Kevin

Ryan McMullan, thanks so much for coming in.

Ryan

Thanks for having me!

Kevin

I've interviewed a lot of artists from Northern Ireland to the point where it's become a running theme here on my show. I'm always amazed at the sheer musical talent, especially in terms of songwriters. I mean, it's really unbelievable with people like Foy Vance, who you've obviously toured with a lot, and Iain Archer and Gary Lightbody. Why do you think Northern Ireland is such a prolific hub for songwriters? Is there one reason in particular?

Ryan

I don't know, I just think Ireland in general. We take the music really well. I guess people in Northern Ireland are trying to find ways to just stay out of politics so everybody's writing songs. But yeah, there's something in the water, that's for sure.

Kevin

In particular, Gary has been very complimentary of you. I remember reading a quote that said you have a "voice of an angel." He's such a crucial promoter of Northern Irish music. Whenever Snow Patrol tours around, he makes a point of having a Northern Irish opener even at the SSE Arena in Belfast. How do you think the development of the music industry has happened in Belfast or not in terms of new artists being able to really elevate their careers?

Ryan

I mean, recently, social media has been a big help. But in regard to everything else, I mean, it's just such a small place, that industry doesn't really exist. I mean, there are a few places that you can go to elevate and maybe learn. But in terms of industry, there may be one label and one publisher. I mean, people set up their own labels and their own publishing which is great. But in terms of real industry, you really can't get much in Northern Ireland. It's great to see people even getting the exposure that they deserve, quite frankly.

Kevin

I've read that you've cited Foy Vance as an influence and you're actually wearing a Foy Vance sweatshirt at the moment! [laughs] I'm obviously a big fan of Foy and you've cited him as your biggest influence. How did you come about meeting him? Because you're not from particularly close in Northern Ireland.

Ryan

In Northern Ireland, it was actually pretty close. Yeah, Foy is one of my biggest influences. I mean, Gary Lightbody is a huge influence too, Paul Brady is another one. We got to meet because we were doing a songwriter's festival in Belfast called the Belnash festival because basically Belfast and Nashville are apparently sister cities. They booked Foy to headline on the Thursday night and I got to do an EP launch on the Friday night and Foy came to the gig. We were chatting after and we started writing together and that was kind of how our friendship blossomed.

Kevin

I spoke to Foy about a year ago over the phone and he had some very interesting stories. He's always a very entertaining guy, including one about playing a death metal stage in England so that was a great story. [laughs] Is there any particularly noteworthy advice that he's given you?

Ryan

He really has given me a couple. One is to listen to the music. In terms of being an artist, I remember we were doing a gig in Nashville or somewhere. It was the first time I'd probably played in the States ever. And he said, "Are you nervous?" And I was and I said "yeah, I am." He said, "Look, here's the deal. You're not a brain surgeon. You're not a heart surgeon. You know, nobody's life depends on it. If you make a mistake, you look like an idiot for five minutes. And then, knowing you, you'll do something marvelous that will make people forget about that small mistake that you made. Just go and enjoy it." That's stuck with me and I take that everyday with me because I don't get nervous at all now playing gigs. The fact is, I don't do this to be nervous about it. I really want to enjoy it. So, you know, why waste your time being nervous when you can spend your time enjoying it?

Kevin

How important is it for you to have people who you looked up to growing up to think highly of you? I know obviously Gary Lightbody was a big influence. Were you a big Snow Patrol fan growing up?

Ryan

Yeah, huge.

Kevin

How is that meeting those guys? Is it sort of daunting?

Ryan

Well, no. I think one thing all of us have in common is that we don't care who's in the room. It doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable in yourself. I think that feeds back like, I mean, that's how I felt whenever Foy came to the gig. That's how we felt whenever we were with Gary singing songs together. But I mean, for sure, they're two huge influences on me. I mean, Final Straw [Snow Patrol’s 2003 breakthrough album] was my adolescence and my go-to album no matter what mood I was in. It was always Final Straw. So yeah, I mean, it's a real honor to have people like that think highly of you but at the same time, they're just another dude, you know? I guess if you treat people like people as opposed to this ethos of incredible because that's when you start to get intimidated and I have no time for that.

Kevin

Speaking of another dude who's taken notice of you, Ed Sheeran. How did that tour support come about? [McMullan opened for Sheeran on his 2017 European tour]

Ryan

So, I got introduced to him last year and we just started singing songs back and forth and having a few drinks and a laugh. We get on really well as people like, I mean, he's an incredible superstar but he's an incredible human, an absolute superstar of a human. But yeah, so we started playing songs back and forth. He enjoyed what I was doing and I enjoyed what he was doing and then he invited me back a couple of other times. And again, same sort of thing. "Have you any new songs?" "Yeah, I've got this one." "What about you?" "Yeah, absolutely." And so that was how it blossomed and then I was supporting Foy in Shepherd's Bush Empire in London and Ed came to the gig. Then, after my set he came up to me, and he said, "What are you doing in March, April, and May?" and I was like, "Nothing." [laughs] And that's the birth of how that came to be.

