Andrew Hozier-Byrne Quotes
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I'm still finding my feet in many ways as a performer. I'm not an extrovert, and certainly the attention isn't what drew me to it, and I find that quite jarring at times. I used to stress a lot about shows and get palpitations before shows, but eventually you learn to love it, and it is a thrill.
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When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters.
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I feel my duty is to make music.
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The success of 'Take Me To Church,' I never imagined it. I never imagined that it would work on radio, that it would find its way onto the charts, even at home and certainly not in America.
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I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music.
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Much of social media can be seen as the 'News of me.' It's not so much a platform for connecting and sharing as it is a platform for advertising the idea of yourself you want to portray to others: the image of yourself you want to project.
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The main thing is, I can't stay up late partying when I'm on tour. That's not good for my voice or my health in general.
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Religion wasn't imposed on me. I dabbled with faith, and I explored religion quite thoroughly.
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I spent quite a bit of time in choirs, growing up, and in the world-touring music group Anuna.
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I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything.
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Certainly in the case of having to answer questions about where a song comes from, it's a hell of a lot easier when you say, 'I've removed myself from it.' But they start from quite a personal place. They always do.
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I'm not sure if every song will be 'Take Me to Church,' but I can only hope that people enjoy the body of work that I have ahead of me.
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The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.
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I love Muddy Waters and Nina Simone. I also watched 'The Blues Brothers' movie over and over.
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You grow up and recognize that in any educated secular society, there's no excuse for ignorance. You have to recognize in yourself, and challenge yourself, that if you see racism or homophobia or misogyny in a secular society, as a member of that society, you should challenge it. You owe it to the betterment of society.
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I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.
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I look at all good things with a bit of a dark lens, I suppose, especially with something like love.
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I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.
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I have a bit of a love affair with fairy tales and some of the ideas of Irish mythology, like Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, who captured a lot of that very beautifully.
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There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP.
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I will play around with an idea for a very long time until it's found it's feet and it's good enough to become a song.
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I didn't even have that many close LGBT friends or anything like that, but I suppose it was growing up and becoming aware of how you are in a cultural landscape that is blatantly homophobic... you turn around and say, 'Why did I grow up in a homophobic place? Why did I grow up in a misogynistic place?'
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Things were never as exciting for me as the first gig in New York.
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I think marriage is a scary concept. It's a scary concept for anybody. I'm not sure where I sit with that.