Interview: Tommy Reilly

It was late afternoon on Sunday at Rockness as we waited to interview Tommy Reilly, just hours after he had played his first ever festival, and biggest gig to date. As we sat down, it was clear that he was still pumped full of adrenaline; still excited from his set, however he seemed a little overwhelmed, and nervous.

“This is the best day I’ve ever had! It’s unbelievable; it’s ridiculous, great, magic! It’s all the things that are good! Rockness is Heaven, maybe. It might be Heaven…

“I can’t verbalise the fun I had this afternoon: ridiculous fun, crazy fun. It felt really mental at first; really scary because the most people I’d ever played to before was about a thousand folk, but to have a few thousand people staring at you, and to have people getting into it as well… I guess at a festival you don’t know who anyone is here to see, but there were people who knew who we were and were singing along.

“The maddest part was how far apart we all were; Matty was high up on this thing and Gordon was about a quarter of a mile away from me! I was trying to get a high five off him, then I realised he was like a good several feet away! It’s the most ridiculously huge stage I’ve ever been on. I really hope I get to do that again next year.”

By now, Tommy was into the rhythm of the interview, and talk turned from his set, to the show that propelled him to fame, T4’s Orange UnsignedAct. We asked if he felt like he had changed in any way since appearing on the show:

“It’s made me a happier person. I’m happy all the time. I guess before I was just doing this and praying I’d get to play somewhere like this. But you really resign yourself to the fact that you’re never going to do anything with it. I was quite defeatist in a way. I was positive – I believed in myself – but I guess I was sort of like, ‘It’s down to fate. It might not happen. It probably won’t happen. Look at those people on telly having a great time.’ I watched this on TV last year! So you’re positive, and you want to try your best and have a good outlook, but a part of me’s saying ‘You’re never going to do that.’

“So at the end of the day, to be doing that sort of show with TV cameras and a big screen with your face on it; stuff like that shows that you’re properly playing to a big audience. I guess I never ever thought I would, so to do it, and for it to be everything I thought it would be, has made me completely and utterly happy. I smile all the time: I get to do this for my job! This is what I wanted to do for my job. So to be able to tell people I’m a songwriter has made me a happy individual. I’m living life like I never have before.”

We then began to discuss the show itself, and Tommy’s competition: Hip Parade and Scarlett Harlots, bands who had massive followings outwith the show, and how he felt competing against such well-established acts:

“It was mad! I don’t know how they felt about it, but I think most of them would agree with me; we were just sort of turning up and going, ‘Ah, it probably won’t happen. We’ll probably go home this week. We’ve had a nice day!’ We didn’t think anything would happen – we had a nice day out and got to go to London. We were all having a good time. And I guess one week we realised this is getting really serious, and obviously we were trying our best when we were on camera, but off camera we were thinking ‘This is a bit mental, I don’t think it’s really happening!’

“And you can’t see the people at the other end of the telly, so we just felt like we were playing a gig in a hall. You can’t see the whole telly aspect of it until you go on MySpace, and there are all these people you’ve never heard of! And until you see the effects, we didn’t really feel we were doing it. It sounds mental, but you don’t see the telly part, ‘cause the show actually started after we started filming. So at the start we just felt like we were playing gigs in warehouses. And then it started to get a bit out of hand – fast!

“I did feel like the quality was high, and I guess I felt ‘Yeah, I’m lucky for the chance,’ but these guys are really good. Hip Parade are a great band – a phenomenal band – they’ve got great songs, and I guess I’m very thankful to be in the position I’m in. But yeah I was nervous. Nervous as hell! Everyone was amazing, and I’m really thankful to everyone that voted. I met someone who voted earlier; I just get to hug everyone! It’s changed everything for me, these people who voted, and they come to the shows and everything. These people have made me have a better career and I’m so thankful it’s ridiculous, to Channel 4 and all the people who phoned in.”

Bands from the previous series, mobileAct Unsigned, felt that they were forced down a certain path regarding how they were supposed to perform, but Tommy never felt those pressures:

“The only week I was restricted was covers week. I guess that’s a cool test of a band, but I didn’t realise that at the time: what if I do it wrong?! What if the band who originally sang it by some mental twist of fate saw it and wanted to kill me?! Covers make me nervous! That was the week where I felt the show was putting a bit of pressure on me, but every other week I was like, ‘This is my tune, and it’s my problem if it goes tits up!’

