Cork pop singer Nella has returned with her new single, Weightless. We asked her the BIG questions . . .
Nella has previously worked with Donal Lunny on her song We're All In This Together and is the vocalist on folk-metal band Cruachan’s song The Changeling.
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She was also the featured solo vocalist on World of Warcraft, with a global audience of 250 million players, and has performed alongside full orchestras including the Prague Philharmonic.
Weightless follows a period of international touring and working with Emmy and Grammy-winning composers in L.A.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I became a mother to my daughter at 15 - so everything I've built, I've built around that. It shaped me completely and I wouldn't change it. I'm also the solo vocalist on the 250 million player video game World of Warcraft: Legion soundtrack, which means hundreds of millions of people have heard my voice in game - mad altogether to comprehend. And my new single Weightless went to number one on the iTunes charts.
How would you describe your music?
I once said to Jeff Jampol - the legendary rock manager who has worked with the estates of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Michael Jackson - that I find this question almost impossible to answer. And he said to me: 'It's not up to you to decide your genre. Your audience will decide that for you. You just do your thing.' I can't tell you how freeing that was to hear. I've written and sung folk, alt-pop, folk metal, ballads, orchestral and operatic video game scores. Audiences and critics tend to describe my voice as haunting, ethereal, Celtic - and I've been compared to Sinéad O'Connor, Enya, Kate Bush and Ellie Goulding. I'll take all of that. And I guess Sinéad O'Connor did the same thing - I couldn't tell you her one genre either. She just did her thing.
Who are your musical inspirations?
As a child it was the A Woman's Heart album. That record shaped something deep in my little Irish heart. I'm really drawn to voices that are unique - I kind of experience music as colours, which makes it interesting or overwhelming. Damien Dempsey's Live at the Olympia is one of those rare albums for me - his voice, the Irishness, the storytelling, the way he weaves soul and contemporary production with whistles and these textured melodic journeys. It excited something in my ear and my heart that I still can't fully explain. I don't listen to music often - there's already so much music happening in my head that adding sound can feel like too much. But when something reaches me, it reaches me completely. And those are the things that made me a singer.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
The Spice Girls at Croke Park - and I ran straight back out during the first song. The noise was overwhelming and not even the St. John Ambulance volunteers could convince me to go back in. My poor mother had paid a fortune for those tickets. I've always been deeply sensitive and sensory - music is an almost physical experience for me - and honestly, that's probably everything you need to know about why I write the way I do.
What was the first record you ever bought?
Christina Aguilera's Genie in a Bottle - and funnily enough I've since spent enough time in Los Angeles to have crossed paths with one of the people who wrote it. That's the magic of LA - you end up in a room with the people who made the soundtrack to your childhood. It still excites me every time that happens.
What's your favourite song right now?
Damien Rice's Rootless Tree. I recently came out of one of those intense relationships - the high highs and low lows kind, that overall just wasn't good for me and that I took too long to leave. If you know the chorus of that song, you'll understand everything you need to know about where I'm at right now. On the upside, I've got a lot of great songs written out of it. So, every cloud . . .
Favourite lyric of all time?
Honestly? It's probably something I wrote myself - and not because I think I'm brilliant. It's because sometimes a lyric will arrive through me from somewhere I can't name - source, the divine, who knows - and I won't understand what it means for weeks, months, sometimes years. And then one day it lands. I realise my brain was quietly processing something the whole time and it helps me process my life experience and learn from it far after the song or lyric was written. And then I get to perform it to an audience and witness them being moved by it - watch them get a chance to perhaps process some of their own unhealed stuff through it. That is an honour. And a responsibility. Which honestly is what keeps me motivated to keep going with this music thing. The brain fascinates me - I've built another career around that fascination actually, as a neurodiversity consultant and ADHD executive coach. I guess both things are about creating a pathway for navigating the world with a completely different operating system.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Something live, with breaths and soul and space. If I can only listen to one song it would need to be simple and beautiful - a duet, a guy and a girl, lush harmonies weaving together. That's kind of my drug. The same feeling I get touring with orchestras - using dynamics to intertwine my voice in real time between the instruments. A challenging, rewarding game. Too deep? Ha.
Where can people find your music/more information?
My new single Weightless just came out and went to number one on the iTunes charts on Friday. Find me on Spotify and all streaming platforms, my website, and on Instagram @nellaiamnella.
Alan Corr
