Fiachra Milner
Fiachra, who appeared at last year's songwriter night accompanying Deborah Jane on her music, is on the 2007 Songwriter Showcase bill in his own right, singing and playing his own material. We gave him a bell recently, from which conversation the following snippets are taken. The full interview can be found below in mp3 format.
Originally from: Mullingar
Tell me about the first song you wrote: It was kind of heavily influenced by The Frames actually, a "Frame-esque" kind of tune - it's called 50 miles east. I listened to a lot of their album and it just kind of spawned from that, really. I just wanted to write a song in that kind of style, you know? . . . it sounded okay . . . I still actually keep it in my set. It's a usual one in my set, it's kind of a tear-jerker-y kind of song, you know?
Do you start with words or music: I usually start with music, with chords and that. Sometimes the lyrics might come to me as well - sometimes just a phrase might come to me and that will nearly start the frame of the song then. You know, little phrases or little guitar riffs or melody or something - you might be humming something, write lyrics over that, you know?
Thought on the local scene: In the midlands it's pretty good - a lot of very decent bands. Obviously, My Fallen Empire is, in my opinion, one of the best bands around. And of course there's a lot of Mullingar bands, the likes of The Aftermath, The Blizzards, Innate, Triega, Waiting to Explode . . . even the likes of our old mate Peter Doran, you know? There's a huge amount of music around - it's great, though. Well, for me there's a lot of buzzing well, as it was, but people are still going to gigs - "support your local sherrif" as the saying goes . . .
