Orla Gartland has spoken to NME about her “bolder” and “more intentional” second studio album, ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ – on which she tackles themes of “girlhood and womanhood”.
The Irish singer-songwriter’s new record will be released on October 4 via her own label, New Friends. It’s a record she told NME was created very differently to her debut, 2021’s ‘Woman On The Internet’, with the album’s title being key to its narrative.
“The last track of the record is called ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ as well, and I actually just really wanted to call both the album and the song this before they existed, which is very different to how it worked with the first album,” Gartland explained.
“For the first album, I really did just write a collection of songs and then took the title from a lyric, whereas this whole album process was a lot more intentional,” she added.
Gartland elaborated on the differences between the two records, saying: “Making this album took a lot longer than the first one did, and it was picked up and put down because of how busy I was last year, and I’m really proud of myself for pushing forward and for committing.
“When I listen to it now, I have a real ‘We did it Joe’ feeling, we just got to the end, and I was able to be in control of it the whole way.”
Ahead of the record’s release later this year, NME caught up with Gartland to discuss creating the record, the impact of collaborative group FIZZ on her solo music, the inspiration of St. Vincent and Caroline Polachek, and working with Declan McKenna.
NME: Hi Orla. Why did you go with the album title ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’?
“I really was thinking a lot about girlhood [and] womanhood, operating in a relationship as a woman and I was just really starting to notice the idea of women doing it all. I come from a family of very strong, stoic Irish women who have families and they’ve also got jobs, and they’re really good at cooking, and they’re all really social. They’re always spinning all these plates, and I think the pursuit of that is such a female thing – something I feel within myself at this age. It’s like: do I want to have a career, but I also want to be at home and be a partner to someone and be really social. The imagery of the superhero thing, I felt really drawn to it because it really summed that up in quite a slapstick way.
“And I also really liked the idea of me in the album as like a self-appointed hero. No one has asked me to do all this stuff, and I still just really want to do it, and I’m running on fumes and getting distracted and trying to help everyone but myself, which is a big theme in my own life.”
Going into making the record, was there anything you wanted to do specifically with the music? I read that influences included St. Vincent and Caroline Polachek?
“I really wanted to push myself as a producer. I co-produced album one as well, but really wanted to take the reins even more [and] be a bit bolder. That’s where the St. Vincent reference comes in. I think she’s just so cool, and I naturally really admire particularly female artists that feel like they have a really overarching involvement in their project, because that is what I love.
“To my detriment, my fingers are just in every bit [of my music]. From the writing, but also through to the mixing and the mastering. I’m not doing the mixing and mastering, but I am wanting to work with people that allow me to be really involved, and then the same is true of the visuals, which is particularly where I feel very inspired by Caroline Polachek. Her visuals are insane and so ambitious and intentional and everything has an Easter egg. It feels so rich, both of those two artists to me.”
You’ve also spoken about being inspired by female producers…
“I love particularly girls producing their own music. I just think it’s so powerful, and it really excites me. There are some shocking statistics about how few female producers are on songs and they’re always really disheartening to hear. I’m in such a bubble that I think there’s all this progress being made, and then I zoom out and realise how few women are in the room, particularly producing music for other people.
“But then also, on a good day, I feel like that stat really excites me, because I’m like: ‘if we [women] do see things in a different way’, and I don’t know if we do, but I think there’s to everything an approach that your gender might inform, then I feel really excited, because I’m like, ‘Wow, think of all the music that is still to be made and still to be heard that we just haven’t accessed yet as a community of people that make music or fans of music’.”
You work with Declan McKenna on the record, and this is the first time you’ve had a featured artist appear on one of your own songs. Why was Declan the right person to bring into your world for ‘Late To The Party’?
“I’ve always definitely been quite precious, I never wanted to add someone unless I felt like they’re really bringing something to the party. But I just love Dec, I think he’s one of the most exciting artists to come out of the UK ever. I just think he’s a proper, proper artist; unrelenting, has a vision, [and] releases so much music.
“He’s so prolific, and I think he just has such a classic vibe to me. He’s Bowie, but he’s also The Beatles, and he’s Queen. He’s gives me legacy artist vibes, even though he’s in this time, and I’ve always found that really exciting. I think he’s the real deal. So I was more than delighted when he was up for singing the bridge and coming in, and he contributed guitar parts, he brought so much to the track.”
CMAT has been super supportive of your US tour selling out recently. How did you two meet?
“I met her a few years ago doing a festival, and she left a note on my dressing room door taking down my name and putting [up a sign saying] ‘CMAT’s toilet’ on it, and it took me half an hour to realise it’d been her. She’s a proper little prankster. I just think she’s so sick, she’s so ambitious with it, and actually not dissimilar to Dec; she gives me classic artist vibes. And I’m so gassed for her with that Mercury nom, it makes total sense, she’s the real deal. It’s so rare that people give me that feeling now, but I feel like she puts her whole arse into everything she does.”
In between releasing your debut album and ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ you formed FIZZ, a collaborative group with musical pals Dodie, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown, and released an album. How did this project impact your solo writing?
“It made me want to be more decisive, because working in a group like FIZZ there’s four voices, and if you feel strongly about something, whether it’s a lyric or what the Instagram caption should be, on every aspect of the project, if you feel compelled and strongly about something you really have to voice it, which I wasn’t used to. I’m used to being the boss and doing things without having to verbalise them. So particularly in the studio if you really feel like chords should be different, you have to say it or it doesn’t enter into the process. I think that intention and decisiveness, and knowing when you feel strongly about something was really helpful, and something I’m always trying to work on now.”
In a statement around the album, you said: “It feels time for me to unapologetically take up space – I’m not interested in being a ‘nice’, palatable artist or songwriter.” Have you felt that way before?
“When I was much younger I did feel that, I didn’t notice till after the fact. I don’t think I’ve ever sat in a room and been like, ‘How can I make this song more universal, how can I make this less offensive or more palatable’, but I do think it is more of a really subtle inner voice, that gets you over time.
“When I first started releasing music a lot of my friends were signing record deals, and I was really jealous. I really thought that’s what I should want, and that wasn’t coming for me, and I just feel so, so glad now that that didn’t happen, as I would have so not been equipped for it, and I feel so much more equipped for all of this now. And the urge to be more palatable is only heightened when you have the pressure of someone investing loads of money in you.
“I feel like I can be less palatable, but I can do it on my own terms, and it feels much more correct at this point in my life and not when I was 18.”
‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ is due for release on October 4 via New Friends. Pre-order/pre-save here.