“I didn’t feel like they were trying to style me, or make me out to be something. But they liked to talk about how lonely I was a lot. But that was ‘cause of the nature of the songs at the time; they were about the situation I was in. I guess there are certain aspects of your character that they like to talk about. But they weren’t forcing me to be anything. That’s what the music was. That’s what it is. That’s what the songs were about, so they were just focusing on different aspects of my performance. I didn’t feel like I was being moulded or changed or anything. I got to wear my own shirt, and my hair was as usual! It was great. I didn’t feel any sort of pressure from it. I was happy.”

We then went on to discuss more about Tommy’s songwriting, and his inspirations:

“I guess I only write about the stuff I’m going through ‘cause it’s the only stuff I really know a lot about. I tried to write about other things once, but it didn’t really happen! For me, personally, in my environment, I know what’s going on. But I hope that there’s other people that are going through the same thing. Maybe in that way you can connect with somebody.

“I wasn’t really thinking about this ‘til after, and people said, ‘Your songs are really personal.’ I guess my only saving grace is that other people have personal stuff, other people are in the same place, and maybe that means they can like my music.”

“The sort of songs I like are when someone says something, and I go, ‘Man, that’s exactly how I was feeling!’ They were the songs that really helped me; that really made me happy. Really, I like a good catchy pop song! I also like a song that really gets me in some way.

Talk then flowed to Tommy’s forthcoming album, Words on the Floor, and his single, Jackets:

“I’m very excited! I’m so proud of the album. I got to do an album! I’ve put a lot of love into it. I don’t know if that means it’s any good, though! I don’t know if anyone else will like it – I can’t wait to find out! I keep talking to my mates about this album I’ve made. It’s this invisible thing that I keep talking about, and they’re like ‘Is it any good?’ and nobody knows ‘cause nobody’s heard it! I’m obviously biased, ‘cause it’s what I wanted to make. And even if they don’t like it, I got to make one. I’m in a really happy place right now.

“The cool thing about today, when people like it, is that it makes me more positive about the record coming out. Having the boys playing with me today, having Matty and Gordon, that’s more like how the album sounds. That’s how I used to hear the songs in my head. I’m never going to stop playing on my own – I love that, it’s something I love to do – but now I get why people are in bands. ‘Cause we didn’t just get session players in, these are guys from Glasgow who are friends of friends. We’ve got to know each other, and now I get the whole vibe that comes with being in a band, having people there sharing all that. I used to come off [stage], and there’d be nobody there. But it’s a lovely thing, a totally new thing, to turn around and have someone smiling and having a good time next to you. It’s cool.”

It was obvious, from the answers he was giving to our questions, that Tommy was loving this new experience as an artist at a festival, so we found out what else he had lined up for summer:

“We’re doing T [in the Park]; we’re doing Belladrum; we’re doing this Ben & Jerry’s one on Clapham Common; Lovebox in Victoria Park in London – loads of crazy stuff! Apparently there’s loads of ice-cream at the Ben & Jerry’s one. It’s going to be a good summer! I’m really into it, I can’t believe it.”

“I love a good festival, me! This one managed to escape me, but I’ve been to Connect; I’ve been to T; I’ve been to most of them. I love them. It’s really weird going from customer to artist in a space of months. Going to festivals as a musician, I had all these dreams and things I wanted to do. I used to go and have the best weekend, but I’d watch and go, ‘Damn, I’d love to do that.’ It’s crazy getting to do it now. It’s been a fun, fun day.”
Trying to sum up his Rockness experience was tricky for Tommy, his mix of emotions fighting to break through and be heard:

“We’ve been doing shows and people have been coming, which is crazy, but I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. I’ve never seen that many people watching a gig I’m doing. It hit home for me what the show’s done for me today. We took a photo from the stage, and we were just looking at the photo going, ‘Were they all watching us play?!’ So I guess today really drove home for me in my head what the hell’s happened here! It was a total honour.”

And it is very evident that Tommy really was honoured, humbled even, by the crowd that gathered to watch him play. As we left the Press Tent, he was already enthusiastically greeting another journalist from the queue of national newspapers waiting to speak to him. Happiness is an understatement for the mood Tommy Reilly is in, and things are only going to get better.

Tommy’s debut physical release, Jackets, is out now.
Words on the Floor is out on the 21st of September via A&M Records.
Catch him on tour throughout September and October, for dates check the MySpace.
For more information, head on over to www.tommyreillymusic.com or www.myspace.com/tommyreillymusic
Photos by Dave

ES