Nell Mescal is an Irish singer-songwriter whose music is full of sensitivity and emotion. To mark the release of her latest EP, “The Closest We’ll Get,” Jade from our team sat down with this artist, who is definitely one to check out.

Do you remember the day you realised you wanted to do music as my job? How did you learn to sing?

I have always been singing, so I grew up, my mom would say, singing for everything. Like, if I wanted food or if I wanted anything, I would sing for it instead of asking for it. So, it was always something that I loved, and then I was in all these choirs and singing groups and drama groups and things, and that was kind of always the thing that I gravitated towards. But I started writing seriously when I was about 11 or 12, and it became a vice for me. I would go and do it.

And then I was walking my dog, and I was listening to Birdy, and she has a song called Words as Weapons.  I remember hearing the song in particular and being like, oh, I really want to make music for other people, not just for myself. Which, I guess, when you write for yourself, it ends up being for other people.

But I, at the time, once I had heard that song, I said, I want to do exactly what she does. So yeah, I think I was about 12.

Can you tell me a little bit about your writing process? What comes to you first?

When I’m writing alone, I sit down with an instrument, so either the piano or the guitar, mainly the guitar at the moment, and I’ll have written something down and maybe I’ll just kind of start circulating that in my head. And then I’ll start playing and singing at the same time.

So, I don’t really know what comes first, like the chicken or the egg. Like, I actually don’t know. It’s usually just me sitting there and then saying gibberish until something comes up.

Where do you write most of your songs?

So usually it’s just in my bedroom or the sitting room. But I actually saw another artist. I don’t know who it was, but she said that there was this thing that she felt really changed her writing. And she talks about energy a lot. And I’m really like energy based and go off a lot about that.

And she said that she started switching up where she wrote in the house because she felt as though all the energy had been pulled out of these places that she had written. And so, I started doing that. And so instead of sitting on, like, the left side of my bed, I’d sit on the right.

And then instead of sitting at the end of my bed, I’d sit at the top. And I don’t know if it was a placebo, but I think it helped me. I’ll be right.

So I’ve been kind of moving around my flat slowly and shortly, sucking all the energy from all the spots. But yeah, it’s kind of anywhere.

What artists inspire you these days?

I think when I was making The Closest We’ll Get, it was a lot of people like Adrianne Lenker and Beth Southwell, for sure. And just people that really tell a story, but are so clear on what they’re doing. And that was really inspiring to me.  And I still think that’s the same. I definitely am like, I’m not quick to move on from artists. So if I am obsessed with something, I’m probably obsessed with that for a couple of years. So, I’m kind of still there at the moment. I’ve been listening to a lot of Ryan Beatty as well, which I love. I just think he’s, yeah, he’s amazing.

Can you tell me how you made this EP, and what were the themes that you knew you wanted to treat?

I recorded it in April last year in New York with the producer, Philip Weinrobe. And I’ve been such a fan of him because he has done Bright Future and a few other projects with Adrian Lenker.

And I was really nervous that he wanted to work with me. And I was kind of trying to get him to stop because I was so worried that I was going to go there and mess everything up or that I wasn’t going to be prepared or whatever. Because this process is that you go and you do everything live, and no one that you’re playing with has listened to the songs beforehand.

It’s all just completely made up in the room as you’re there, which is really daunting, especially if you have preconceived ideas of what it can sound like. Because if you’re going into the studio for like a month with someone, you won’t stop until you’ve got exactly what you need. But with this process, we had three days with the full band to record. So, it’s really not that much time. And also, everyone’s doing it on the spot. And also, we weren’t allowed to listen to anything back.

We would do something. And if you liked it, but you couldn’t remember what you did, Philip would be like, do something different or like try again, whatever. It was really quite scary, but also so exciting.

And I think it created something quite emotional without being overly emotional, because to me, these songs are so, so sad. And then by the end of the recording, they turned into something so much more meaningful because there was a sense of optimism throughout all the songs. And so, except for Middleman, that one’s pretty sad.

But yeah, I just had the absolute best time ever doing them, because when I wrote the songs, you’re asking about the theme and the songs are about:  two people that are kind of in between being friends and doing something more, never getting it right. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you love someone and you don’t know if they love you back.

And it’s so consuming, especially when you think maybe they do, but they’re just for some reason. There’s like this one specific reason why they can’t or whatever it is. It’s they can take up a huge part of your life.

