It doesn t happen very often, but sometimes, just sometimes, you stumble across a talent that doesn t correspond to anything else happening. At a time when most no-hopers are chasing a record deal to the detriment of the music, it is truly an event when someone disregards convention and simply produces raw, honest music. Raw, honest music is exactly what 23-year-old Hally writes. To date he has been prolific beyond his years with a debut album The Fascination With Poppy quietly winning over a growing band of admirers. He has already stuffed the DA Club and the Music Centre, although you haven t seen many column inches celebrating his genius yet. Prepare for that beautiful moment when a well-kept secret starts to bloom.
Hally is doing a major show on Friday 26th March in the Temple Bar Music Centre. He sees this as an opportunity to reveal the development of Hally the band and Hally the show. This is only the fourth gig of the twelve-piece show. There is some stuff that reverts to The Fascination where it is just myself and strings. I never wanted to be a singer/songwriter as such since it bores me. All that feeling sorry for yourself!
When I went to college in Dublin, I went to the Baggot and the like, and maybe one out of a hundred of singer/songwriters were alright. It just wasn t for me. Sure The Fascination With Poppy was a very personal record, and acted very much as a cleansing for me at that particular time, but I never played a gig on my own for The Fascination with Poppy and it was a very conscious thing for me.
Hally s music and lyrics contains some acute reflections on what it is like to grow up in the Ireland of today. I was a teenager in Dublin and a student here, and I was very aware of everything that was going on around me, whether it be drug culture or music. A lot has happened in the last eight years. People have changed dramatically and can connect with what it is like to be off your face in a club. People in this day and age say no, it s not happening. Young people don t go to clubs and get off their face . They do! Everybody does. They can deny it all they like but it s happening and it has been happening for the last eight years.
That is not to say I m political. I write about love, relationships falling apart, coming of age, growing up, coming out the other side of five years of bedlam in college or whatever. A good percentage of my age group has done that and they see that in the songs. They like it and come up to me and say yeah I did that . That s amazing when that happens.
Hally grew up in Galway and studied Law in Dublin and London. However, his destiny lay in far more diverse and expressive activities from an early age. I always wrote. I remember getting a Seamus Heaney book for my twelfth birthday. My Mum still tells the story of when I came into the kitchen with a three-page poem and she said that s great . Then I showed her the Seamus Heaney book! I d just more or less transcribed it.
I wrote for years and I used to do a lot of painting. My ambition was to go to art college. When I was in college, I found music to be my finest expression and my easiest way to express what I have to say. Law was fascinating and very interesting but I realised that I couldn t get on with the people. My dad is a Barrister so it was very hard for me to break the news to him that I wanted to be a musician! But at least I can understand all the contracts!
Hally could be getting increasingly familiar with contracts very soon. On the 26th a veritable avalanche of A+R personnel are hotfooting it to the Music Centre to check out this elusive and unique talent. How does Hally react to record company hyperbole and the strong possibility of signing the dotted line?
It is not something I m going to rush into. Last year with The Fascination there was a lot of people knocking on doors. I was just yeah, great they are interested , but I was trying to express to people what my vision was; the full show, the visuals and that it was going to take me a year to get this together. And some people found it hard to understand that. I come from the heart and I like to think that I can maintain that and that people, whoever they are, will respect that. I know a lot of people just won t. Now I m ready to record the next album and whether it is with a record company or on my own doesn t really matter. I m going to do it anyway. It is ripe at the moment, very, very ripe. n
Hally plays the Temple Bar Music Centre on March 26th.