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Sinead Harnett talks about killer collabs and transatlantic co-signs
RnB/Hip Hop | Friday 4th September 2015 | Annalisa
This Finchley native has already collaborated with musical luminaries like Disclosure, Rudimental, Wiley and Ryan Hemsworth. Her credentials are certified with co-signs from the legendary Janet Jackson and she’s supported The Roots and Mary J. Blige on stage. She’s been shortlisted for MTV’s Brand New For 2015 award, she’s signed to Virgin/EMI Records and working with super producers like Rodney Jerkins and James Fauntleroy on her debut album. It’s the singer, songwriter, performer extraordinaire known as Sinead Harnett.
I was doing the research and I came across so much. Do you feel like it’s been a whirlwind? How has it felt for you?
For me it doesn’t feel immediate or overnight, it definitely feels like I’ve been working towards this for quite a while. It’s been about three years since I graduated from uni and started doing this full time, and in that time I’ve had the privilege of working with other people that have broken, like Disclosure and Rudimental, and then in the last year I’ve been writing my own album, so I feel like it’s rustling and it’s ready to happen. But I’m glad that I’ve done the work to get to this point, yeah definitely.
Well I know you’ve done so much but I’d like to rewind the clock a little bit, so people can understand who you are, where you come from. You’re from Finchley but do you come from a particularly musical family or are you a one-off anomaly?
No one in my blood family is musical. I lived with my mum and sister when I was growing up and my sister moved out to uni and she spent time with the other side of her family, we’ve got different dads, so I spent quite a lot time alone when I was growing up. There was a family down the road that are really musical; the dad is a big double bass player, he plays at Ronnie Scott’s, the mum was in musicals, and then the brother and sister they both are very musical, so I guess I was influenced or guided by them as well. It’s just been something I’ve loved doing since I was really, really little.
But when was the turning point? A lot of people love music but they don’t actually decide to become an artist, so can you pinpoint when you said “I don’t just love it as a fan, I want to make this my life”?
I don’t think really that it was a decision just because we can’t really wake up and decide to be a millionaire, you know what I mean. I’m not eluding to the money at all but just it’s very hard to be like “now I’m going to be a princess of the world” or whatever. It’s something that I so badly wanted and I was doing it every possible avenue I could, like when I wasn’t studying I’d be writing, or if wasn’t eating I’d be travelling to London to go and record, or if I wasn’t doing this I’d be performing. I performed at uni, I was in a band, I was a waitress who ended up being a singing waitress, so I was working towards it not knowing it could be an option, so then when it actually did become a job, even now I still pinch myself.
That it’s happening?
That I’m allowed to call it my job, yeah.
You’ve worked with Disclosure, Rudimental, people like that, how did those collaborations come about?
So I met my manager soon after I graduated, and we both had heard of Disclosure, they’d had a few things on the radio and Annie Mac was completely championing them. I loved the sound of that, went and met them, did one of their first writing sessions they’d ever done, wrote ‘Boiling’, which was on their first EP, just before the album, and it was included on the album as well. Then Rudimental, their management contacted my management, and went in and wrote ‘Hide’ with them, and then wrote two more tracks on their album. So yeah it was through hearing the music and loving it.
Which is the way it should be. I want to focus a bit more on your songwriting because some people say it’s a lost art now. A lot of artists now are so manufactured, people just write songs for them and it’s not really them that you’re getting, but you write and sing as well, so what inspires you? Where do you draw inspiration from?
What inspires me to write is the fact that it was a way of, coping is a strong word, but it was a way for me to feel like a) I had a purpose, and b) to fill my time. As a child I was living at home with my mum, so a lot of the time I was on my own, my mum worked. Organically I would just write stuff down, we had a piano at home and I’d sing, it was like a therapy, which sounds very cheesy but that’s just what it was for me, so that’s where it comes from. Like "how do I get through certain emotions?", and also just putting how you’re feeling into something else, and then that hopefully moving other people, that was always a dream, so I think life inspires me. And not knowing what to do with my feelings, I don’t know where else they’d go if I didn’t have it. Getting a bit deep guys.
I like it though! ‘No Other Way’, they say that’s the single that brought you a lot of attention, we’ve got 315,000 views on YouTube on that one, it was The Guardian track of the week, it got you critical acclaim, so tell me the creative history of that song.
I went into the studio with a guy called Utters, he had a rough instrumental down, and it was very effortless. And the song mirrors that because it’s feel-good, it’s relaxed and it’s quite an easy listen. It was just about wanting the person I was speaking to to just not have to feel like they have to be any other way but themselves, it was a reassuring song. Then Snakehips came in, did some more production on it, and then it became the finished article. And I already had a bit of a rapport with the guys, I’d worked with them before, I did a tune for their project as well, so that felt like the right first move for me and that’s where I was at that time.
And tell me about the video, were you involved in the treatment for that?
I really, really feel that it’s important to be part of every aspect, and treatments being a big part for me because how I’m represented and what I want to get across is really important to me. With that video, it was basically performance. I felt like at an earlier stage in my career I didn’t know necessarily if I was gonna have bundles of ideas for it, it was just “this is my beginning, this is the song”. It was never gonna be me standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower. And then with the videos I’ve been doing recently, I’ve had more and more input and I love being a part of that too, the aesthetics.
Your making waves on both sides of the Atlantic, Janet Jackson’s co-signed you, you’ve supported Mary J. Blige and The Roots, so you’re getting transatlantic attention right now, which is very difficult in the music industry especially for UK artists, so how did all that happen?
The support gigs came through my booking agent, who puts me forward for things, as booking agents do, that feels appropriate for my project. I really, really had an amazing moment supporting Mary J because everything she stands for is so important for me because that’s the music that I love and hope to emulate and represent, that truthful, soulful poetry. The James Fauntleroy thing came about, I was doing an LA writing trip, I’ve always been a fan of his, his writing style is so unique, I always just know when it’s him. Like any cut that he’s done I’ve been like “right is that James Fauntleroy on that?”, he’s even on the newest Kendrick album singing as well. I’m a huge fan, so that’s how that came about, I was just like “I love him” and he was up for it. I met Rodney when I was out there as well.
Ok wow. So ‘She Ain’t Me’, your attention was raised considerably with that song. I like the lyrics, you’re telling him goodbye, whoever you’re with, that she doesn’t compare to me basically, quite confidently I would say. Was that a true experience or is that something your writing from someone else’s experience?
Yeah it was a true experience.
Does he know it’s about him?
Well it’s not really about one though, it’s about every guy that’s done that, to me, to my friends, people that I know. I’m team girl, when a betrayal happens you don’t get annoyed at the girl but this particular girl knew about me, so it was making it a positive, like “you’ve done that but cool, I’m alright because I know that I’m loyal, I’m true and you’re with someone who isn’t”.
Your current single, ‘Do It Anyway’, again another bold statement, what’s the creative history behind that song?
I was in the studio with Mojam, Ed Drewett, and I was going through a particularly frustrating and annoying time, and I just wanted the song to represent owning your own path and not trying to fit into what anyone else tells you to do, so yeah it was a ballsy moment.
And album, is that in the can? When is that gonna hit the streets?
Yeah that’ll be later this year.
Follow Sinead Harnett on Twitter.