It was so nice for me getting to these songs as we recorded them, a couple of months after, I felt healed.

I had gotten over it. And so I had all the different perspectives all in these six songs, coming from the deepest part of being so sad to like being angry. So, it was like the five stages of grief. And then getting to record them was such a transfer, a transformation for me personally. But yeah. I love it.

Your lyrics are very intimate. Have you ever hesitated to release a song because it felt too personal?

I think there are definitely songs that I’ve never thought about releasing because I’m just, oh, that’s just I don’t know how I would even talk about that.

But I think the closest song that I was scared of was my song Thin, and I wasn’t scared about that until. We had done it was supposed to come out on a Friday, and we put it out on a second link for the main stands,  a couple of days before, and I remember posting it for them.

I was sat in the corner of my kitchen thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to release a song”. It was so deep into my head, and I just was kind of nervous because I rarely talked about it with anyone in my life.

So, going from kind of speaking about it to two people to sharing it to whoever would want to hear it was quite scary. And I put it to the back of my head, like it wasn’t happening. And then when it was happening, I was like, oh, fu****. But yeah, no, that one was probably a little bit scary. But I do think being scared is good.

Which song was the most difficult to write, and why?

I think Thin was challenging for this, not even an EP, but out of all my songs, then was challenging because I didn’t even know I was going to write about it that day. I was thinking, “wait, it just poured out of me”.

And in that sense of it, it was easy, but trying not to don’t know, even understand that those were my feelings, was kind of difficult. But for the EP, maybe none of them were too difficult.

Sweet Relief took me a really long time to write because I had written the first few verses in maybe an evening, and then I never finished the song because I just thought no one was ever going to want to hear it.

And I just, yeah, I was kind of sometimes when I write by myself, and there’s no production on that, the only thing in my mind is: it’s going to be really hard to get people to care about the song. And I just completely forgot about it. And then the beautiful part about that was that I’d written the verses and the chorus, and I was so sad.

And then a week before we went to record with Philip in New York, thinking that the EP isn’t complete. It needs another song. It needs the final wrap-up.

I don’t have that for lack of a better pun, but I was thinking I don’t have the relief I wanted to feel by the end of this. And then I remember being like, oh, I have the start of a song. Maybe I can finish it.

And then I wrote the bridge, almost a year later, after I had written the first verse. So that was interesting because in the verses, you have this sadness, and I’m just trying to tell the story. And then when you get to the bridge, it’s exactly how I feel. But it’s over, and I’m done. And to me, it was like that journey for me, like all wrapped up in the one song.

What is your plan for the rest of the year, and are you planning to release an album?

The album’s not ready, but an album is always kind of being thought about. I’ve been thinking about my first album for years. So, I think to be as vague as possible, I’m definitely writing a lot of music.

And I just actually last night released, like a demo to a song I’ve been playing on the Sigrid tour into the Discord, and kind of just trying to keep giving people songs as we go and move along through the year. But I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what’s next other than the fact that I’m writing a lot.

And I’m very inspired at the moment, which feels really great. And I just got off tour with Sigrid. I actually played in Paris last week. But it was such a fun tour and again, just reminded me how much I love being in a room full of people singing songs. So I’m really excited to hopefully do that some more this year.

How was the tour?

I’ve never done a European tour. I’d played Paris once before, and I played. I played a few of those spots, but like in very random settings, not like on a proper tour, but with a lot of people. And Sigrid’s team were amazing. And yeah, it felt like we were interrailing.

We would hand over all the gear, and Sigrid’s bus would take it, and we’d be on the trains. And so, it was honestly so fun. I’d never played to German crowds.

And playing in Cologne and Hamburg and Munich and Berlin was so fun and so sweet. And then we did, yeah, Brussels and Amsterdam, and then finished in Paris.

And it was one of my favourite shows ever. Everyone was just so kind and listening. And I met so many people at the merch stand after.

What did I learn from the tour?

I learned that people really do care. Like, even if they don’t, I think that was something I think being an opening act is like, it’s hard, maybe it’s a strong word, but it can be a little bit difficult, and you can get in your head about whether people even care or if they’re like even open to hearing anyone new. And I’m so lucky I’ve gotten to do so many support slots, and each one of them has been so fun and so interesting for so many different reasons.

