Belfast singer-songwriter Lucy Gaffney has spoken about what it means to one of the opening acts for Ryan McMullan as part of his massive Custom House Square gig in August.
The 28-year-old artist has been a presence on the Belfast music scene for over a decade now, and found success releasing music with her brother Thom in the bands Southern and MMode.
At the start of this year, Lucy released her debut solo EP Easy Come Easy Go .
Brimming with dreamy, hypnotic alt-rock songs and a voice which was once described by Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher as "celestial", the EP appears to have set Lucy up for a bright solo career.
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Speaking about how her new EP came to be, she said: "The EP was recorded all last year. Me and my brother recorded it during the Summer and Autumn, in Liverpool. It's based on a lot of songs I was writing while we were moving house and a lot of changes that were happening.
"The way I write is quite personal, it's all from experience, so those songs were quite heartfelt, there was a lot sadness in there, but also a lot of joy too.
"The way I record is that a lot of the songs will be completely from scratch and the vocal take will be me writing in the moment. So some of the songs I have at the minute, the lyrics were written while I was recording, just on the spot.
"Then the song is a lot more free, and in a sense, more pure. And with what I listen to, especially people like Kurt Vile and Big Thief, there's a freeness in the music. And I'm trying to bring that into my music more."
Having lived in Liverpool and London for years, Lucy is now based in her family home in Helen's Bay.
While lockdown forced artists to constantly adapt to changing rules, Lucy said that it proved to be a productive time for her.
"At the beginning it was obviously such a shock," she said.
"But it also gave artists a way to access a more personal relationship with fans and maybe even reach new fans. I feel like the music industry has changed, because artists have a bit of the control back.
"The industry is so dominated by major record labels and big publishing companies, where artists are in the position of almost having to give away their work for free. But with the pandemic, I started doing covers and things like that - which I'd never done before - and it was kind of freeing.
"I didn't like doing things like Instagram Lives initially - I'm self conscious at the best of times, and that was something I was a bit reluctant about - but then I did a couple of covers over lockdown and they just blew up and that became a big thing. It's crazy how the internet works like that. So in that sense the pandemic gave people a chance to work on their craft, and for me it was a chance to grow as a musician as well as a writer."
When she spoke to us, Lucy was just off the back of her first gig in Belfast in almost three years at the Ulster Sports Club.
She said that she believes that pandemic has given both musicians and audiences a new appreciation of what live music means.
"I definitely feel more relaxed on stage. I think since all of the craziness of the pandemic, people are actually able to see outside of themselves a bit and everyone's a bit more relatable and no one has the same airs as they did before. When I was on stage, it was like I was talking to a group of mates. You're closer because we've all been through this thing together."
Lucy will be taking to a much bigger stage in August when she supports Ryan McMullan at Custom House Square.
How does she feel about getting to do that?
"I find it hard to take things in but I think it's finally hit me," she said. "That's going to be the biggest gig I've ever done. It's just going to be incredible - the energy on the stage and backstage. I just think it's going to be such a good experience and I'm thrilled Ryan is having me support him."
Having spent almost half her life in the midst of the Belfast music scene, the singer said that it's been a formative experience knowing there's so many great musicians around her.
"I've been in the scene in Belfast since I was about 14 and I've grown up with a lot of these acts who are emerging. The standard of music and the quality of musicianship in Belfast - and the whole of Ireland - is incredible. I feel like we're paving the way for other places."
For her own part, Lucy embraced music from a young age, and it naturally developed that she started writing songs with her older brother Thom.
"I always did music growing up," she said.
"I'm from a musical family. I grew up learning piano and I always sang in school. My parents bought my brother a guitar when he was 12 and over the years we ended up singing together. I like to harmonise, so I'd harmonise when he was singing. He was massively into Radiohead, so I'd harmonise if he was singing something like 'High and Dry'.
"We'd go busking in Belfast city centre and because I could do the harmonies on that song, we seemed to get a bigger response from crowds. So we kind of thought, 'Ok, maybe we've got something unique here.' We did covers, but that didn't really satisfy the artist edge that we both had, so we started writing songs together. Then we ended up forming a band together.
"Our initial band was Southern, and we toured with the likes of Catfish and the Bottlemen and Bastille and it was amazing doing that. Then we took some time off and got influenced by totally different bands like Air and LCD Soundsystem.
"So we ended creating a band called MMode, which was completely different to what we'd done with Southern. Then over time a lot of the songs were what I was writing, and it felt like there were two sides to MMode that were never going to fit together, so it just naturally transitioned to me releasing music under Lucy Gaffney."
Lucy said that her close working relationship with her brother has been essential to making music and navigating the choppy waters of the music industry.
"It's really reassuring to have him," she said.
"I sometimes wonder what people do if they're just a young solo musician and they don't have someone to support them or talk to them like I do. Especially if you're young and you're getting up in gigs and you're in an environment where you're surrounded by alcohol and that kind of thing.
"Then in the industry you have so many generally older men telling you what you need to be a rockstar. But with Thom and I, we always had a gut feeling about the direction we wanted to go in. Thom has always had a business head - I feel like if he was in any industry he'd make a success of it. I'd be a lot more relaxed in an artistic sense, but with both of us, it works really well. But definitely it's great to have someone there to always get feedback from."
The pay off is that Lucy's music has found its way into the ears of some of the industry's heaviest hitters. How does she react when she has people like Liam Gallagher complimenting her music?
"Honestly I try not to get overwhelmed by things like that, because it's what makes the job so much fun. I love that there's always a curveball with doing this - that it's not a 9-5. Then when you get little things like that, it's just amazing. In what other world would that happen? I listened to his music as a kid and then hear that he's listened to something I've recorded...It's what makes being an artist worth it."
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