Susie-Blue on the Button! 1/4/13

Image compliments of Peter Sherlock

Susie-Blue is launching her second EP ‘Bits and Buttons’ this Friday at Café Soul! The local singer/songwriter has a lot in the pipeline with both performing and organising gigs locally and further afield. Susie-Blue will have the pleasure of providing support for her friend and peer, SOAK, at The Little Museum of Dublin tomorrow and Wednesday, both nights have sold out already!

Susie-Blue tells of how she first began to play music a few years after receiving a guitar as a present. “I’d say I was about 7 or 8 my daddy bought me like a wee half guitar or ¾ guitar for Christmas and I didn’t touch it until I was about 9 or 10. I moved from Belfast to Foreglen and then he started to teach me how to play. After that I just played guitar flat out. He taught me my first five chords and after that I just ran with it and tried to do as much as I could with it. I was learning other songs, well trying to, he taught me ‘Sloop John B’ by the Beach Boys. He used to play ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and when he was playing that I thought it was the most complicated song to play ever and I used to think ‘God, I’d really love to play that song, I have to learn how to play it.’ That was my goal.”

After reaching her first goal Susie-Blue went on to write her first original song at the age of only 15. “I wrote my first proper song when I had just turned 15. When I did that, for Christmas which was six months later my mummy and daddy booked me into a studio in Feeney to record two songs. That was my present and I was so happy, really buzzing. I went in and recorded Avril Lavigne’s Nobody's Home and did a piano cover of it. I was just learning piano at the time and it was awful. I also did the first song that I’d written, Memories; I don’t even play it anymore. I think it’s bad, my mum obviously loves it because it was the first song I’d written.”

Even though it was big step for Susie-Blue, she felt at ease in the new surroundings.  “It was weird, I felt natural in it, I really enjoyed it. I was still a bit shaky on guitar and piano, I was fifteen and had been playing for five years but never in front of anyone or anything. Then to play in front of this man who has a studio and plays guitar. It was nerve wrecking and I was sitting trying to play but it only took two takes to get the guitar part and one or two to get the piano as well.  I had only just been learning to play piano, Eoin O’Callaghan of Best Boy Grip taught me how to play in school.”

Susan Donaghy was the name left behind for the new identity of ‘Susie-Blue’ but this was a transition she felt was necessary. “There’s a strand of songs that I don’t play. They’re all on YouTube except for Memories, that’s not on YouTube. Songs like ‘Fallen’, ‘Pressure’ and others that are on YouTube under ‘Susan Donaghy’ and to me they’re nothing to do with Susie Blue, they’re more just me when I was starting out. There are some good hooks in them but I wouldn’t tamper with them or change them and leave them where they are. The songs I have now are the ones I was writing when I set out to become Susie Blue. I did gig as Susan Donaghy for a while and played the likes of Internal Woman’s Day with my friend. I was really shy though and I think I needed to take myself out of the equation and put in like a character and a stage presence where I could talk on stage and be more open on stage because it wasn’t actually me. It feels like you’re not putting yourself out there as much because it’s under a different alias. I think I understand now why people pick stage names, it’s easier to make a page and say when you’re playing, if someone doesn’t show up then I’m grand when I go home, Susie Blue might be a bit hurt when she’s sitting at the gig.”

Susie-Blue explains how she went on to organise nights for other acts, particularly those who may not have had the opportunity to play otherwise. “Les, the owner of the Bound for Boston, saw me at the Battle of the Bands where I came third. That opened up a good few opportunities for me. That encouraged Sean Woods from Birchwood Recording Studio to record my next EP. The Les said he like  me to organise a night with my name on it where it’d be my night and I’d get the acts and he would step back and give me full control of it. I thought it was great because then I could get in acts that don’t really get a chance anywhere else. I found the Bound For Boston really hard to get into initially, thank God for the Battle of the Bands, I think they’re great to introduce bands and singer to bars where they’re looking for acts. For example, I’ve got a girl playing who never plays anywhere, the only way she would get to play was at open mic nights and stuff but because I’m organising this she’s getting to play. Her name’s ‘Wee Blue’, I’m excited to have her there to play.”

It’s going to be a busy week for Susie-Blue, The Little Museum of Dublin tomorrow and Wednesday, Susie-Blue Presents… in the Bound for Boston on Thursday and of course, not to be missed, the launch of ‘Bit’s and Buttons’ the new 3 track EP on Friday . Check out Café Soul for the launch starting at 8.30, £2 at the door but you can bring your own drinks. In the meantime have a listen online at http://susie-blue.bandcamp.com/.