Foy Vance Interview
Foy Vance is one of the best singer songwriters to herald from Northern Ireland in the last ten years. Foy’s voice has a unique depth, clarity and range, combine this with song’s such Homebird it is easy to see why Foy is receiving the attention he deserves around the globe. Foy took time out between gigs to talk to A:Muze.
When did you start making music and what attracted you to guitar ?
I started immediately… Everyone I can think of in my family sang or instigated singing as a form of entertainment, so I was sort of born into it. Like many Irish people I guess.
The guitar was my Dad’s instrument of choice, so there was always one around as far back as I can remember. He taught me how to play the basic 12bar blues when I was 6 which is pretty much all I played on it until I was around 10 when I learnt ‘House of the rising sun’. The piano was always the instrument I was interested in though, and the one I could improvise songs on; that all changed when I heard Pearl Jam!
Who were your influences growing up ?
Hugh Vance (my Dad) was the first main influence… I was influenced as much in my early years by my family’s approach to music as I have been by everything that’s come after. Over the years I’ve been influenced by everything from; Stevie Wonder to the Sex Pistols, John Lennon to Nirvana, Jonny Cash to New Order, John Denver to Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan to the Who…the list goes on…
Even still I listen to and love music like Motown, Stacks, Country and Western, Blues, Folk, Hard Core, Punk, Metal, Funk, Creole, Dance, Alternative, Indie, Pop I could go on all day here… Essentially what I’m saying is, for me there are two type of music: Good and Bad
What was the music scene like in Northern Ireland growing up ?
I was unaware of a scene until I was about 17. The estate I grew up on wasn’t really open to one. Occasionally I’d find people living on the estate who had had a vibe going on, and I’d go round and listen to them DJ in there living room with 80s dance music, but I was never aware of them being involved in any scene. We all loved music, but lived in a bubble, as is often the case with estate mentality. Even when I joined my first real band (a grunge band called Morph) at 17 I thought we were surely one of very few bands in the local area…. As far as I can gather, there actually was a great scene in Bangor, but unfortunately I didn’t cotton on until way later.
Can you tell us who you have worked for to date, what have been the highlights ?
I assume you’re not wanting a run down of all my previous employers here, so I’ll spare you the extremely long and boring list… You don’t work for people in music; you work with them. I’ve always loved that about music. I’ve worked with a lot of people who have way more experience than me and who are far superior musicians/Artists but I’ve never felt any less or any more than them, and I’ve certainly never thought of these times as ‘working for’ them. It’s always just felt like sharing in something I happened to be learning a lot from.
Notable highlights to date have been singing ‘I’m One’ with Pete Townshend in New York… I was so impacted and influenced by ‘Quadraphenia’ when I saw it, it made me fill sick and peculiar. Singing this song with him was like a dream!
I finished each night of the tour with Bonnie Raitt singing a duet on ‘Angel from Montgomery’. This was topped, only by singing ‘I can’t make you love me’ to her down the phone a few weeks ago. I was playing it in the back of a car going to a party in Texas with a songwriter called Beth Nielsen Chapman who phoned Bonnie on her mobile so I could sing it to her….that was a moment.
There are so many more highlights, but not all of them would sound that great to the common ear, but they were wonderful to me… lowlights are the new highlights! (Continues….)
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