Continued from page 22
and some of his darker stuff. Like his song
"What is He Building in There?" – it's just
fantastic. The way Waits paints worlds is
magic, and he populates them with names
and characters that make them all the more
real. He paints a world with people in it, so
there's a vibrancy to it, and I love that – his
imagery is just incredible."
That's what Hozier sought to do, with
album cuts like "In A Week" (sung with
Karen Cowley), which opens with the colorful couplet "I have never know peace
like the damp grass that yields to me/ I
have never known hunger like these
insects that feast on
me." The song proceeds to unfold like
a boy/girl conversation,
possibly
between two cadavers. He's a huge
Walking Dead fan,
he confesses – the
graphic novels, not
the
TV
series,
which he has yet to
watch – but he's not
cashing
in
on
today's
zombie
craze. "The song is
about two lovers,
but I wanted to
keep it open-ended,
so they could be
dead, or they could photo by Phil Smihties
just be in a state of
bliss, having done what lovers do in a field
somewhere. They're in that ultimately
relaxed state, where they could be joking
about it, like 'Well, we may as well be
dead'." It's up to the listener to decide, he
says.
After his teenage band, Hozier started
studying music at Trinity College in
Dublin. But he got a publishing deal, started composing in earnest, and eventually
dropped out of school, which worried his
parents, who had stressed academics over
a freewheeling art career. Or as he puts it,
"I wasn't raised to be a musician. But I
knew that I wouldn't be satisfied just learning music – I really wanted to write songs,
so It was time to take a deep breath and
leave college."
There was just one little problem. "At
the time, I was the class representative for
my class," he says, chuckling. "I was liaison
between the lecturers and the students, so
I had already resented myself to them as
someone who would be there to represent
my classmates. So I had to get them all
together one afternoon during a lecture
and essentially tell them 'There's something I really have to do – I have to pursue
my dream, so I'm leaving college'." But
before he would at last strike out on his
own, Hozier had one more curious path to
pursue – he joined legendary Irish vocal
ensemble Anúna for three eye-opening
years.
"And that was a lovely experience, as
well," he notes. "I mean, I didn't learn
much about composition there, because it's
a very different style of music. But being
around harmonies and textures like that? I
just loved it. I played guitar on one tour
with them, but mainly I was a member of
the choir, and I only sang solo songs every
now and then. Anúna was a large group of
24 illinoisentertainer.com november 2014
maybe 35, 40 people, guys and girls, but
only 12 might come on tour." He would
later apply what he discovered about voice
via Anúna to his own music, which finally
hit stores on the 2013 EP Take Me to Church
and its followup EP earlier this year, From
Eden. "There were a lot of techniques that I
picked up from Anúna, like breathing techniques, and singing techniques, getting
vowel sounds and textures. It really helped
me quite a bit. And frankly, it's just a joy
being around human voices, singing
together. I found it just great, singing in a
choir."
Hozier is a force to be reckoned with on
his own, however. And he's won over
showbiz fans like Taylor Swift (who posted
a video of herself dancing to one of his
tracks) and Ed Sheeran (who has already
covered his material). For his next project,
he might even collaborate with British
minimalist James
Blake, of "Wilhelm
Scream" renown.
He wants to pare
his own sound back
to its barest essentials in the future,
he adds, "Because
sometimes, a little
touch goes a long
way. It took me
years to figure out
how to articulate
exactly what I
wanted, the sound
that was in my
head. And in truth,
I don't know where
I'm going to go with
it on my next
record. But I'll certainly be learning a
lot over the next year, and checking out the
musical landscape around me as I go."
There's one thing this iconoclast wants
to clarify before he heads over to soundcheck, though. Folks who have casually
enjoyed "Take Me to Church" may instantly pass him