Andrew Hozier-Byrne Quotes
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There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted.
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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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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 feel my duty is to make music.
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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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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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Religion wasn't imposed on me. I dabbled with faith, and I explored religion quite thoroughly.
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I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music.
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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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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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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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I had just discovered jazz, and I started singing in a kind of blues cover band at the age of 15. We called ourselves - it was a terrible name - the Blue Zoots. We couldn't actually get our hands on zoot suits, nor did we dress in blue. We did covers of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and kind of Blues Brothers repertoire stuff.
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It's kind of strange to hear your songs sung back to you! You get a big insight into what people connect to, what's moving to people or what songs people are really into.
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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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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 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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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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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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For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school.
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I had a fascination with the roots of African American music. That would have been my first education in music. I had a real passion for it. I wanted to play it, sing it. I could sing at a young age, but I started to teach myself bass guitar and started writing when I was 15.
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If I could, I'd sing old French songs or American folk music, but I sure as hell can't do it as well as Mississippi John Hurt - no way in hell am I getting near that!
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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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Things were never as exciting for me as the first gig in New York.