Robert Grace: “I’m a sucker for proper depressing songs, like full-on heartbreakers. For this new album, I wanted to appeal to people who like that kind of music"

As he shares his first full-length album Happy Sad Songs, Robert Grace is calm, well-composed and unperturbed by the pressures of a debut. Speaking with the Kilkenny native ahead of releasing the LP, he's as ready as ever and beaming with promise as he welcomes this new era.

“I honestly can’t wait to get it out there. I’m proud of every track on Happy Sad Songs.” he offers, “I wrote loads of songs, but some didn’t make the cut. Every song on the album serves a purpose, and I’m proud of how each one manifested from my imagination. I wanted to make sure that every song made sense in the grand scheme of the album.”

Calling from his home in Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny, Robert Grace is everything you’d expect him to be: a laid-back, humble guy who seems relatively unconcerned with the trappings of success. Put plainly, he loves his job.

“Music and my family are the two things that keep me going. It’s not just work, it’s also my passion,” the singer-songwriter adds. “If I had another job with enough money to provide for my family, that passion wouldn’t change and I’d still try to make music every day. Getting sucked into the creative process is something I live for. It’s like therapy for me.”

The success of getting to do music full time didn’t come easy. After ten years of trying to break through the scene, it wasn’t until the pandemic that things started to come together for Grace.

“Just before lockdown, I nearly reached a point of debilitating self-doubt and I started to believe I reached the limit of my artistry. By January 2020, I had no money and no prospects on the industry front. I nearly stopped music altogether to get a stable, well-paying job so I could have a bit of money for my family,” he recalls. “When the pandemic shut everything down, it was equally impossible to find a job as it was pursuing music, so I figured I could approach my art from a different angle."

That’s when TikTok came into the foreground. The platform logged meteoric growth in 2020 as more and more users joined the app for a number of reasons, most of them revolving around monotony and a need to engage with the outside world. The single ‘Fake Fine’ became a viral hit, which led to more songs and TikTok content, and eventually a record deal from Sony Records, one of the industry’s most coveted labels.

“On a given day, I’d spend most of my time making and uploading content on TikTok," Grace remarks. "Just little verses and snippets sprinkled here and there. I was preparing to drop ‘Fake Fine,’ and I thought if I posted a TikTok every day in the days leading up to its release, then maybe I’d have a shot. Thankfully, it paid off.

“Everything clicked into place, which never happens. This whole experience was and still is something out of a fairytale. This isn’t to say I’m super lucky or anything, I put in a lot of work. But it’s so rare for everything to work out the way you always dreamed it would.”

From there, the fortuitous breaks continued. The lockdown fame gave Robert a grace period to warm up to label expectations and industry realities. As such, those long days spent isolating at home offered a surreal cushion from the constant touring, promotional campaigns and contracted deadlines expected of signed artists.

“Lockdown was good for me and it gave me time to prepare for the reality of fame. When I signed the record deal, I wasn’t ready for what was expected of me,” he adds. “The label gives you a decent chunk of money and there’s a lot of expectation that comes with it in terms of promoting your work and recording new stuff.

“But the pandemic allowed me to prepare for it all, I didn’t have to jump in straight away. I was just after having another kid, as well, and I was able to spend time with my family; I could be there for all the big milestones while pursuing music. The stars aligned for me.”

After a batch of successful singles that garnered millions of views, streams and devoted followers, Grace set his sights on bigger prospects. With a major record deal and loads of tested material, he seized the moment and started recording a full-length album. The singer-songwriter wanted the record to sonically encapsulate the broad-sweeping range of human emotion.

“I’m a sucker for proper depressing songs, like full-on heartbreakers,” Grace says. “For this new album, I wanted to appeal to people who like that kind of music, including those who don’t necessarily listen for lyrics, you know, they just like the vibe of a song. I wanted to blend the gravity of music with lyrical truth on Happy Sad Songs.”

The world of social distancing and home-bound isolation offered him a wealth of material and inspiration, from finding sudden fame and reflecting on the hard-won struggles to binge-watching television shows to fill the monotonous days. He spent long hours learning the ropes of the industry, meeting with label reps and mastering his own recording skills. In the end, lockdown saw Grace grow as an artist and person through a period of self actualisation.

“‘Euphoria’ is a personal favourite of mine on the album. I think it’s the best example of my growth on both personal and creative levels. In terms of the soundscape, it’s different from any other track on Happy Sad Songs. It’s a bit gospel and country, which are two genres that really speak to me but I never thought I could emulate until now.

“The song came to me after binge-watching the TV show Euphoria and I couldn’t stop thinking about the church scene with Labrinth and the lead Rue [Zendaya]. I drafted the chorus based on the emotions that scene brought up for me. Then I wrote the verses based on my personal experience. ”

In the scene he references, the main character confronts grief and the substance misuse that masked her pain. During a hallucination, she appears in a church surrounded by a gospel choir and R&B singer Labrinith, the show’s composer. The magnitude of that moment sets off a long-overdue release of the emotions she couldn’t voice. It’s a similar kind of catharsis Grace wanted his album to engender, especially with the added choral backing.

“I wrote it with Jake Richardson and a good friend, Ryan Mack. In the studio, Jake and I wanted to bolster the sound, and I thought a gospel choir would fit it perfectly. We absolutely squealed with joy when playing it back. I didn’t expect it to sound as good as it did.

“I love those moments where you’re making a song and you want to try something different to build new creative muscles. And it’s either going to be brilliant or the worst thing we’ve ever done. When it works out, it’s as though you’ve never been happier. It’s such a good feeling.”

The recording sessions saw Grace expand his artistry further and further, excited at whatever laid around each turned corner. He took his time with Happy Sad Songs, every track was ordered intentionally to fit a certain arc.

“It was important to put ‘Reasons’ as the finale to the album. I wanted to end Happy Sad Songs on a positive note," the Kilkenny singer adds. "A lot of my music carries a pretty heavy message and I wanted to end it on a note where there’s still a reason to be here and push through.

“I struggle with mental health regularly, I’m not as bad as I once was. I think as you get older, you start to understand yourself better and you can draw connections to the root causes of your feelings. As such, I’m better at talking about how I feel nowadays, but I wasn’t always like that. When I started making music, I wasn’t great at voicing my struggles and writing songs was a way of garnering some kind of emotional release of the things I’d built up inside.

“That’s why I make music. It’s for the people who can’t put words to their struggles. If just one of my songs can say it for them and they find relief, then I’ve done my job.”

• Happy Sad Songs is out now