Orla Gartland
Access all areas The Irish singer-songwriter on the lessons that early success as a teenage YouTuber taught her about creative freedom Words LOU BOYD
Photography KARINA BARBERIS
Orla Gartland has never allowed anyone else to decide how she makes music. The Dublin-born singersongwriter found her audience at the age of 14, when she began uploading videos to YouTube. With just her voice, her guitar and her endearing personality, Gartland soon gained a burgeoning fanbase; she now has 271,000 subscribers. Conquering the internet might have been enough for a less ambitious artist, but for Gartland it was just the start. After finishing school, she packed her bags and relocated to London, intent on releasing her songs into the real world. With more than 24 million views on her YouTube channel, Gartland could have approached record labels in the capital, but instead she set up her Secret Demo Club on the online membership platform Patreon, where fans could buy her music directly for a monthly subscription fee. This set-up provided both an income and complete creative control. “It’s funny, because Patreon is a lot less niche now, but it was basically unheard of when I started,” she says. “It’s cool because it allows people to keep ownership of their work.” After releasing two EPs – 2019’s Why Am I Like This? and 2020’s Freckle Season – in August last year Gartland finally brought out her debut album, Woman on the Internet, on her own record label, New Friends. Now, midway through a UK tour and receiving rave reviews for the album, the 26-year-old tells The
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Red Bulletin about the moment she realised she had to leave YouTube behind, and why she has never been interested in being a typical recording artist. the red bulletin: Why did you decide to upload your music to YouTube when you were 14? orla gartland: I was too young to play any open mics! They’re all in pubs in Dublin, so YouTube became the place for me to share my music. It was so exciting, because it felt like the complete antidote to the X Factor culture of the time. At that point, YouTube was one big showand-tell. You could be like, “Hello, here’s my song,” and other people were like, “Here’s my poem, here’s my drawing.” There was something innocent about it. How has your music changed since then? I made a real effort on the new album to include my band. Making Freckle Season I was so guarded, but this time I’ve loved giving space to my amazing bass player and drummer to own their parts of the songs. These were written to be played live as a band. Why did you stop your YouTube posts after moving to London? I found myself at a crossroads where I could either be a YouTuber who does music and went into vlogging territory, or a musician who uses YouTube. I knew that the [viewer] numbers I’d been building for years would nosedive when I stopped nurturing my channel, but I didn’t want to play the game that’s necessary to stay relevant online.
Tell us about Secret Demo Club… I like the idea of releasing [music] independently, and the control it gives me. No one can tell me what my single will be, or that my guitar has to be louder. But, along with all the good stuff it brings, there are also huge amounts of money needed for recording, videos, marketing, live shows, and everything else. I was working in a café at the time and could barely sustain myself, let alone put up the thousands of pounds needed to release a record. I started a Patreon where people could pay to be a member and I could share my demos and working ideas with them. It was a simple equation: I needed money to make my album, but I already had the music and also the people who wanted to hear it. So, subscribing to Secret Demo Club is essentially just a different way for fans to buy your music? Yes, but it’s also like getting to sit and have coffee with everyone else who bought it. I did a show in Dublin at the end of 2019 and 20 people from Secret Demo Club actually travelled there and rented a house together. People came from America, from all over Europe… there was even someone from Australia. They’d communicated and organised a trip to the gig. That, to me, is the best thing ever. If I can be the reason all these people come together and have a great time, that’s amazing. Creating a global friendship circle, linked by your music… That’s what I want. I don’t care about Spotify streams; all that stuff can feel so arbitrary. What I really care about is when I get messages from people saying that my song is special to them and their friend, or that they’ve passed it on to someone else. Human connection has to be at the heart of it all. Orla Gartland’s latest album, Woman on the Internet, is out now; orlagartland.com
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