The Dublin Community Blog

In the second instalment of Discovered in Dublin we are featuring a young lady with a little house in her tummy: Riona Hartman. This lady is an emerging songwriter from Dublin, who contributes vocals to Sami Moukaddem’s live band and also sings on his album “The facts of life for the Palestinian”; and has performed on the balcony of Balcony TV Dublin. Her songs tell little stories in their own right, reminding of early Tori Amos but with a more definite hint of jazz in there (listen to “Sea Snail”). And she’s not afraid to use the right language – this is definitevely no polished accoustic-pop.

Here’s what Riona has to say:

Tell us sth. about yourself and how you started making music; and maybe how you came to be the vocalist for Sami Moukaddem’s band.

Just before I graduated from college (I studied architecture in UCD) I wrote a ridiculously impractical list for myself of everything I wanted and didn’t want from a job. Number one was I wouldn’t work in an office, which ruled out most architecture jobs, number two was I didn’t want to pay taxes and number three was I wanted to get payed for something that was no effort at all, like breathing. Mostly I was scared of turning into a Dilbert character.
When I showed it to a friend he pointed out that a) musicians rarely work in offices b) they don’t pay taxes and c) I’d already been payed to breath (on Sami Moukaddem’s album ‘Facts of Life for the Palestinian’ I’m listed on the credits for breathing and heartbeat as well as singing. The breathing and heartbeat part was the easiest day’s work I’ve ever done, the singing part was the hardest.)Being a musician fulfilled two out of three on the list which was better than zero out of three for architecture, so I put architecture aside for a while.

I got to know Sami from going to gigs and then he heard some of my lyrics and liked them so he asked me if I’d sing on the album. It was a massive learning curve, and massively intimidating singing with al those amazing musicians in JJ Smyth’s but it doesn’t really prepare you for doing your own gigs with your own material. That’s much scarier. Its a vicious cycle that you want your first gig to be brilliant and show what your capable of but the only way to get good is to learn by doing gigs. Eventualy I got over it and just did it.

You quote Annie Lennox as a big influence on your myspace-page, but I’d guess there’s also a good part Tori Amos hidden in your sound – any other influences?

I am completely OBSESSED with Annie Lennox. She’s written so many absolutely perfect pop songs. Like ‘Walking on Broken Glass’ is this big anthemic ass wiggler but if you pay attention the lyrics are quite dark. I love that. Pop has a reputation for being shallow but there’s lots of very intelligent pop out there, and right here in Dublin like Automata and Miriam Ingram.

I used to listen to a lot of Tori Amos, Fionna Apple and the likes but lately I’m moving towards more fun loving music. I still really love their music and I think if I was recording I’d go a little more in that direction for some of my tunes but it’s a bit introspective and I want my gigs to have more of sociable feel, I want people to feel like they can dance and join in. Gospel and soul’s great for that with all the call and response. I love live recordings of Patti Labelle where she’s singing away and then stops in the middle of the tune to have a conversation with the audience about her relationship and you can hear them all shouting up to her on the stage saying ‘hell yea’ and getting into it.

I’m not sure if this counts as an influence but I spend a lot of time on youtube and this is my favourite thing I’ve come across. I’ve watched it a million times so it must have had some influence on me by now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlFqhHJczDs

Do you think it is an advantage to hail from Dublin (and to live on the Nitelink:-))?

I love that I have a choice of two brass bands on a monday, and I can go see a gospel choir Sunday morning and a jazz gig that evening. It’s no New York but I can’t imagine there’d be that many options in a small Irish town. Also I like the choice of venues in Dublin. I like having gigs in the more unusual quirky venues, maybe it’s from studying architecture but I think the room is really important, like I love The Back Loft with its crusty walls and big old radiators or The Cobalt Cafe is another favourite. I did a gig in The Back Loft in May with visuals by Banbha McCann and I think the setting did half the work for me, set a good tone to the night before I’d ever sung a note. I’m on the lookout for for more quirky venues in Dublin and beyond if anyone wants to recommend any.

Also living on the night link is like being Cinderella backwards, I’m a pumpkin all day then at night the ball comes to me.

How important is the live performance for you? And do you always work with a set band or do you prefer solo shows?

It’s a cunundrum for songwriters starting out that you can’t book gigs until you’ve got a band and a demo but a band of session musicians are rarely willing to put the effort into learning your tunes and rehearsing unless there’s gigs lined up. I’m lucky in that a lot of my friends are music students or session musicians who were happy to work for little or no money (so long as I bake for them every now and then). I wouldn’t say I have a set band but I have a pool of people to choose from and handily enough they’re all amazing musicians. The last gig I did at The Bray Festival was with The Riona Hartman Trio  (that makes us sound very grown up, the other name we were throwing about was Riona and the Heartmen, or The Sharkitects coz we all were or are architecture students….anyone has any suggestions they wanna throw our way feel free) which is myself Steven McNamara on guitar and Dina Ryan on clarinet/sax and I really enjoyed playing with them, clarinet melds really well with voice I think, so the next few gigs are going to be just the three of us. It’s hard to feel comfortable when your performing, sometimes that little fear button goes off in your head and you blank but having good friends play with you is a nice comfortable feeling security blanket.

Having said that I’d like to do solo gigs in the future. Unfortunately the piano’s an awkward instrument, I can’t carry one up the stairs without my Hulk potion and I hate the sound of electric keyboards. I’ve had a loop pedal on my wish list for a while, if I scrounge the money together for one doing some small solo gigs with it could be fun. The guitar is a really useful portable instrument, having a hot guitarist boyfriend means I can do gigs in awkward places like Cavan which is handy.

What do you think about the current discussion about downloading, filesharing and copyrights? Is the web an advantage for new bands (without deal)?

The only ones I hear complaining are the people who are used to ripping people off, who charge their fans 100€ to stand in a football pitch with thousands of other people a mile away from the stage. If that was me I’d damn well want the album for free. People freaked out when the radio started playing recordings rather than live bands, they freaked out again when movies got sound so they didn’t need a live piano player, and again when people were recording songs off the radio onto tapes. Maybe it’s naive of me but I think in the long run if your good at your job you’ll make money out of it.

At the same time I’m not into the idea that the web is the be all and end all for new bands, you still have to put the work into getting good at doing live gigs. It’s pretty easy to make yourself a flash myspace profile but it doesn’t mean much and doesn’t make up for practicing and learning the craft, you’re still gonna have to learn to write charts eventually even if you have millions of ‘friends’ on myspace.

Where can we find more information about you? And, is there anything the world needs to know about you?

I have a very not flash myspace: www.myspace.com/rionasallyhartman

I’ll be singing in Chapter One Cafe in Cavan on August 13th.

I’m moody and there’s a little house floating around inside my tummy.

If you are an artist/musician/band/busker who wants to be featured on “Discovered in Dublin”, please send an email to authors@dublinblog.ie