning to end, the audience was kind and engaged, the setting was unreal and the wine was bottomless. 

AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? 

Hannah: I have to admit the majority of my songs so far are very introspective and have come from a very personal place. I suppose you could argue that your own experience is one reflection of ‘where the world is’ but I’m not sure that will continue to cut it in these crazy times. 

AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? 

Hannah: A little tip I’ve learned from Jan is to help you make sure you’re listening to the right voices. Everyone has a right to an opinion of your work – it’s out there for public consumption – but not everyone’s opinion should be given equal weight. I’ve found it helpful to filter feedback into three different circles, like the layers in a dartboard. Most people will fall into the outermost circle – they don’t know you or what you’re about – whether their take is that you are God’s gift or that you suck, don’t pay too much attention to it. There will be a smaller number of people, perhaps ten or twenty, who you care about but perhaps don’t entirely grasp your work or your values – this is often family and friends – you can always consider their opinion, but if it isn’t helpful don’t hold onto it. Then there’s that little green circle who are the voices to who will stretch and guide you closer to where you want to go; I would really recommend seeking out three or four people whom you trust both artistically and character-wise and keep their words close. In the end though, it’s good to remember that you get the final say - you are the boss in this scenario. I tend to think the only way we can make sure we're really original is to make sure we are bringing ourselves to the project - you should have permission to ignore everybody, as long as you're not intent on committing a crime or something. 

AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to mention?

Hannah: I’m afraid you will have to watch this space. I released an E.P last May called 'Wind Machine', which I have been touring for almost a year now and it is time to begin the writing process all over again. I am planning to work with a producer this time around and hope something might emerge on the interwebs before a possible relocation in August. Time will tell! 


Visit Hannah's website @ www.hannahmcphillimy.com/
hannahmcphillimy.bandcamp.com/