Having already established himself as one of the more inventive names doing the rounds right now, Irish artist Cian Finn recently returned to deliver his eagerly-awaited new album 'What's Next'.
Featuring the previously shared gem 'All I Wanna Do', this new twelve-track collection makes for an incredibly fun and varied listen. Branching out his aesthetic into a diverse array of genres and textures throughout, 'What's Next' continues to cement him as one of the more distinctive names on the rise right now.
So with the new LP out now, we sat down with him to find out more about his origins and what has been inspiring him most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
The first instrument I fell in love with was the Greek bouzouki. My father played the Greek bouzouki with the traditional Irish group, De Dannan. So, I would always hear that instrument in a house growing up, so it was kind of a soundtrack to my childhood. He ended up getting that bouzouki when a friend went to Greece in the 70s. He came back with that, and he used to play in Connemara in Hughes’ pub at traditional sessions and kind of sat in the back of the traditional Irish sessions and just mastered the art of accompanying traditional music with the Greek bouzouki.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
When I was young, I loved soul music, Motown, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cook, Donny Hathaway, Otis Redding, Gladys Night & the Pips. And then I was introduced to hip-hop when I was probably 13 or 14. I was listening to all the Motown the folks used to play around the house when we were kids.
So a lot of kind of parties and it was all soul and rock and roll. So that was kind of what I was listening to growing up. And then I fell in love with hip-hop as a teenager. Artists like Slick Rick, Wu-Tang, De La Sol, A Tribe Called Quest; KRS-One is a big influence. That kind of early 90s hip hop would be a big inspiration in my younger years.
And yeah, then I fell in love with reggae when I was 16, really, when I went to France. I saw Burning Spear play for the first time. There was one island record CD around the house growing up. I used to always listen to a compilation with Don Carlos, Yellowman, Soul Shake Down Party, Bob Marley and the Wailers.
I kind of was listening to that from 12, 13, but didn't really know what reggae was until I went to France and saw Burning Spear and was introduced to Anthony B and Jack Yore and Sizzla and Capleton, the modern Jamaican music as well.
What was the first album you remember owning?
The first album I remember owning is The Score by the Fugees on cassette tape. Yeah, I remember that album, a friend in Spiddal, Ruth. She got a copy, I think, off her older brother or sister.
We heard it the first time when we were like, you know, super young, like 11, 12 just before secondary school. I remember we were listening to that on tape cassette at her place. And yeah, I got my own copy, the Fugees - The Score. I loved all the interludes in it. I loved that combination of Lauryn Hill and Wyclef. Lauryn Hill's MCing as well as gospel soul singing, Fabulous beats, creative production, kind of Jamaican influences.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
It's gotta be one of the Bob Dylan tunes. Always really admired the stories in the Bob Dylan tunes, the way they were written, it's just stunning. Boots of Spanish Leather in particular, Masters of War, Subterranean Homesick Blues. The Bob Dylan tunes, some of the old ones are just such stories.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
The ritual I have, if I'm writing new material, what I do is I make sure I can get into a space by myself for a few hours. And then I'd open up Ableton and I'd put the instrumental of the song I'm writing to or a rough sketch or just something that I can put on a loop and let that play. And then I start to sing without words and MC without words. So, I'm just kind of speaking in tongues and trying to channel a vibe on that tune. When I feel something, you know, I’m experimenting just with melodies, rhythms, but without words and just, you know, without the thinking part of the brain just the emotional and the rhythmic and melodic.
So I kind of channel that over the instrumental while it's on loop, and once I feel something sticks or I get into a flow state where you feel that adrenaline release, that kind of dopamine peak. It’s like diving in water or something, you feel like when the vibe is there.
Then I'd hit record, I'd be in my home studio, hit record so that the instrumental is already on a loop. And then I would record that melodic, percussive, tonal sound over that for maybe five or ten minutes. When I run out of steam, I stop it and then I listen back to it with pen and paper. I try to pull things out of that, so suddenly there'd be a few words that didn't really make sense but there's a kind of rhyme scheme to it that works so there's something to hook on to, there's something to grip onto, and then I would take that line and then I would try to bring poetry to it and make that an interesting play of words. Once I have the one-line down that I'm excited about, I would then work backwards and work forwards from that point and try to put the puzzle together. You've got that little section and you fill it out.
I do that for a few hours and then I take a break, come back, look at it and kind of go, all right, what's working, what's not working? And try to find a direction to go through out of that. So, I kind of chisel away at the concept on my own in the studio, surrounded with different instruments. I might play a bit of keys, some guitar. I might put some percussion down and with a drum machine, some MIDI, you know, just get the creative juices flowing. I need to be on my own to do it as well, you know. I need to because I need to just kind of get messy, kind of freestyle an ad-lib over the instrumental. Get lost in my imagination and that creative flow and that's where I find gold.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
The artists that I’m listening to at the moment are very diverse. I'm really into songs, less artists and acts, but I really fall in love with songs. There might be one act that I have no interest in any of their catalogue, but one song to me is just a masterpiece. I could listen to that song for my whole life, you know? So for me, it's the song, it's the track.
Some acts have a lot of tracks that I vibe off. But at the moment I’d listen to a lot of Little Sims, Burna Boy. I'd listen to a lot of Irish music, Lankum, Lisa O'Neill, John Francis Flynn, their new albums are really fabulous. I'm listening to a lot of old traditional Irish music as well. I'm listening to Gospel and Soul. I'm listening to a lot of hip-hop from different parts of the world. Modern hip-hop, old-school hip-hop, Irish hip-hop I'm listening to a lot of in the last while.
