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STEVE RYAN ON THE EVOLUTION OF LIMERICK’S MUSIC S
CENE She stands tall in the company and support When I played in my first band in 1997, there wasn’t a lot going on. We played really loud, messy music so there weren’t many places for bands like us at the time. Our very resourceful drummer started reaching out to other bands around the country that he’d managed to look-up online. It was 1997, remember, so we all had to go to his dad’s shop, use the computer in the office, and gather around it waiting for an email. I saw him doing that and thought it was awesome to be reaching people in other counties and getting those people to come to play in Limerick and then hopefully be asked to go to their hometowns to perform there. It wasn’t until I was in Giveamanakick when I would eventually put that into practice myself. By the early to mid-2000s, we were very lucky to have a group of like-minded individuals running a music collective in Limerick called the Aspersion Music Collective (AMC). They were bringing bands every single week. There’d be shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows with bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fugazi playing. It was amazing! All these bands we saw on the cover of NME were playing in a small pub in Limerick. They weren’t using big venues, they continued to put these shows on in small, independent pubs and they did it all themselves. They made it affordable, too. Looking back, it was such an amazing experience, we got to play with these bands! Being around the AMC crew and seeing their ethos really put me on the path I wanted to go down in the way I wanted to create music independently. Since then, it’s been cyclical like any other city or county, in terms of different bands and artists coming up in Limerick. For a few years now, Limerick has been booming. It’s down to the fact that the young people are doing it again. You have Denise Chaila, one of the most articulate people I know. She has an uncanny ability to express exactly what a whole bunch of people in this country are thinking. Everyone in Limerick knew it was only a matter of time before a greater audience became captivated by her. And, she just has it. Elsewhere, DIY LK are taking care of the independent alternative musical scene. I don’t mean alternative in the guitar-based sense, it’s more so anything left of centre. There’s PX Music crew, a really tight collective for the hip-hop artists. Again, they’re alternative because there’s no way the incredible hip-hop they’re making is mainstream. Then you have something like the Siege of Limerick which happens twice a year in the Spring and Autumn. That’s basically a load of free metal shows that take place across three rooms in Dolan’s from noon to midnight that’s organised by the Bad Reputation crew. Everybody knows each other in some way, too. I suppose part of why people are talking about the music scene in Limerick at the moment is because we’re all making music that’s cross-genre and it spans every demographic, as well. That makes me so happy because it’s really inspiring for me to see these much younger people making the most excellent music across every genre. You have Post Punk Podge, who’s a serial collaborator. He’s worked with TPM a lot, and recently released a song that Míchael Keating from Bleeding Heart Pigeons produced. I played guitar with Rusangano Family for a while, so now anytime MuRli’s producing new beats he’d give me a call to play guitar, and I’ll arrive at the studio and spend a few days recording. Likewise, if I’m working on something and ask them to put some bars down or backing vocals, they’ll always get on board straight away. There’s never a second thought about it and that’s kind of how the Limerick music scene is at the moment. Everybody is working together. I work with Music Generation Limerick City (MGLC), and the students there are seeing all of these amazing musicians in the county doing well. This has led to the students I’m working with adopting a sentiment of ‘I can do that!’ As long as that ethos continues in Limerick, it’ll be as healthy as it’s ever been. Steve Ryan is a musician (Giveamanakick, Windings & more), educator with Music Generation Limerick City and works with Out On A Limb records. 20 of God Knows and MuRli, during her performances and our meeting. While Chaila talks freely and earnestly about her career, how she addresses anxiety and the importance of community, particularly the one she’s developed through music, there are several sweet moments where God Knows and MuRli make a humorous comment relating to the topic at hand or the song playing through the speakers in the restaurant which are met with resounding laughter. There are several moments, also, during our time together where Denise turns to MuRli, curious about his process, notably, his approach when working on Go Bravely. “I have a question for you actually,” she directs a knowing smile his way. “Did you know from the moment we started recording that this would be a mixtape?” His answer is a perfect distillation of why he favoured this format over an album. “I always knew we’d do a mixtape because, at that point, we were calling you ‘Denise Chaila, spoken word artist’. But, we knew we wanted to offer other aspects of her artistry; elements of her