Wallis Bird interview: Irish radio, U2 & more

"Mostly I beat people into submission and they end up doing what I want them to do…"
Tempting as it may be to paint Wallis Bird as some sort of violent maniac, the truth is that the Wexford native is as charming as ever as she explains, matter-of-factly, how she goes about captivating her paying audience. She's "sitting around dossing" after sound check in Switzerland when Hot Press comes calling, wondering what kind of crowd she might draw that evening. "The thing is to push the energy and see what can happen", she says. "Jam around and not stay formed to structure. Be spontaneous." Quite. Bird tends to jam around herself, having relocated first to London – an ultimately stifling experience not conducive to her bohemian ways – and then onto Berlin, which seems to suit her just fine if fourth record Architect is anything to go by.

Berlin has been good to you…
Ever since I've visited the city I've had an affinity with it. It's really poor and health and mental health and human wealth and animal wealth is highly important. There are people who will take over a space for six months and rent it out and have wild parties or a pop-up shop or whatever they want and then close it down again. It's below the law, a little bit. It's about making sure that everyone is looked after with health and education and children getting taken care of by the state and so on. Animals in restaurants is fine, bringing children to gigs is fine… it's very chilled.
Mental health is a hugely important thing. Does music help?
That's a given, how therapeutic music and any kind of creative expression is, that release of energy. There's a scary thing about not releasing too much energy, about keeping some for yourself. That takes away from the art a little bit. If you pour everything into the one jug you leave nothing for yourself. Stand-up comedians, I believe, seem to have the least fun in their job because they mostly do it alone. You have to be 'on' and you're seen to be funny and that's as far as your limitations go. Creatively, you delve into the well of yourself and let that out.
We tend to think of actors and musicians as 'artists' first and 'people' second…
Yeah. The show must go on. It doesn't matter what's happening in life, the show must go on. That's an artist's motto, so you can imagine that people would completely expect that of you, that you're always on. Poor fuckin' Robin Williams. It's awful. It's a huge choice, a huge personal choice to go and take your own life. I have respect for this, full stop, so if he wanted to do it, he wanted to do it. And maybe he did seek help. There's a lot to be said about that. It's the same as if you break your knee; you go to a doctor. If your head hurts, then go to a doctor.
The attitude is improving, but there's still a stigma attached for a lot of people.
I think it really came across when Robin Williams died, that loads of people were like, 'woah', that this was a highly respected, well-loved person and everyone thought that he would be ok and he was in such a high position in his life that he could probably afford the greatest things in life and yet ultimately he didn't want to be here anymore. What was it down to; that he needed help and didn't get it? Unfortunately, somebody needs to be a martyr so that people can grow from it and everybody's response was wonderful.
You mentioned the danger of pouring too much of yourself into something…
I noticed that when I'm on tour, the last thing I can actually do is sit down and write something. The whole day is spent getting up on stage and talking to people and being 'on' and then singing about your emotions and stuff like that. So I've actually drawn back quite and bit and just become sort of a machine to serve the song, which is an interesting new way. I used to do the 110% thing and just be emotionally vapid afterwards or just so over the top emotional that it was just twee. I've taken a totally different stance to it now. Keeping that 10 per cent for myself is the most important thing right now. I've been doing this my whole life and I'm going to be doing this my whole life so I need to be careful about what I'm spending.
That's a really interesting way of putting it. I've never heard anyone refer to themselves as a machine before but I guess it makes perfect sense.
If you're being logical about it, I guess the machine thing would come into it. I've never used that description for myself because I'm all about emotional energy and the physicality and the chemistry. I think I've definitely gone more 'machine' on stage these days.
That's the title of your next album sorted.
Machine… yeah! That's fucking good, man. It's really good, actually! Ok, I'll credit you with that. You can write it for me, just ghostwrite the whole thing.
I'd be honoured. I'm more of a drummer, though. Lyrics aren't really my specialty.
Listen, have you read my lyrics? You're fine.
A lot of people described Architect as your 'dance' album…
I think it got misconstrued. What was meant to come out of it was that I've incorporated dance elements all over the record, but there's very little synth going on. The first track is 'Hardly, Hardly' and you know the way that people stick on a record, listen to the first track and go 'yay' or 'nay' and then say to you, 'Yeah, your record is really dance-y', and you're thinking, 'Yeah, you just listened to the first track'.
There's house elements all over the record because it's called Architect and so when I started really listening to house I realised that house is all about the build. There's always a really slow build and so much happening the whole time. It's minuscule elements of a time shift here or an anti-rhythm there and it reverses the elements of the rhythm and stuff. So that's what I used. I didn't go in for synths, it's mostly built around house rhythm.
With the other processes of the last four records, it was much more pernickety and annoying. Lots of different input into running order and things like that. This one is so genre-driven that I literally went kinda chronological and I put the first song that I wrote last and then went from there. So it starts from the very last tune and then you go into 'Hardly, Hardly'. For me, at least. These are things that only I know and if I say it out loud to somebody in an interview, but the track listing was totally easy. There was only one reflection from somebody else who suggested switching one around and I was like, 'Yeah, totally, do it'.
