After a period of near-total burnout, Paddy Hanna returns with his fifth album Oylegate.

While he initially planned to make a traditional Irish record, his new release leans into a slower, more introspective sound, influenced by Soviet-era cinema, synth-based textures, and brought to life alongside Gilla Band producer and long-time collaborator Daniel Fox.

Currently touring the record around Ireland, Paddy opens up about the challenges he faced before and during the making of the album, the taxing reality of funding music independently, and the winding road back to creative inspiration.

“The truth is, this album happened because my last album flopped,” he says. “If my last album was the big success I desperately wanted it to be, this album would not exist. You would’ve just been listening to Imagine I'm Hoping Pt. 2.”

That turning point, he explains, led him to consider leaving music altogether. “When I said I lost faith in myself I meant it. There is no word of exaggeration there, I really did give up music. New Delhi was my swan song. I thought, okay we’re done after this.”

India ended up being a pivotal chapter.

“It’s a very strange story. It happened around a time that I really lost faith in myself. And absolutely at random I got a DM from a student at Mumbai IIT… My initial thought was ‘Who is this lunatic?’”

After some last-minute calls to the Irish consulate, a fan in the embassy helped secure funding for Paddy and his band to play two shows in Mumbai and New Delhi.

“A total Hail Mary. As far as gigs go, I couldn’t imagine better. My god did they know how to party. Everything you see about India in popular culture is true, everything ramps up to a million.”

Still, returning to Ireland meant facing uncertainty. Fresh off a set at Whelan’s, Paddy is slowly stepping back into the spotlight.

“Whelan’s was the first night we have played in this hemisphere since the India shows. It was really scary. There’s so much work behind the scenes to get this album to where it is, and I have not been able to switch off that part of my brain - the ‘we need to get things done’ part,” he shares. “It was like reanimating a corpse, slowly learning to walk again.”

Paddy Hanna at Whelan's. Copyright by Curtis DeSmith.

Throughout, the singer reiterated that he credits his family's support - emotional and financial - with saving the record. “I was only able to go to the places I went to in this record because of my family’s love and support… I can’t stress that enough.”

"I raised the money for my first two albums, and I did not make my money back on them. The idea of making an album now that I had a kid, just sounded like the most selfish thing on the planet. To waste money making music that could be going towards clothes or food for my daughter."

Despite additional support from the Arts Council, Paddy's path still wasn’t straightforward.

"I had applied a few months before I had my complete mental breakdown and gave up, so when I got the funding, I remember exactly where I was. I was in my parent’s garden, and I thought, fuck, what am I going to do with this money now?

"The Arts Council are amazing in what they offer artists. They don’t wave a magic wand and suddenly you’re a great artist. All they do is offer the potential for you to realise a vision - and that’s a really incredible thing we have in this country for smaller artists to have: an opportunity."

Originally, he had planned to write a concept album consisting of traditional Irish Music.

“But here is the thing - there are plenty of traditional Irish artists who are making very interesting music," Paddy says. "We have Lankum and John Francis Flynn, Junior Brother, Lisa O’Neill… I really don’t think I need to add myself to this equation."

The creative shift began one quiet evening, where he randomly thought to himself: “I have never seen the movie Solaris"

"I put it on and I put it on mute," he shares. "I just started playing piano while the movie played. It’s such a visually stunning film that I was able to get lost in it… In that moment I stepped out of my head, and I was able to rise above the exhaustion and the depression and find this creative space. And I did, every night.”

“I still haven’t watched Solaris with the sound on,” he continues, laughing. “I’m scared it might change the experience for me”

The process helped him reconnect with writing, but also with himself.

“It is such an expressive film… I was trying to unpeel the emotions that were going through the character's heads, and through that I was able to unpick my own emotions. I was able to articulate fears and emotions in ways that previously I couldn’t do.

“When I became a stay-at-home dad I rarely left the house. I was living for my daughter, and the problem with that is, there’s not that much to write about. I had no inspiration, and I wanted to avoid writing overly emotional songs about having kids.”

Working again with acclaimed producer Daniel Fox, the expansive sound of Oylegate started to take shape.

“Daniel would plug the synthesisers into several different pre-amps and he would fiddle with the tone to create one that is warm, enveloping.

“Our process is we each pick our favourite ten out of like 20 demos, and the ones we agreed on automatically go on the album. The ones that we disagree on we have to debate.”

One such debate centred around the track ‘Martha’.

“I'm very lucky to work with Daniel Fox. A lot of people find me off putting or don’t know what I’m talking about but he just gets me, he leans into the weird and he leans into the pop, he loves it.

"He really fought to put ‘Martha’ on the album, and I fought against it, I thought it was too pop-y, but he has such a deep understanding of music, so I decided to trust him and lean into it."

It was Hanna’s wife, Jilly - also the artist behind his album covers - who suggested naming the record Oylegate, after a small village in County Wexford, which is also referenced in the track 'Oylegate Station'.

“I was originally going to call the album ‘Tucson, Arizona’. She asked why not name it Oylegate… She felt it would be more personal for me, mainly because I’ve never been to Arizona,” he laughs.

Furthermore, he recalls writing the hook for ‘Thumbtack Ticky’ while his wife was watching Love Island.

“I have this Casio toy keyboard, I collect them… And playing around with that and some layers I made that song in around the length of an episode of Love Island.”

Looking forward, the Dublin singer also plans to turn his obsession into an album.

"I’m planning to do something with the Casio toy keyboards, I want to make a weird album recorded entirely on them. But that’s way down the line.”

Until then, we have Oylegate to enjoy. A record, in Paddy's words, about: “Family, the Russian cosmonaut, and warmth."

Reflecting on the process, he concludes: “Coming off the back of this experience I think I now more than ever know what it is to be an artist who had given up. And there’s nothing that saddens me more than the thought of somebody’s creativity dying because they led themselves to believe it was the wrong path.”

“The easiest part was making the album; the hardest part was getting people to give a shit.”

Listen to his new album Oylegate below.