Kevin

Was that during his year off?

Ryan

Yeah I mean, that gig was in December, and then he came back in January. So he was pretty much about to be back on it.

Kevin

Ed is obviously really good friends with Foy. Didn't he idolize Foy growing up?

Ryan

Yeah, I mean, he saw him as a huge influence.

Kevin

I think he has a tattoo on his arm. [Sheeran has a tattoo on his arm featuring lyrics in Irish from Vance's 2013 song "Guiding Light" on which Sheeran featured]

Ryan

They both got those together during a tour or something so I think they got it together as opposed to Ed having had it before Foy or anything like that. But yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm okay to say that Foy is one of Ed's biggest influences so I'm sure that was incredible for Ed to get to take one of his influences under and support him on his way.

Kevin

I was looking at the liner notes actually for Divide [Sheeran's 2017 album] and the Northern Irish influence on that album is unbelievable. Just off the top of my head, Foy is on a couple of tracks and co-wrote a few, Johnny McDaid from Snow Patrol produced a couple, all the Van Morrison references. It's something that's not talked about much but Ed is a fan of the Northern Irish music scene and is really involved.

Ryan

His granny and grandad are Irish – one is from Belfast and one is from Wexford. So he grew up with it too and like he always said they had family holidays, I think. I mean, I'm saying this but I could be completely misquoting.

Kevin

It sounds about right because he wrote a song about Wexford ["Nancy Mulligan"].

Ryan

Yeah, he used to gig and busk all the time in Ireland and I'm pretty sure Ireland is his biggest market and that he's sold 20 times platinum.

Kevin

Do you know what I saw today? The top 10 singles in Ireland right now are completely Ed Sheeran which is just unbelievable.

Ryan

In the UK, there's like eight or something in the top 10. That's all him as well. He can take over the world.

Kevin

Despite the fact that he's such a big fan of Northern Ireland, I noticed that the Divide tour actually isn't stopping in Northern Ireland. Is there a sense that Northern Ireland is still not the first priority for touring musicians? Do you think that discourages people?

Ryan

Not at all because Belfast is rife with gigs. It's not at all. Maybe he wanted to hold off and do something bigger or maybe the dates coincided, maybe there was somebody else playing in the biggest arenas while he was wanting to be there. It could have been anything like that. But no, I mean, everybody wants to come to Northern Ireland. If you've never been to Northern Ireland, bar all that politics stuff that everybody hears about which is so few and far between now. Northern Ireland and Belfast, especially, it's just brilliant. Like, the people are so lovely. I mean, there's nights that I'll go out with friends and I'm spending half my night talking to strangers who are from 15 miles that way and I'm from 15 miles the other way. It's just so friendly. I mean, every musician I know that talks about Northern Ireland, they love it. I just think it didn't coincide with how the tour was planned.

Kevin

I was in Belfast about a year and a half ago and you're right, everyone was just the nicest people you could ever meet. I read that you initially hadn't planned to release that song "A Winter's Coat" but people kept asking where they could hear it. You'd play it live but there wasn't a definitive version. How do you decide what to release and what to keep to yourself?

Ryan

Gut, maybe instinct. I mean, with that song in particular, I was playing it to fill up my set and people kept coming up and asking whether that song was on the EP. It wasn't like one or two nights, it was like every night that I was playing people were asking where they could hear that song. I thought that's a sign that surely I have to record that. But most of the time, it's gut instinct, friends, musicians, anybody that you think is worthy of an opinion. But mainly your gut because at the end of the day, this is your art, your music, you decide.

Kevin

One of my favorite songs off the EP is called "Ghosts" and reminds me a bit of Bruce Springsteen in a way.

Ryan

I'll take that! [laughs]

Kevin

It feels really personal yet cinematic.

Ryan

It is, yeah.

Kevin

Do you have a lot of Americana or American influences?

Ryan

Absolutely.

Kevin

I mean, "Oh, Susanna" really seems to be influenced by American music. What did you listen to growing up? Was there anything particularly formative?

Ryan

It was really Irish based like Thin Lizzy, Paul Brady and stuff like that. I mean, it was more these recent years that I got big into Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits. I mean, three incredible songwriters. They paint a great picture. I mean, if you think of most of their songs, you know, you're seeing what they're hearing and you're not just hearing what they're saying. I love the idea of writing songs like that but at the same time, I do love personal songs that are an emotion but I will certainly keep writing songs with a bit of a picture in mind. But yeah, I mean, American music. I mean, come on. It's amazing.

