Aoife Scott: Any time I get a chance to sing in Cork, I’m there!

Fri, 13 Oct, 2023 - 12:11

Aregular visitor to Cork over the years, both on and off stage, Aoife Scott has many connections here, particularly in East Cork.

“My stepdad is from Cobh, so I’ve spent all my life driving up and down the old Cork road, long before the M7 came. Everyone has got the nice roads now, they never had to go through the pain of stopping in every town! Despite all that I have a soft spot for Cork. I was down recently [with her mother Frances Black, Aoife’s aunt Mary Black, and Mary Coughlan at their concert as part of the Cork Folk Festival]. I generally don’t make a big deal of it on social media, but if I get a chance to get to Cork and sing a song, I’ll be there. I grew up on those Woman’s Heart tours. I remember being very small at all the gigs, and they would drag me out for the encores. That gave me my first ever taste of gigging and was the best craic ever in the world.”

The experience of being so close to the professional musician’s lifestyle at a young age had an immediate effect on Aoife.

“I told everybody that I didn’t want to be a singer or in the music business, because I saw how hard it was. I went to college and I did something completely different. I did it for 10 years before I decided that that wasn’t going to make me happy and that I was lying to myself. The idea of following in my family’s footsteps was very daunting. The fear of being compared to the rest of my family was holding me back, I was never not be going to be known as my mother’s daughter, or my aunt’s niece, or my cousin’s cousin [Mary Black’s children, Danny O’Reilly, lead singer with The Coronas, and Róisín O]. But that’s just the way life is, you just have to accept that you’re always going to be ‘John-Down-The-Road’s brother’. A lot of time when you make music, you have impostor syndrome, and I had massive impostor syndrome because my family were so successful. I decided that that way of thinking was not making me happy. I realised I wasn’t actually following in their footsteps, because they’re still walking. It’s not like they’re gone like. I could make my own journey and if I could just sing for a living, go gigging and see the world playing music, then I would be successful in my eyes.

“I made my first album, which came out in 2016. I did feel like I had achieved something, the studio is not my favourite place because you get to hear yourself back. It took me a long time to finish it because all I could hear was voices basically comparing me to the rest of my family. I was so fearful of that so, when it came out it, was a massive freedom. Since then, I’ve been on the road and having a ball and and accepting that’s where I come from. That’s pretty cool, I’m pretty proud of it.”

Aoife brings that energy and sense of self into her live concerts.

“If you’re hopping on stage feeling confident, it feeds into the show as well, it really is bringing joy to the world. I suppose that’s what we do, we just look for joy, myself and Andy, my partner on stage. We spend a lot of time on the road, and we just spent seven weeks in America there together. We could barely look at each other after seven weeks, but we’re still together!”

The live environment is where Aoife feels she excels.

“That’s where my happy place is. Like, you spend so many hours on the road, you spend so much time on admin, but then you get to do an hour and a half on stage. That’s the bit that I do it all for, I love the connection with the audience. I love telling stories, and like being able to talk to people after the show and and finding out where people are from. I love hearing other people’s stories.”

The cancelling of that work-life balance during lockdown really had an effect on Aoife. “When that was taken away, I was like, ‘who am I?’ That massive impostor syndrome raised it’s head again. I had to reevaluate everything, it definitely taught me a lot about myself and that performance is the be-all and end-all for me.”

The upcoming concert will feature all aspects of Aoife’s music.

“The craft in the gig for me is the setlist, it is really important. I spend an awful lot of time thinking, ‘what is this?’, ‘what am I telling people?’ It will probably be about a third of my first album, a third of my last album and then a third of new stuff. It’s hard for me to forget songs that I’ve written already. I don’t like leaving them behind. You stop playing certain tracks and then suddenly people start requesting them. You want to honour that, suddenly that song is back on the set list and back in rotation again!”

This particular gig is something Aoife has thought a lot about.

“I’ve spent a lot of time by the sea walking in Ballycotton and I’ve only ever seen see the church from outside with the doors closed. I’ve seen photographs online and my mom loved playing there before. I’m really excited about this, because I remember hearing talk in the village about this new venue, and when it arrived, I was thinking ‘oh my god, what a beautiful place’. I feel very privileged to be coming down and playing in such an amazing venue because it’s such a big place and very spiritual. With regards to cliffs and beauty, I just think Cork is very lucky to have that, I think it’s totally different than anywhere else like, I’m really looking forward to it.”