Interview: Maeve O'Boyle, singer/songwriter

Published on Thursday 20 August 2009 17:41

SHE'S ONLY 21, BUT GLASWEGIAN singer-songwriter Maeve O'Boyle has already spent nearly a decade learning her craft, a head start now paying handsome dividends. Since winning two major talent contests in 2006, she's been co-writing with the likes of Deacon Blue's Ricky Ross, Echo and the Bunnymen's John Goudie and Teenage Fanclub's Francis MacDonald, and touring with Eddi Reader, John Cale and Sandi Thom, among others.

If it all sounds a bit fairy-tale – well, there's been quite a bit of that gracing O'Boyle's career to date, allied to a formidable determination and willingness to graft. The daughter of Irish parents, she was raised on an omnivorous musical diet. "My mum's a fantastic singer, really stunning," she says. "My dad dabbles on accordion and piano, but he's also just really into music, always listening to the radio and buying new albums. He introduced me to female singer-songwriters, people like Sheryl Crow and Rosie Thomas, then Patti Smith – I was seriously into her when I was about 15, back in my purple Mohican days; Alanis Morissette as well.

"Then he got me into country stuff – Mary Chapin Carpenter and Martina McBride; Bruce Springsteen became a big influence, too, and Tom Petty. Since then he's put me on to Teddy Thompson, Martha Wainwright – and Imelda May was a recent one. He's still forever giving me new CDs to play in the van. Dad's attitude is that nothing's ever rubbish, it's just different. He still tunes into all the new music stations, and falls asleep with the radio blaring: it was a great way to grow up."

O'Boyle's own creative predilections initially inclined more towards words than music ("I was always really into writing poetry and stories – I wanted to be a journalist"), but the two strands began to entwine after she started guitar lessons at school. "I was really enthusiastic straight away, but mum and dad weren't sure I'd stick at it, so they agreed to pay half towards a guitar for my 13th birthday, if I paid the other half by saving up my pocket money, which I did. Once I had the guitar, I started putting bits of my poems and stories to music – just as a way of remembering the chords at first. But when my dad heard me, he was really impressed: he'd record me on his cassette player so I could hear myself back, and Mum would show me how to do harmonies and so on."

Further encouragement came from O'Boyle's high-school art teacher, who donated her winnings from the school Lotto to fund a debut demo. "I used to go and practise my guitar in her classroom, and play her my new songs; she was always really supportive," O'Boyle recalls. "It seemed a bit weird at first when she wanted to give me this money, but she was so insistent, and I realised how lucky I was that someone wanted to invest in me like that."

After she left school at 16, O'Boyle's parents agreed to support her for a year in pursuing a musical career, "if I did my best to make a go of it". She did, taking any gig she could get while doing the rounds of open-mic nights and folk-club singing sessions. "Half the time I shouldn't have been there because I was under age, but those backroom sessions were great that way: they'd say I could do my three songs and then I'd have to leave, but then they'd put me on near the end, so I'd hear everyone else playing first. That's when I first learned to think about the story behind a song, and when my own writing started going in a more narrative direction."

That 12 months' parental investment – of belief as much as money – was triumphantly repaid in 2006, when O'Boyle first won a Danny Kyle Open Stage Award at Celtic Connections, then emerged victorious in the Daily Record's National Talent Search. It was at one of the latter prizewinner's recording sessions that she first met Ricky Ross, to whom she's become something of a protge, and since then her network of high-profile contacts has expanded at fast-track pace.

The seeming absence of struggle in O'Boyle's career-path, however, is not only due to the calibre of her music, a radio-friendly yet distinctive blend of rock, pop and folk, tautly focused around her pliant, velvety vocals. "I'm still only learning my trade, doing my apprenticeship," she says. "I'm in no rush to be globally famous. And I always try and remember something my dad said to me a long time ago – that people who come to my gigs or buy my records are like shareholders in my career. They're the reason I'm able to make a living doing what I love, and they deserve the best from me: I'm quite old-fashioned that way."

&#149 Gig dates are the Ratpack, Edinburgh, 27 Aug and Oran Mor, Glasgow, 28 August.