Each song just sounds completely fuckin' different, genre wise, and that's fine, that's the record. I could put any set anywhere and any song anywhere. The only stipulation was to open with 'Hardly, Hardly'. After that it's 10 songs, 40 minutes… grand, call it Architect, fine. It was a very short process, to be honest.
What's your take on modern pop music and what dominates the radio?
Have you heard the Beyoncé record? Aw, dude, it's fuckin' epic. It's epic. It's so drilled. It has this enormous after-bounce. After you hear it, you're still bouncing. She uses this really crass sound, really 'go fuck yourself' production, she does not give two shits. And it's incredibly sexualised. She's sexualising herself… you have to check it out, it's so good. You'll love it. In terms of what's on the radio, we were listening to it last night while playing pool and it's really hard to draw out the gems, the real good 'gem' songs. The frequency is all the same. The tone of the instruments that are being used across the board is really homogenised so shit is starting to sound the same. There are certain synths that are hip right now or certain drum sounds, that cavernous, orchestral Bastille kind of thing. There are really good tunes being written but you can't differentiate. Everything sounds the same.
And now you have songwriters being told to crowbar 'dance floor' into the lyrics…
Or put the word 'radio' in there. It's awful. I've done the playlist thing, too. We're allowed to choose what we want now and we have Internet radio. I think when we have so much choice it means that we're listening more, that we're going out there and choosing more. And you can refine your style and what you're into. That extends to word of mouth and people telling you to check something out. I don't think music has gone downhill in that respect. I think it's gone uphill and radio needs to catch up to that but I think that radio doesn't know its arse from its elbow and it's just trying to earn money and stay afloat at this stage. But there's so much great music.
Do you know what really cracks me up? That there's no Irish music on Irish radio. I'm living in Germany and I would say that 80 per cent of what they play is German. And that's only in the last 10 years. It's really changed. It used to be seen as terribly uncool to speak on the radio in your national language, in German, and now most of what's being played on German radio is German. And we have such a good well of Irish music right now and we're not being supported.
You do get the likes of John Barker and others specialising their playlists towards Irish acts but they're almost the exception to the rule.
It's almost expected not to work or something. We look across the river to England and it's like, 'Well we have to stick to this quota, this playlist is the European-sanctioned playlist', because they're being sponsored by Samsung or O2 or whoever. There is a lot of that. Tony Fenton, Ian Dempsey, Ray D'Arcy… they do play what they want and they're very supportive. There's a lot of people who are. Provincial radio play what they want. But there is that homogenisation. And then Hozier comes out and it's like, 'Fuck! We have a great artist!', and I'm like, dude, he's not the first great artist to come out of Ireland. It's like we're gasping for something amazing to come out of Ireland.
Architect won you the object of your affections…
Yeah! Totally.
You'll need to engineer a horrible break-up in order to create the next album…
I know. I need some really aggressive… I want to go down the metal route so I'll need to write a song about murder or something.
Slipknot are back. You could audition.
I'm already in the band! I could be Joey.
You could. He was fired.
The singer?
No, that's Corey. They have great boy band pin-up names, now I think of it.
Joey was the bassist?
Drummer. Their bassist actually passed away suddenly a few years ago…
Oh shit, Joey was the drummer who drummed upside down. How can you fire that guy? They're still deadly, though! The new album is good? I love when bands come back and they kill. What was your worst album this year?
Jessie J. It's just everything wrong with that homogenised modern pop we talked about. Plus, it's so obviously written for the American market. The best line I saw written about it, and I was kicking myself for not thinking of it, was, 'This isn't an album, it's someone begging for a green card'.
[laughs uproariously] Very good!
I was fairly scathing, myself. I got bullied on Twitter by some of her more colourful fans, as a result.
No! How did that make you feel?
I felt big and important for two whole days. It's been a great year for music, though. What have you liked?
I've been away from Ireland but I really want to get back so I can buy the new Adebisi Shank record. I tried to get into their last show but I had something else on. They're brilliant. Gemma Hayes is in the studio and I'm looking forward to that.
Did you enjoy your free U2 download?
I un-loaded it! People were asking me what I'm downloading and I've never downloaded anything in my entire life. I'm a buyer. So yeah, I un-loaded it. I was so annoyed about it! I listened to the main song, the single, which I found really good. It's nice. It's definitely not my style but there's a bit of Achtung Baby in there, a bit of Depeche Mode, so I thought that was cool.
Yet you deleted it. Was it more that you disagreed with the method of having it foisted upon you?
Oh, I don't want anybody fucking with my information. No way. It's not yours to fuck with. Even if you're giving me something, I don't want it unless I asked for it. My thought on it is that if they're putting it on, they can take stuff away, too. They have complete hold over my information and I don't want that touched with.
Plus the whole, 'It's a gift' thing irked a lot of people.
Here's a gift! It's like me giving my own CDs away as a present. I could have made you something, but here's my CD… just use it as a coaster or for roach paper, it's fine!

Wallis Bird plays The Academy, Dublin on Saturday November 22. She also headlines Cork Opera House on November 19, Dolan's, Limerick on November 20 and Monroe's, Galway on November 22. Architect is out now.