Turning to music as an antidote to any ailment is a given in my house. Most of the time, I do it to figure out how to name a feeling. The singer and songwriter Claire Hawkins has done something akin to creating a new feeling.
Speaking to Claire on the phone feels like talking to a new friend at college orientation. She’s thoroughly better prepared for the conversation and knows how to make you feel better about the day ahead. Her approach to performing is curiously modern, and before COVID, it makes study abroad students appear aimless.
Claire Hawkins at Generator London in London, England
Touring from bar to hostel, mostly within Ireland with which she fosters a familial and personal connection, her listeners are ready to give their full attention. The concept of a ‘hostel tour’ is the main pitch, an excellent way to navigate a tough venue hounding process. By the beginning of 2020, she’d somehow nailed down a way to make herself the star of that relationship.
The current emphasis of people within the industry is to hunker down, keep recording, and sell something through the internet. The more social engagement one gives, the closer the artist appears to be to recreate a sense of engagement. Unfortunately for many experienced performers, the reverberations within an empty venue overwhelm their ability to connect online, so to expect an easy transition is to set a bit of a high bar.
When I came across Claire Hawkins’ work back in 2019, the revelation that touring hostels or temporary spaces was a brilliant idea hit a year later when COVID swamped New York City. While the industry is still trying to gather how to make sense of touring and guiding their artists, Claire has cleverly been practicing her tactics. While bar touring is nothing new, it’s the idea that a return to it that can help an artist perform one day, again.
Interview answers are provided by Claire Hawkins, early twenties, singer/songwriter.
1. I graduated from NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music last year (May 2019).
2. Things are still very much up in the air at the moment. Unfortunately, I've had to put all touring/traveling on hold due to the pandemic, and, like everyone, I'm not really able to make plans, since we don't know when things will return to "normal." I'm in a particularly odd situation because I'm based in Dublin, Ireland at the moment, and I don't know what's going to happen with my visa. For now, I'm taking things one day at a time and using the time to make a dent in my reading list!
3. Since last summer [2019], I'd been performing in youth hostels around Europe on the Foreign Voices Travelers Tour. This unusual tour was in support of my travel-themed EP Foreign Voice, which I released in November. Along the way, I created behind-the-scenes tour videos styled like travel vlogs to share my experiences on the road. I also hosted an international interview series called Foreign Voices, in which I spoke with musicians around Europe about the independent music scenes in their respective cities. On this tour I was fortunate enough to play 18 shows in 14 cities across 9 countries. I was supposed to perform in Lithuania this month, and was even in talks to bring the tour beyond Europe later in the year. Of course, these plans had to be canceled for the time being, but I'm looking forward to a time when it's responsible to travel again.
Claire Hawkins at Grand Hotel Classic in Berlin, Germany.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Claire while simultaneously trying to imagine Dublin where she first called from. The way that the city alone has changed in recent years is promising for musicians who recognize the musical traditions that still matter. The question is whether these traditions will be able to find a compromise with the way new listeners discover music, through their phones and the power of social media. It’s less of a word-of-mouth process and more of a war already won by cultural memes.
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Part 2 of Claire Hawkins’ music will focus on what her music is saying, and why it matters particularly now.
You can find out more about Claire Hawkins HERE.