Jamie Duffy: ‘Enya is like a mother figure to me musically’

When Jamie Duffy was 16 years old, he took out a piece of paper and wrote down the following words: “I want to have a song that’s in the charts.” The Monaghan musician later tweeted: “In two years, I’m going to be somebody’s No1 artist.”

It took only slightly longer than that for Duffy’s manifestations to come true.

Aged 22, Duffy finds himself in the most rarefied of positions, with a debut single, Solas, that has been streamed more than 63 million times since its release a little more than a year ago, making it the most streamed debut song by an Irish artist since Hozier’s Take Me to Church. Duffy has had his music praised by Mark Ronson, producer of hits from artists including Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga, and he’s now signed to Rubyworks, the same independent Dublin label that brought Hozier to the masses.

“It’s been a crazy introduction to the music industry,” Duffy says, still sounding slightly amazed. “I wrote the song in my university dorm room in Belfast one night, aged 20. Never thinking it would connect with anyone, let alone be streamed millions of times. Mark Ronson, one of the biggest music producers in the world, commented on a video – he said ‘This is sick’. To have that level of praise was crazy.”

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Luckily Duffy has a good head on his shoulders, because the attention also proved hazardous. “When you have a hit online, you start getting a lot of emails quickly. I would say to any artist, ‘Get yourself a solicitor from that moment on’. I got an email the night I released Solas. I was in a nightclub and someone was offering me $5,000 (€4,595) for 100 per cent [ownership] of the song. If I had done that, I would have no career now, because the song would be gone to someone else. You can make mistakes very easily.”

It feels appropriate that when we catch up, Duffy is in transition. He is bussing it from Belfast to his home village of Glaslough in Monaghan. Tomorrow he flies to Iceland for writing sessions for his debut album with music production house INNI and the composer Atli Örvarsson.

A new vocal version of his song Solas will be released in a matter of weeks, and his first headline gig takes place next month, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, with a second date just added after the first sold out. “That’s how I work best, under pressure, in new environments,” he says, with relish.

If Duffy is a young man in a hurry, however, thinking towards the making and shaping of his debut album to come, his music couldn’t be more different. Solas is a gentle piano track with expressive playing that has a sadness and a warmth to it. As with his follow-up singles Into the West and Eyrie, this is absorbing music, made for listening to on headphones on days when dreaming is needed.

“When it comes to inspiration, there are people who are pillars for me,” Duffy says. “Enya is like a mother figure to me musically. She says it best: it’s all about strong melodies. My music has classical elements, but it’s hard to put an exact genre on it. I like Ludovico Einaudi when it comes to piano, and Tom Odell. I like to think of myself as some kind of love child between them.”

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From a musical family, Duffy was raised playing multiple instruments. “The tin whistle is my baby. I can’t remember not being able to play the tin whistle,” he says. “But you’d mix it with piano melodies and then you’d start singing. Growing up, it was music, music, music. My family would have put on musicals and been part of musical productions. My grandparents and my mother were in showbands.”

It might have seemed a natural choice for Duffy to have studied music in college; in fact, he has just graduated with a 2.1 degree in politics and international relations from Queen’s University in Belfast.

“I’m from the Irish border, so it’s hard not to be a political person,” he says. “I’m first generation Good Friday Agreement. I grew up listening to stories from my grandparents, of having their gear checked at gigs. I did a TEDx talk at Stormont the other week. My talk was about how history and politics are the match to music’s fire. Solas was written in Belfast city centre, about 30 seconds from City Hall, where, 25 years ago, you would have had to go through security checks to get into the city centre. The song means ‘Light’ and subconsciously that’s in the music somewhere. Music is political.”

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For the moment, Duffy continues to live at home in Glaslough with his parents, “avoiding the drain that is the renting situation in Dublin”, but he has big plans for the future. “I am very optimistic, and I like to think of myself as a bit of a hustler,” he says. “As a musician, you have to sell yourself. That doesn’t change when you have a record label. You have to work hard: that’s how you get these opportunities.”

After Solas was first released, Duffy performed on the Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy as the presenter. He’s keen to get back there again. “Things change when you’re on the Late Late show,” he says. “I had a ball. But I didn’t get a chat. And Patrick Kielty is a fellow Ulsterman, so I’m mad for a chat. It’s what RTÉ needs. People were giving out, saying there are too many people from the northern half of the country on RTÉ lately. I say, ‘Bring it on. The more the better’.”

Call it a manifestation or whatever you like: I don’t doubt it’ll happen for him.

Jamie Duffy plays The Studio in the National Concert Hall, Dublin, on March 12th and 19th. For tickets, see nch.ie