Shortly after she touched down in Sydney, I caught up with Irish singer/songwriter Lisa Hannigan (best known for her work with Damien Rice) to talk about the Way To Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake shows (which she’s in town for), her new solo album Passenger, the music video for “Knots” (which got pretty messy) and plenty more.
You’ve been on the go for a while now… how do you keep healthy on the road?
You should always try and eat as healthy as possible. It’s not always possible, but I certainly try to keep healthy that way. Singing every night you can be susceptible to colds and things like that. So I try to eat lots of fruit and vegetables to try and stave anything off.
Well I couldn’t recommend the Thai food in Sydney enough.
Yeah I’ve noticed so many Thai restaurants around Sydney! I absolutely love Thai food. I’m excited about that.
Let’s talk about the Way To Blue concerts… how are you feeling to be down here for the tour?
I’m playing the Sydney Opera House! It’ll be amazing… I can’t wait.
I understand the shows themselves go back quite some time… they were first performed at the beginning of 2010?
Yeah, Joe Boyd (curator) asked me to do the first set of the shows, and I absolutely loved it. BBC filmed them and I think it’s from that that these Australia shows have come about. It was such a treat. It was such a wonderful thing to work with such talented musicians, and see how they approach the same issue.
It’s mostly the same group of musicians for these Australian shows, plus a few local artists, so I think it’s going to be really good.
If you have that great experience that first time, I can’t imagine you not hanging around for another run of shows!
Absolutely. I would have loved to have done every run since. I know they did some in Italy which I would have loved to have been a part of. Because of the food alone I would have been happy! But I was working on my record at the time. So the moment I got the offer for the Australian shows, I said “cancel everything!” I made sure I could come over for this. And my record is out at the same time, so it’s perfect.
I was just about to mention! Your new record Passenger was released on Friday in Australia. How did the recording of it compare to the recording of your first record See Sew.
I felt like it was a lot easier this time around, just because I’d done it before. Where as the first time everything was so new to me. Probably like babies, you know! So I actually found it an easier process because I felt more comfortable about the whole idea… the process of it. It was a very relaxed thing. I’ve been working with the band I recorded with for a few years so we were comfortable together. Then I met Joe Henry by accident and we decided to work together. And it was a week of recording, and he has such a lovely relaxed way about him. The way he likes to do it is record live. So we were all sitting around in a circle, in a room, playing the tunes. That in itself makes for such a relaxed process. You can’t worry about every little thing while recording live.
My vocals are on everyone’s microphones so you have to accept things. I think it’s a good thing, especially for this record. I think it lent a sense of urgency to the whole thing. It was the same room where things were done, and that helped a lot. It certainly helped in getting it done in a week, because you wouldn’t have been able to do it so quickly if you had recorded everything separately.
I can certainly imagine. But from the result you would never guess it was recorded so quickly, let alone live!
Oh thank you! Yeah it was a very quick thing, and I initially thought that it was too short. But Joe said “no, no, it’s fine”. And sure enough he was right. Once we get all the sounds up, then it’s just a matter of trying to capture the right performance. I think that’s an important thing in the making of a record. Up until that point I suppose you’re just trying to do it right… you want to get all your bits right, in the right ways, in the right order. Where as here, I think the impetus was to create a performance that connected with Joe. And then once he said “I think that’s the one”, we’d all agree. We’d know he was right. We were just playing it for him, really, and then working from that. Because we were just playing for one person, I think that lends a sense of intimacy to it as well, that we were all just playing down the wires into Joe’s headphones.
Have you been able to play the majority of the album live yet?
Yeah, we’re just back from an American tour which went very well. And we’ve done an Irish tour as well. And after the Australian jaunt we’re back to the UK for some shows. We were all quite comfortable playing them live, given how we recorded the album. Nervous, of course, as to how it would go down in front of an audience. But even from the first gig, they’ve seemed to resonate well. Which is great, because that’s not always the case. And you never know… sometimes it doesn’t translate well in front of 300 people… but luckily they did. It was very heartening.
I remember the first show we did in the Summertime in Ireland. I just wanted to try out the songs. And it was quite immediate, I felt anyway. I breathed a sigh of relief let me tell you!
Well I wish we were hearing it while you were down here!
Me too!
Will you be bringing it down at any point do you think?
Hopefully next year. Plans are afoot anyway. And I certainly hope to be back with the band to do lots of show. I really like being in Australia, and I would like a proper reason to be here for longer.
Well I can’t wait to hear it. I’ve been particularly enjoying the music video for “Knots”… was that just the one take?
Just the one! I’m not sacrificing more than one of my frocks for this! *laughs* It made such a bloody mess. So we practiced with a bunch of water to get the choreography right. Every sort of paint is supposed to correspond with a different instrument, but of course by the time we actually got to shoot the paint out of the super soakers, it doesn’t hit at the right rhythm, so it didn’t translate exactly as I had hoped. It was a lot of fun, though quite harrowing, the whole thing… it will full on as you can see.
I actually made another video for the track “Little Bird”, which is the exact opposite of that video, though we did it in one take as well. But it’s all peaceful and clean and black and white. It’s all underwater too! I really like the idea of the one take video and Myles O’Reilly, who I worked with on the videos, he’s always game for trying stuff out. So when I brought him the Knots idea, he was very pleased to give it a go.
Looking further into the album, the track “O Sleep” features Ray LaMontagne. How did he get involved in the record?
I’d met him a couple of times before, and I’ve always wanted to write a proper duet. I knew I wanted one for this record. And he was at the top of my list of people to ask. Luckily he said yes, it was wonderful.
We had one day of overdubs in London with the Cello and Horn section, because we couldn’t bring them down to Wales, and he happened to be in London that day. He had a gig or something, and so he came round for an hour and sang his part. It was just fantastic. What pipes he’s got! I was so pleased he said yes, I just love his voice so much. I could hear it in the song and would have been disappointed if he’d said no!
You’re going to be teaming up with quite a few other artists as part of Way To Blue… what can we expect from you? Any surprises in store?
Well I’m going to be doing the same songs I did last time, the ones you can see on YouTube, like Black Eyed Dog. But I’m also going to be doing a duet with Zoe from Luluc, an Australian band. I haven’t met her yet but I’m really excited about it. We’re going to be doing a song called “Saturday Sun”.
And aside from that… there probably won’t be any interpretive dancing; there probably won’t be any partial nudity… I’m just trying to think what better surprises could be happening. But gosh, I’m so excited about singing in the Sydney Opera House. It’s just one of those things that you dream of doing as a singer. It really is an exciting thing. The kind of thing your Mum will be excited to tell people she meets at the supermarket. It’s the sort of thing where everyone in the world goes “wow”. I’m just over the moon about it, I can’t wait.
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Way to Blue was performed earlier tonight in Sydney, and moves to Melbourne for three shows at the Recital Centre on Sunday, the 13th. Tickets on sale now, limited remain! Meanwhile, Lisa’s new record Passenger is in stores now!
