Cork singer-songwriter Solène, 18, releases debut single today 

From a very young age Solène Laurence has had the bug for singing. “There was a small choir in the Midleton Community Centre which my sister was in, and I would beg to join but I was too young at the time. So as soon as I was old enough to be let in – which was around Senior Infants or First Class – I made my mom get me in there.” 

Music was always around the house for Solène. “We had a piano in the house, and we all took piano lessons, and when I was around eight or nine I started making up songs and messing.

“As it is with kids I was thinking ‘oh, I’m going to be a pop star when I’m older’, ‘I’ll get myself a guitar and I’m going to be famous’ and all that kind of thing. So I was writing nonsense childish songs but I kept playing, listening, learning and I just didn’t stop.”

Now 18, it’s not just music and songs that Solène has focused on for 10 years, but it has emerged as her main avenue of expression.

“I’ve always been a very creative person. I like art, I like crafting and I like music; I like doing all of those things. I think I just had a creative environment growing up, and when you’re a kid in that setting, it just seemed like the most logical thing for me to do at the time was to make songs up. Now, they were ridiculous because I was eight years old! I had one called, Hannah Banana, but I remind you that I was young!

“It was so much fun that I suppose I never had a reason to stop doing it, then over time I started taking it really seriously.”

Solène is now fully immersed in music in third level education but even during her earlier teenage years she was learning everything she could. “I started in the Academy of Popular Music when I was in fourth year and that’s where I made most of my friends that I still play music with now. Then I went into the Cork School of Music, where I’m in first year now. It’s brilliant, what I used to do every Saturday, music for fun, but I get to do it all week now. It’s great to have people around you who also care about music as much as you. They’re so supportive in there as well, everyone’s rooting for each other. It’s just brilliant.”

Aside from the School of Music campus she has relished other live music options. “In that CSM you hear about what other places musicians are playing. The Roundy is a brilliant place, there’s so many people that perform there. It’s the same with Fred Zeppelins and Coughlans, and even places like Sonflour, on Castle Street, have jazz when they clear up all the tables. I thought I knew so much about Cork music until I started in the School of Music!”

While Solène credits the supportive environment, she’s sure she would be releasing this debut single and future records anyway.

“When I was picking up my choices for the CAO, when considering courses that weren’t music related, I was saying ‘I’ll still release my music on the side’. I still do that internally, no matter what, I always knew I was gonna release my music. It’s always been something I want to do, I especially love the performance act part of it. But there’s something cool, but terrifying, about literally sharing yourself. It’s your song, but putting it out for everyone to see, it’s so scary but brilliant at the same time.

“I know I’m young at 18 but I don’t feel ahead of the curve. When you’re surrounded by so many talented, amazing individuals who are also doing mad things that you just think, ‘this is what I should be doing.’ It’s great!”

Despite all the positive support, she does note an unlevel playing field. “I have noticed a bit, as both a woman, but also as an 18-year-old, an unfairness. I’ve sent the track to a few people and one person came back to me and they said, ‘that’s actually really good. I didn’t expect that’. I don’t know what they were surprised about, because I was younger or because I was a woman? Why should it be surprising that it was good, I put my time and my effort into it. I think people – some people – expected it to be subpar for those reasons. I saw something in The Art To Art Podcast, it was a clip of it from Iona in The Cliffords, and it really resonated with me, she was saying that you always see loads of men who play guitar who can’t really sing but you still love their music, and there’s no women like that, because the moment a woman picks up the guitar and she can’t really sing, but she can write, it’s like, ‘get off the stage’.”

Speaking of writing, Solène wrote her debut single Punch Line quite easily. “In one way, I wrote it in like 20 minutes, and that happens to me a lot with songs. However in another way, I’m preparing to write the songs for quite a while, I find my process is very much that I have a built-up emotion, which I’m kind of thinking about and considering for a while, and then I sit down to write it.

“Generally, I write the music first and then I literally just let the lyrics flow, then I copy paste and edit, I identify a chorus and different parts of the structure then. It just comes out really fast. 

“So it was 20 minutes or so of writing before I went to do the demo. I was kind of feeling frustrated, I was feeling a bit walked over, overlooked almost, I was feeling a bit annoyed, I felt like I couldn’t talk about it that much… so the next logical thing to do is write about it!”

Punch Line is released on January 30 across all streaming platforms. Follow Solène at Instagram at @SoleneLHalligon or TikTok at @notscelene.  See distrokid.com/hyperfollow/solnelaurence/punch-line