Kevin

There's a song called "You Don't Dance" that you played for us there. There's a lyric there where you say, "we don't see much of your kind around here." Where is here in your songs? Are they set in Northern Ireland?

Ryan

It's just home. Whether home for that period of time is London or New York or wherever. But yeah, that one's based on home. It's based on a bar, my local, essentially.

Kevin

Was there an overarching theme to this EP? There seems to be a bit of playing around with the seasons like you kind of have "A Winter's Coat," and "You Don't Dance" is a bit of a summer song.

Ryan

A summer song, yeah. Do you know what? They're all about love, you know, the exciting parts of love, the hard parts about love, life after love. I mean, "A Winter's Coat" is about that realization of, hey, I've just fallen in love and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. "You Don't Dance" was about the possibility of love. "Ghosts" was the afterlife of love. I mean, the whole thing really was just about an experience and a time period where that was how my life was going.

Kevin

What do you think the greatest strengths and weaknesses are of the Northern Irish music scene?

Ryan

The strength is there's an abundance of extremely talented people. I mean, it's such a shame. This is a huge con but the people from Northern Ireland who aren't musicians don't focus on gigs as much as big nights out or just going to the pubs and wanting to hear people singing other people's songs as opposed to their own. Again, that's in terms of the industry, I mean, you can come to New York or London, play a gig and people won't say a word, they'll listen and try and figure out if they want to be a fan. In Northern Ireland, people need to connect more with the people who write music there. You know, they'll happily sell out shows for people like Ed Sheeran, or anybody like that. But they're forgetting about their homegrown because they're just like "oh, it's just a little guy from down the road." So yeah, I mean, that's a huge con and I just hope people start to believe in the talent around them.

Kevin

So when people go to gigs, it's more of just a social event?

Ryan

Yeah, I remember going to a Hozier gig and he was playing a song called "Cherry Wine" and he tried to step back off the mic, and it was in the Ulster Hall, which is iconic. It's such a great venue. But, he tried to step back off the mic and sing into the room because it's known for its acoustics and the crowd just didn't stop talking. Then some guy went "Shh!" and some guy went "Shut up." It was just "shut the [pause] up." I was standing there and he was trying to create a moment and everybody here was so neglectful of it. But that's probably the issue as well. Anybody doing a gig in Ireland on a Saturday evening, you know everybody's on the piss.

Kevin

What musicians from the North should Americans check out who they might not be aware of? Name drop away!

Ryan

Okay, so friends first, right? I mean, David C. Clements is just phenomenal. Travis Is A Tourist is another guy that is just kicking ass at the minute. Really good. There's a girl whose stage name is Larks.

Kevin

Oh yeah, I just played her song, Fiona?

Ryan

Yeah, she's great. Who else have we got? I mean, there's loads so I know I'm gonna forget so many people. I mean, the Wood Burning Savages, they're sort of a punk band. They're great too. I mean, there's so much so I wish I could remember more right now. I know as soon as I leave, I'm going to think, oh I should've said that person. But there's serious talent. Callum Stewart is another guy who’s blowing up. Ciaran Lavery is another guy who's an absolute star of a human being as well as a phenomenal musician. Ryan Vail. Best Boy Grip is phenomenal. Owen Denvir, Pete McCauley. I mean, honestly, there's so much there. Anybody who listens to any of them will agree. They'll at least go, "Hey, that's pretty good, you know?"

Kevin

It's also interesting that, when you listen to any of these guys, you find everyone else. It's very intertwined. I mean, in part, probably, because it's such a small community. But, from listening to Owen I found Hannah McPhillimy and then, from there, Pete McCauley. It's really like a musical family tree, which is kind of wonderful.

Ryan

Do you know what one of my favorite things about the Northern Ireland music scene is? So, we all do gigs throughout the week, whether it's cover gigs, our own gigs, or whatever. But on Tuesday night, we all say no. So, we have this thing called the Tuesday Club. I was there with Mike from New Portals two weeks ago. But, every Tuesday, we all gather at this one house and all the musicians just get drunk with each other. But it's that camaraderie, because then the next time somebody is gigging and they've forgotten their mic stand, you just text into the group and somebody has it within five minutes at your gig. You know, you haven't even left your bar and it's there. I mean, musicians in Northern Ireland have a real sense of family and it's amazing. It really is. It's something that I think people should take note of, and that, you know, I think a lot of musicians want to get a leg up on other people but they forget that we're just making music. We're all just doing what we want to do. There's no competition here. And I think Northern Ireland figured that out quickly.

Kevin

Thanks so much for coming in and best of luck in the future endeavors.

Ryan

Yeah, thanks for having me!