spoken word work but also her rapping and singing. How do you pack that into an album? That’s when we decided to aim for a mixtape. That gave us extra freedom to experiment with the sound when we weren’t sure what shape or form the music would take. You can showcase all of that cohesively in the context of a mixtape.” A recurring theme of our conversation lies in Chaila’s appreciation for her community of collaborators, how integral they were during the making of the mixtape which began in 2018. “This project, what I’ve created alongside my friends with narolane [their independent record label] is something beautiful. It’s homemade, it’s homegrown. It’s the result of faith, conviction and a dogged refusal to abandon our dreams. There’s been a lot of sacrifice on our journey. In a way, we sacrificed a linear milestone narrative where you go to school, college and then go on to forge a career. You abandon the very nice plotted out graph for yourself to go into uncertain waters.” At this point, Chaila is overjoyed describing the passion she has for her work. “I love my music,” she beams. “We were listening to the songs today and spoke extensively about confronting any shyness we had going through it track-by-track. In the end, we couldn’t stop dancing! I think that’s because, at the end of the day, I didn’t make this on my own. Even myself and my career; Denise Chaila isn’t a single person. Denise Chaila is narolane. Narolane is a label of artists who are, honestly, like a family. So, when you look at the machine of me, you’re not looking at one individual who managed to pull this out of thin air and do it alone. I am not a selfmade woman, I am very proud to be part of a community. And that’s what makes the music fun. I’m not being so critical of myself all the time, I’m enjoying the music I made from a genuine place with people I love. When I look back on it, I can’t not be proud of it because I’m like, ‘Wow, we made this together!’”, she says giving MuRli a euphoric look. Whether it’s in an interview or a verse from her mixtape, Chaila consistently delivers this level of positivity and empowerment. Her voice is amongst the most important and inspiring in Ireland today, resonating with people of all generations and backgrounds. In this regard, it’s impossible not to become completely lost in her words as wisdom abounds in everything she says. Across Go Bravely, Chaila espouses self-belief, social curiosity and creating memories with friends. She communicates this in a vernacular that’s intelligent and wildly funny, showcasing both sides of her personality. In a short space of time, Chaila slips between profound statements of intent (“Everything I said I stand by”) to referencing spice boxes, Bilbo Baggins and Batman. This endearing and very human aspect to her lyricism was born from a time where Chaila was confronting deeply personal matters. “This [Go Bravely] is the healthiest representation of what I was working through at the time,” she reveals. “I consider myself a great coward. But I was trying to teach myself how to be a coward and do the right thing: Be a coward and defend yourself. Be a coward and do all these challenging things. You don’t have to be defined by your flaws. Every year, I’ll find new bad habits to work on and break no matter how many I defeat. You might as well begin the process of embracing, loving and respecting yourself now and not wait until the future. I know that there’s no magical future version of myself that’s going to fix or save me. Instead, I choose to claim myself in this moment. That’s what I’m trying to communicate across Go Bravely. Can’t Stop Me is one of my favourite songs because it was written from the depth of my depression, yet it wasn’t coming from a position of defeat. I’m probably going to have anxiety and depression for a very long time. However, I’ve been able to perform in front of really big audiences with my anxiety. Not because I wasn’t anxious, but because I’d given myself the support to do things in a healthy way.” Recently, those big audiences have included London’s Barbican Centre and the opening of the Museum of Literature in Dublin. How is it, then, that Chaila is able to confront the sometimes debilitating symptoms of anxiety to give the level of performance that she does. “Don’t switch it off. Look at it. I think it helps to realise what anxiety is and where it comes from,” she suggests. “Anxiety is your brain’s best attempt to protect you from a pursuit that feels dangerous. It stems back to when human beings were developing instincts that serve to save you against actual predators. In our society, you feel stressed in an exam as though you’re being pursued by a leopard. Your brain is trying to help you get out of harm’s way. Your heart rate’s up because blood is pumping around your body. Your breath is shallow because that helps you run faster. Your stomach is queasy because your body wants you to relieve yourself so you can feel lighter to be quicker. Your brain is going a hundred miles an hour because your faculties are moving much faster than they ever have because you need to think sharp if you’re in danger.” Beyond the physical manifestation of anxiety in our bodies, Chaila breaks down the emotional side, as well. “It’s also why, when you’re nervous or under pressure, you’ll find the best of you comes out. Someone will