Orla Gartland is our newfound hero. The Dublin-born, London-based singer, songwriter and producer has released her second studio album Everybody Needs A Hero, which explores a romantic relationship in all its doom and glory. Not shying away from any deep introspection, Orla was determined to make a truthful, vulnerable record that at times was uncomfortable. We spoke to the artist about being the hero and the honesty in this album:

How are you feeling? You’re ready to release this incredible album.

I feel really good. it's really nice to talk about it and really nice to hear what other people think. It’s not why I make music but it’s also very hard to listen to your own music with any perspective. So it’s been nice on the promo train. It’s not just like a pure ego trip, but it’s just nice to hear other people’s thoughts on it because I can’t listen to it fresh. I’ll never get that privilege now. Once you’re os deep into making something you just lose all perspective. So I’m excited for it to come up.

It’s such a great listen. You cover so much ground on it and it’s consistent. What was your intention with the album?

I did some writing in like a very free, open ended way to start it off. I think it's always interesting to see what comes up when you're not thinking too much about the end product. I wrote a couple of songs to start me off. I'd been actually making this album for almost two years, but it was a very interrupted two years because I did a band project last year called Fizz, and that took up a huge amount of time. We were pretty much full time with the band for about a year. So [this album] was kind of picked up and put down quite a lot. Which actually, at the time, it made me a little impatient. But I think it was quite helpful because it meant that every time I picked it back up, I had a lot of new perspective. Like I was saying before, you cannot listen to your own songs with fresh ears, but the closest you can get is not listening for a while. That's pretty much the only thing you can do to have anything of a blank slate, I think. It was really important and useful.

Was there a prominent theme to the songs when you came back to them?

After I finished the first few songs I noticed they were all about one relationship and I liked the idea of sticking to that. I think restrictions are really good creatively. I think writing or making anything in an open ended way is actually really difficult. I wanted to push myself musically. I wanted it to be more committed and brave. I just began leaning into that, embracing the idea that this album would be a group of songs about one person and celebrating that all of those feelings can coexist. I don't feel like my experience of relationships is really represented in commercial pop songs a lot of the time. I think they're really oversimplified in their themes and I think they kind of do the listener dirty in that way.

Sometimes they can be assumptive of the audience.

Yeah, like, straight up love songs or straight up breakup songs. Or they can just be just very one dimensional, I suppose. Whereas my experience of  love and relationships is just so much more nuanced and has all these little kind of grey areas and feelings in between the main feelings. I feel this way about you on a Monday and then I feel totally different about you by Friday. So this is an album about holding all those feelings at the same time. They don't cancel each other out because the line is never straight. So therefore the music and the tone does jump around a lot because that is just how I feel, all that light and shade came naturally.

So, are you the hero?

I think I'm the hero. Yeah. When that idea came up, I was thinking a lot about the feminine urge to do it all. I see it in myself and in my mum. I see it in my female friends, this kind of pressure. I want to thrive in all areas of my life. I want to do well in my job, but I also want to be a great partner, a loyal friend, dress well, go to the gym, be healthy. Just this kind of unrealistic way of life… I was thinking a lot about that. It’s not an album intentionally about the female experience, but that's just the lens that I see the world through, so that comes up quite naturally.  So I suppose I am the hero but I think of myself as this sort of manic, self appointed,  bootleg hero, not like a Marvel fucking Superwoman. More like this tired hero, and that's kind of where we got to with the album cover. Me reaching for the phone is sort of meant to be like me reaching to answer the call and help everyone out and I'm always last on the list. So those were just ideas that I was playing with at that time so I guess I am the hero but it’s not trying to over-glorify that it's actually more being like, chill the fuck out.

Is there a song on the record that you're particularly proud of writing?

Yeah, I think I'm really proud of Mine. Obviously it’s the most vulnerable. I guess it is dark, but certainly the most raw. I do feel quite proud of that one because it was definitely about a heavy traumatic thing. I didn't really know if I was going to be comfortable bringing a song like that into the studio, getting people to write on it or to play on it. But it felt correct and I did feel compelled to do it but it was definitely hard. Every time I played it for a friend I was getting this honesty hangover. But I was also trying to dial into that feeling and understand that maybe that’s a good thing. It was uncomfortable as a process but important to include and worth it. I do think about this idea of commercialising your own pain… It felt strange to write a press release for that song, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, to have to succinctly ‘sell’ something so close to you must be interesting to navigate.

Yeah, it’s one thing pouring your heart into a song but when you start to promote it, it does sometimes give me a bit of an icky feeling. I was really bowled over by how gently it was received and everyone on my team just knew not to approach it like other songs. There was a wordless understanding that the song needs to be handled with care.

How do you push past that feeling and rationalise that? It's such a big deal to put your thoughts and feelings out into the world in front of millions of people, especially when it's something so close to your heart.

Yeah, it's honestly just a constant reckoning. It’s something I talk about a lot with friends and I don't think there's really a way around it. I guess as a protective measure, you can create more of a separation between yourself and the subject matter. The band project that I did, Fizz, I think we leaned into the kind of whimsy, escapism, and otherness of it. It was less like, diary entry, pour your heart out, and more like, celebrating fun. It was super camp and theatrical and so it felt a lot less close to the bone. I’m really glad I had that experience creatively in my two albums. It’s can feel like a very indulgent existence, being an artist. You're singing about your life, you're talking about your life. You’re almost mining your life for lyrics. I'm glad I'm self aware about it, but it probably is a bit of a curse as well. I wouldn't want to be less honest or real in my songs, just as a protective measure or because that was an icky feeling. I don't feel I have any regrets in that sense, but it's definitely strange. There's plenty of songs that are much more like diary entries, but never see the light of day. And they're equally important as a cathartic experience.

It’s probably quite intuitive as well. I think you move from that indulgent headspace into one where you're almost of service because that song then becomes other people’s…  

Which is like one of my favourite things about songwriting, if not my favourite thing. Having something that is originally about your brain or your story or your life, go out into the world, and then other people see themselves in it and it reminds them of their own experiences or whatever value they get from it, that’s the ultimate crown jewel.

Listen to Orla Gartland HERE.

@orlagartland