Yeah, it's a real mixture. If I go on to the playlist that I'd be listening to, it's a real mix. I could go from a Jamaican dance oil tune to an Irish shanos a cappella. So it really, it's really varied.
I listen like that, it’s kind of sampling food. You know, it's like this, what are people producing different parts of the world? Listening to that in context with old music that would inspire me. I find that listening to music is like research and education. Production techniques too, you would hear modern production techniques that you wouldn't have heard before. And then you would hear some old stuff.
So I love to listen to the old and the new mixed up together. I love that. I love singles from new artists. I really find that exciting to listen to and what people are putting out there in the moment, contrasted with the legacy music that I continue to listen to.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
If I could open a show for anyone, it would be Sinéad O'Connor. That was an artist who's inspired me for decades. So, yeah, if I could wave a magic wand, I get to open up for Sinéad O’Connor in Ireland. Sinéad O'Connor would definitely be the artist I'd love to open up for.
I think what she stood for and what she symbolises as a songwriter, I just think she's kind of the queen of Ireland, really. She set the scene for being expressive and creative without boundaries and true to her ethics, you know, that she was an ethical humanitarian who wasn't afraid to speak up for people when they needed to be spoken up for. And she suffered for that, you know. I think to see that growing up was like, that's really important. That's more important than the hype.
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
The most rewarding part about being a musician for me is the experience of travelling with music, going to other countries, experiencing different cultures, performing with musicians from different parts of the world. The live performance of it is really special to me. If you've recorded something that means something to someone and they come up and say it to you in that genuine way, that feels really, really special. And it's like, oh, wow.
Yeah, I was doing a gig in Liverpool a few years ago, an a girl came up after the gig and she gave me this old Irish coin. Before the Euro we were on the pounds, so we had this old, beautiful old Irish coins and this old one had this deer on it, so it was a real old Irish coin.
She said this was her dad's he was from Ireland, and she was saying that she was showing him the tune Live Life we did with the Irish harp on the reggae album I did in Brighton with Prince Faddy, and we did that traditional Irish tune Live Life at the end.
She said she was a reggae head she'd always show that to her dad with that tune at the end and they really connected over it and he passed. She wanted to give that coin to me and it was his coin and it was a real tear-jerker moment. It was something emotional that inspired me. You know, I've had a few moments like that where people really get something from something you've created. And that for me is like, it's kind of a sign of life. You're heading in the right direction. That’s probably the most rewarding thing. If your music has affected someone in a positive way or has kind of helped them through something, that, yeah, that for me is like massive reward.
The performing is really rewarding. When a performance, when it clicks and it goes well, it's just a very special feeling and you feel a purpose and a connection with life. So, yeah, I love it.
And what is the most frustrating part?
The most frustrating part of being a musician at the moment is getting new music to people's ears. It kind of feels like the social media setup was brilliant at the beginning. The first kind of five to ten years of it was really grassroots. Everyone was sharing gigs, promoting communities we're building. It was a really positive thing.
But then it changed, or five or ten years ago, everything is a pay-to-play thing now. If you release something new, if you're doing a gig, if you're not kind of feeding that, social media beast and paying for advertising, you get left behind and it feels like your music isn't getting to the people who would appreciate it.
So that has been really challenging, trying to figure out that new landscape of how to reach the audience that would appreciate the music that I'm doing. I've been kind of figuring out that the last couple of years, but it's frustrating because it feels like it's creative energy that should be going into music, not into figuring out how to get your music to people who might appreciate it.
And so I find that very challenging. Also, I used to do about 50 gigs a year before the lockdown. So I just kind of went from one gig to the next. One rolled into the next. After the lockdown, it’s a new landscape. I'm figuring that out at the moment. It's frustrating trying to get music to people's ears, you know. I think the internet is, it's a superpower for some people. Some people go down with the apps and they're good in the video and they can put their creative energy into video content. It can be a game changer. You can jump through.
But if that's not your skill set, you're at a disadvantage and that's not my skill set. My skill set is performance, production, and songwriting. As someone who kind of does a DIY approach, it's difficult if you don't have all of those skills. If you don't, you kind of really need to collaborate with someone who does to just get your music to people's ears now.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
The best piece of advice I've received as a musician was from a friend called Jim, who's a VJ, does the visual stuff of performances. Early in my career, I was going out into the pavilion in Cork City to do a performance, do a gig and he was coming off the stage. He was in the area between backstage and onstage. He was coming off and I was going on. He looked at me and saw I was nervous before the gig. And I used to be nervous a lot before gigs. It was just like, you know, I had to kind of bottle the nerves. I was like, look, this is my dream. This is what I'm passionate about. So I kind of just was like jumping off a diving board and being afraid to jump. I just threw myself off, you know.
And that's how I was doing it every time. He spotted me looking nervous before the gig, and he put his hand on my shoulder and just said, enjoy. But he looked at me in a way where it was serious, it was a thing. It snapped me out of that kind of nervousness and I was like, yeah, enjoy.
To perform music is an honour. It's really special to get on a stage and perform when that's your dream and your passion in life. So it's really important to enjoy it and to tell yourself to enjoy it before you do those things. Sometimes the creative mind can work against itself and, you know, it can spin you out and you can get nervous. You need to reframe that energy as excitement and you need to enjoy it because life is short and music is a beauty and a blessing. So it needs to be enjoyed from the performer's side as much as for the listener.
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Cian Finn's new album 'What's Next' is out now. Check it out in the player below.