And you meet so many different people who do care, but it’s hard to get a full audience that all see me. Even if they don’t care, they’re just polite and stay silent. It gave me hope.

I was thinking, okay, nice. I just, I couldn’t wait to come back. So, I’m, I’m really, yeah, I’m really excited to come back at some point.

When you feel blocked with inspiration, what do you do to find it again?

I go for a lot of walks. Um, and I clean my house vigorously. When I’m just having no clue of what’s going on in my life, that’s what I do. I will go on a walk and then come home and clean my flat and just like hope that in that I figure out what’s making me not right, or what’s making me feel blocked. Um, but to be honest, I don’t, it’s such a hard thing.

I’m sure you feel it. There are times when you’re just don’t know what to do. But I was talking to one of my friends, who’s also a songwriter, and he’s been doing it a lot longer than me.

I texted him one day, and I said, I feel like I’m never going to write a song ever again. And that’s the first message he got. It was like nine in the morning.

He told me, I promise you, you will, you just have to wake up. The first thing you do is like touch your guitar. And I said, oh, I can’t do that.

And he reply, just pick up the instrument, the first thing you do in the morning. I’m more a night owl. I’d rather do that.  But it was really helpful. Cause it puts me in a, it’s going to be hard to do the thing that you do every day if you’re doing it in the exact way.

But even just breaking up the patterns was important. And then you just keep writing the worst song you’ve ever written until you write an okay song, and then it gets better. But yeah, it’s just, it’s a hard thing.

I try not to put too much pressure on myself. If I’m on a tour and I’m not picking up the guitar in the dressing room before I go on set, or before I go on stage, to try to write a song, then I’m just not going to do. I mean, if it’s not being called for. Because you’re busy and you’re doing other stuff and you’re living life, you’re getting all the stuff that you use to write the song. So, I try to be calm.

If you could speak to your younger self, what advice would you give her?

Um, I would tell her to get out of her head, to stop living in her head.

But also, maybe I wouldn’t, cause if I hadn’t lived in my head, I probably wouldn’t have written so many songs, but, um, yeah, it’s hard. You’re getting so anxious about stuff when you actually have no idea. I have no idea what any of it means to be in music and to do the job, but I still get really scared by it. And I think I’ve always been scared by it, but then, it doesn’t matter. You’re just writing songs. So just keep doing that and stop living in your head.

In every artist you like, or you’ve been listening to, which song would you have liked to compose or write yourself, and why?

I think, I think there’s something so genius about Adrianne Lenker’s lyric, not a lot, just forever. I don’t know if you know that song, but, um, I just, I don’t know how you could sum up something like that. I think she’s just so incredible. And yeah, anytime I listen to that song, I’m just absolutely floored. So maybe that song.

Do you have any particular inspirations for this EP?

At the time, I was just so, I’m quite honest. I was quite a selfish writer. It was just everything that was happening to me. And so, it came to me that was what I was focused on. I was probably the worst person to be friends with at the time.

Cause it was all I wanted to talk about, and trying to figure out my shit. And, honestly, I was quite inspired by therapy. I was inspired, um, by my friends’ conversations and, um, I was inspired by the other person. I would definitely find a lot of solace in my writing with the person that I was sad about. Do you know what I mean? It was quite a time. Then I would listen to songs like Not A Lot, Just Forever or anything from Adrianne Lenker older stuff that was kind of what was just killing me, but it was just ripping my heart up, and I was just sad. But it was nice to just be sad and feel it.

You’ve lived in London for a while now, but do you still feel a connection to your Irish roots when you write or perform? Does Ireland still play a role in your music?

Well, firstly, it’s St. Patrick’s day.  I always struggle with this question because I grew up in Ireland, I moved here five years ago, but I’m Irish.

I grew up there. I lived there my whole life, until I moved to London. And so to me, I don’t try to tie anything Irish into the songs other than just who I am.  I think it’s very obvious when you meet me. Some people don’t think my accent’s too Irish, but it is. I don’t, I never know what to say.

I’ll be on a TikTok live, and people are saying, “Since when are you American?” Which I’m not. I love it when I can hear it myself, where, Oh, I sound really Irish on that, on that word, or, or even getting to play with a fiddle on stage is like so nice to me, but it’s not something I seek out because I would hope that it kind of shines through anyway.

https://nellmescal.lnk.to/TCWG-EPAW