Lead Them To Freedom: We Speak To Lisa Canny Ahead Of Her Irish Tour

Lisa Canny, a Mayo native living in the UK, has amassed over two million streams online, sold out shows across the UK and US and co-written with a host of artists including Kaiser Chiefs, Melissa Etheridge and Akon. 

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Lisa Canny has travelled the world and worked with a plethora of highly regarded names in the industry and was dubbed “Ireland’s next big female artist” by Miles Copeland of The Police. Heavily involved in traditional Irish music, Canny is the seven-time All Ireland Champion on harp and banjo.

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She was also named UK Future Music Songwriting Winner 2016, placed in the top ten of “Irish acts you don’t want to miss” by BBC America, has appeared on two PBS Specials, the Late Late Show, shared the stage with the likes of Gavin James, Lisa Hannigan and The Coronas. Our Lisa, Lisa Hafey, got to speak to her.

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LC: Hey Lisa! What a gorgeous name you have!!! 😉 Whats the Lisa Canny story?  Hmm.  A very west of Ireland upbringing, immersed in the traditional Irish music scene, ladies county football, school volleyball and everything modern dance.  Teenage years mainly consisted of different hair colours – anything but the ginger I was naturally.  More music.  More sport.  More dance.   Uni included a BA Irish Music and Dance at the University Of Limerick, and a MA Ethnomusicology at University College Cork.  This was also the time I started touring the States, Canada and Europe with large Irish music productions like Celtic Crossroads and Ragus. One such tour saw a big shift in direction for me. I was approached by Miles Copeland (The Police, manager) and invited to come to his castle in France (yeah, I know) to ASCAP’s annual songwriters retreat. Here I wrote my first few songs ever with 18 of the biggest players in the industry, including The Kaiser Chiefs, The Plain White T’s, Mike Posnor, Priscilla Renea, Jodi Marr and Brett James to name but a few.  Soon after I signed my first publishing deal.  Since then I’ve had the most incredible journey, fulfilling some of my biggest dreams.  Fast forward 4 years and I’m finally releasing my own EP. There’s a hell of a lot more to that story but that’s for another time 🙂

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LC: Thank you. ‘Freedom’ is a song about empowerment, particularly for Ireland and Irish women. It is a modern take on the likes of ‘Roisin Dubh’ or ‘Aisling Geal’ ie. a song that sounds like it is about a particular woman but it actually about pride of country/love for country. I wrote it with one of the original members of Iron Maiden, Tony Moore (I know, another mental encounter). We managed to get 12x popular Irish song titles into the lyric as a homage to the wealth of inspirational repertoire we have in Ireland. Can you find all 12?

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LC: Ooooooh ok here comes to sales pitch…

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Expect a top-class line up of musicians belting out songs about everything from bad break-ups & killer-women to lovers from Achill Island and the famine.  Expect seriously high energy vibes!  Expect to feel empowered.  Expect to wanna dance.  Expect to wanna cry.  Expect to wanna crunch up your face and nod your head at the dirty, dirty synth lines.  Expect to practice your surprised face at how well the traditional Irish tenor banjo sounds in Pop songs! Expect to fancy my backing singers Niamh and Niall.  Expect to sing – I WILL MAKE YOU SING.  Expect to wanna come back for more!

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LC: I do, I play piano, guitar, a little fiddle, a little bass. Oh and tin-whistle of course…doing my primary school teachers proud since 1994!! 😉

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LC: I would consider influences as what has made me who I am musically, by default – my environmentation and music-cultural capital, for better of for worse. So influence for me has been a combo of:

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Everything my brother and sister listened to (both older and hence called the shots). This was the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Roxette, The Extreme, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day (just puked a little in my mouth writing that), Tracey Chapman, Lisa Loeb etc.  99% decent music.

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Mix that with a load of class trad albums (mostly banjo albums…Gerry O’Connor, John Carty).  Throw in some Dolores Keane & Mary Black (Mammy’s choice) and some Irish Country music (Dad’s choice…this is the “for worse” part).  Mix it all together and embody it in a little girl who plays harp and banjo and loves the Spice Girls and Tah-Dah…you have me.

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Dream collabs would include Snarky Puppy, Laura Mvula, Ed, Elvis, Bowie and Freddie.

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COS WE’RE CLASS! And we got soul like no other!  We speak the language.  We get it.  It’s phenomenology!

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LC: Nope – everything is as it should be!  All the hardships, all the rejections, all the triumphs, all the successes.  They are all part of the story I will write and sell for millions.  MILLIONS I TELL YA.

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LC: “OMG Lisa when did you and Tom Hardy start hooking up?  I heard he is totally in love with you and wants to have your babies!  When are you taking him home to Mayo?”

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Find Lisa Canny online on her offiical website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. ‘Freedom’ is available on iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon.

You can see Lisa performing live at the following: