It hasn’t taken Emma Langford long to firmly stick her foot into the door of the Irish musical landscape. It’s been a mere three years since Langford took part in her first guitar lesson, but since then she has been on a rocket set for success, and landed into 2018 off the back of a hugely successful, crowd-funded EP, a tour across Germany and Switzerland as part of the Irish Folk Festival (thanks in no small part to Niamh Dunne, Beoga’s violinist) and the release of her debut album ‘Quiet Giant’.
Raised in Limerick, Langford’s own musical palette ranges from traditional folk, jazz and folk rock, with her style similar to that of Irish folk writers such as Glen Hansard, with a dash of Kate Nash for good measure.
Emma took time out of her busy schedule, following her crowning as Limerick person of the month for February, to chat to GoldenPlec about how YouTube pushed her to a new audience, the process of crowdfunding a project and how young love helped mould the sound of her debut.
Q: Was music a big part of your life growing up?
Huge, bigger than I probably ever really acknowledged as a kid. My parents were both working in visual art, so I always thought that was the path I'd go down too. I was always singing though. I got vocal nodules when I was twelve and had to give up music for a while, that knocked the wind out of my sails in my teens. I only regained the confidence to get into music again when I was turning twenty.
My parents tried to get me to learn the violin, the tin whistle and the piano growing up but I wasn't interested - didn't have the focus or desire to learn them and god help anyone who tried to force me. I was singing fairly constantly from a very young age but I didn't really pick up the guitar until my teens when my mother tried to teach me my first chords, and even then I didn't take the guitar too seriously as an instrument until pretty recently. I had my first official guitar lesson about three years ago and I've been getting better at it ever since!
Q: Who are your inspirations and what did you listen to growing up?
I grew up listening to Disney songs and jingles on TV and the songs we learned in primary school - I don't think I actively listened to anything until my moody teens, and then I hid away inside the music of Avril Lavigne, Evanescence, The White Stripes, Nirvana, musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis... Occasionally the likes of Sum 41 or Blink 182. Y'know, the classics! None of whom have had much of a discernible influence on my music. Current inspirations include the RTÉ news, the beepy sound of traffic lights, and water - I jest, but I am writing a lot about water at the moment for some reason. I try and keep my listening material as diverse as possible, and I read when I can too, so I guess that inspires me a bit.
Q: When did you write your first song and was it always your intention to go solo or were you in any bands growing up?
Yikes, I haven't a clue! My parents or teachers will tell you I was always scribbling something. I didn't actually grow up with any other kids playing their own music around me, I had very little experience of bands until my teens when I acquired a bunch of friends from Cork who played in rock and grunge bands, I mean I was in choirs and in the chorus in musicals but I was very much solo in my initial songwriting endeavours. It was only about three years ago when I decided I was going to throw myself into music and give it its best shot, and thankfully so far so good!
Q: When did you decide crowdfunding was a viable option to finance your EP?
In early 2016 I released a home-recorded video of my song Tug O' War on YouTube. I recorded it in a "flash of inspiration" using a loop pedal and a crappy amp, in my sister's room, which was dimly lit, atmospheric, some might say, because the light had blown... Something told me this was the song that was going to launch things for me, so I shared it with a very candid message about mental health and how music helps me with all that stuff.
It kind of took off, I gained a whole rake of new followers, and the questions started to build around why I hadn't released anything yet- I couldn't actually afford to, so crowdfunding came up. I did my research into the various crowdfunding platforms, I asked my followers whether they would be willing to support such a thing, and the feedback was good, so I went for it.
The songs that went on to the EP were basically ready to go before going into the studio. I'm not really someone who decides to record an EP before having a degree of it planned out. I guess it took about six months in to crowdfund, produce and release the EP...a solid first foray, I'd say.
Q: You toured Germany and Switzerland with the Irish Folk Festival, how did that come about?
The fabulous Niamh Dunne, violinist with Beoga, put me in contact with the booker for that tour. I can thank her enough for that, I credited her on the album sleeve for the impetus behind creating it. The booker needed me to produce an album to promote during the tour, so that's how ‘Quiet Giant’ came about.
I adored the touring experience; I felt lucky to be in such great company, seeing a new part of the world and doing what I love - I was bitten hard by the touring bug, I fell completely in love in a totally unexpected and exciting kind of way, and I think it changed me as a person and an artist.
Q: What was the songwriting process behind your debut album, 'Quiet Giant'?
‘Quiet Giant’ bridges the gap between when I started writing in my teens to songs written in 2017 so the process varied hugely, and the inspiration ranges between pretty diverse experiences; Quiet Giant was about a childhood crush and paints a picture of that innocent, sweet kind of love you experience as a kid, while Bear This Child deals with mental health and draws a parallel between an unwanted crisis pregnancy as a burden of grief, loss and despair with the burden of poor mental health - pretty deep stuff! 6 Foot 4 is about annoying egotistical people who won't make room for anyone else around them to succeed.
I feel like the album was quite inward-looking and motivated by a desire to express something within me... The next one will ideally centre a lot more on telling other people's stories.
Q: What is the most important element to making an album rather than an EP in your opinion?
I feel like an EP is a great chance to explore new things, showcase some of what you're working on, see how it's received. It's a slightly less expensive and less pressured endeavour than an album, I'd see it almost like a sketchbook? An album really needs to be a finished work - a framed painting. I would approach an album as my way of saying 'right, these are the best possible versions of these songs, and they go together to tell you something about who I've become as an artist'.
Q: What are your plans for 2018 and beyond?
I'm releasing Tug O' War, the song that started it all, as a single this summer - myself and Sara Ryan are teaming up for a release tour; she's releasing her EP 'Glitter Skies' and I'm releasing my single, so combined it'll be the 'Glitter War Tour'. We promise not to feck glitter at our unwitting audiences. There'll be a music video and I'm hoping to get some interesting remixes done too - any electronic artists out there interested in doing something hit me up!
I'm also heading off to Germany for a few tour dates in April & July, and I'll be touring England in May. I hope to achieve world domination but being realistic I'd just like to get the ball rolling on the next album, collaborate with new people, maybe find management that fits what I do, and line up some dates in the US.
Emma Langford’s debut album ‘Quiet Giant’ is out now. For more information about go to www.emmalangfordmusic.com/