John Hynes, an Irish singer-songwriter known for his moving lyrics and soulful tunes, is set to release his first album, “A Man In Love,” on February 19, 2024. With the success of his first two number-one hits, “Caroline, I’m Yours” and “I’m Gonna Try,” Hynes is expected to enthrall listeners with an engrossing collection of songs that delves into the complexities of modern manhood, love, and life. Check out the exclusive interview below:
1. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
JOHN HYNES: I went to guitar lessons from the age of 12 but once I’d learned the basics all I wanted to do was write songs, so I remain quite uneducated! I always was afraid if I learned how to do it ‘properly” I’d lose some of my creativity. More recently I’ve accepted that a little more formal knowledge would be useful in order to communicate the arrangements with session musicians. I have found youtube to be an amazing resource to demystify a lot of that stuff and I have started to actually learn the names of chords!
2. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘JOHN HYNES?
JOHN HYNES: I’m the youngest of 6 children and everyone loved music so I had lots of influence. My parents were “older” which is probably why my music sounds the way it does, their tastes were pre Beatles era, more like Jim Reeves and Bing Crosby. And from my siblings all the great popular music from the 80’s . I did consider using a “cool” band type name but then I thought about how Neil Young would change styles from album to album. In a weird way it makes it more freeing – rather than being stuck to a particular style its like he’s simply presenting the songs he’s written recently. I doubt I’ll waver too far from the singer-songwriter path anyway! And I was mature enough to feel like I wanted to just be “me”. Father John Misty has said he would have preferred to use his real name but as his previous albums (released under his own name) no longer felt like the “real” him. So in that case he had to come up with a pseudonym. Luckily, I didn’t have fame or success to ruin my chance to use my real name.
3. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
JOHN HYNES: I think I’m so afraid of coming across as one of those cliched preachy rock stars that I stay away from it! I would sum up my music as being for those little cinematic epiphanies we have on long journeys staring out a window. Those moments can stay with you. I still remember walking through the English Gardens in Munich and finally it started to rain and I came to a beautiful , golden angelic statue just as “5 Years’ by David Bowie came on my iPod. I want people to have those moments to my music. I would say there are political and cultural themes in a subtle way. My song “Caroline, I’m Yours” is sort of supposed to work on a few levels – to an extent, its interrogating that classic archetype of a male singer-songwriter writing a song about a sort of faceless, blank female muse without questioning whether they are actually a living, breathing human being with agency. But also people think it’s a love song I wrote about a girl named Caroline. Which is fine I suppose….
4. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
JOHN HYNES: Its taken me my whole life to release my debut album so I’m really only at the start, so I would hope to get more out of it, enough that I can sustain it and continue to create and connect with an audience. Don’t send me back to the office!
5. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
JOHN HYNES: I’ve learned to live off scraps as I’ve never been a full time musician, I’ve always had other jobs. Often if I pick up a guitar I know I might only have 5 mins to play it and I’ll start humming a new melody almost instantly and then in a matter of seconds the whole song can form in my head. I have to do a lot of the work just in my head. I think about it and arrange it all day for weeks or months or even years. I’m essentially always composing in my head. The lyrics are more of a slog – hopefully I’ll have an idea of the theme of the song and once I get into a habit of writing words I can enjoy that but it feels more like a chore than the music part.
6. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
JOHN HYNES: As Taylor Swift would say “ I’m the problem, its me!”. I created so many barriers for myself. Its taken me a long time to understand myself and I’m finally in a place where I feel very hopeful, full of self-knowledge and empowered. Although I dreamt of rock star success as a child, I now know that given the difficulties I had it couldn’t have happened (or if it did I’d probably be in a much worse state psychologically). So I’m happy the way it worked out.
7. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
JOHN HYNES: Hearing my first solo single on one of the biggest radio shows radio in Ireland was a very proud moment. And a huge sense of validation that I wasn’t just a sad,deluded fool. My father was receiving cancer treatment at the time and heard the song in the hospital, he died soon after so I cherish that he knew I finally had a little success.
8. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?
JOHN HYNES: I used to hold onto criticism and be bitter and plot revenge. I had an infamous, although metaphorical, black book. Now I think I care as little as is humanly possible. Usually that bitterness was really to do with lack of self esteem on my part or fears that they were right. It’s just maturity really. Just getting older and having young kids gives you perspective on what’s important. Now I just feel empathy towards people and wonder what they might be going through. People can just be weird online and say things they’d never say in real life. I had one pretty stinky review for my first single – he seemed to have the impression that I was some sort of well-connected industry plant releasing cheesy MOR music when I was actually someone who’d spent all his savings from his day job just to record and release that one song. I had to find out who he was and it turned out he was a frustrated singer-songwriter, so it all made sense. But that taught me how little we know about other peoples motivations. I used to get angry when industry people just wouldn’t respond to emails but now I realise they are probably just busy, they don’t hate me. And if they do hate me that’s ok too. Marriage has taught me that I’m not actually the greatest man who ever lived, that I might have some flaws!
9. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?
JOHN HYNES: I would always have said creative work first, but the pandemic made me realise how much I missed singing in public and connecting with an audience. Its just all the sort of ‘admin” stuff around gigging that makes it seem less fun, the travelling, setting up, waiting and nerves. I fall into the cliche of the dad who goes to the airport 12 hours before a flight, so on a gig day I can’t fully relax. Waking up in the morning and going out to my studio and into my own little world seems a lot more enticing most of the time.
10. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?
JOHN HYNES: It depends. Most of my song are fairly introspective and about “me”, but others are a bit more vague. I’m happy for people to interpret them because I’m interpreting them too. I think lyrics are overrated anyway, once they aren’t overly cliched like who really cares once the melody is good? “Someone left the cake out in the rain…” Like the closing song on my album “Run To Her” for example, it started off as another break up song but then I thought about it being like a reply song to the opening track on the album “In Over My Head”. Almost like “The Winner Takes it All”. But I don’t know if I fully followed through on that, so it remains slightly more open to interpretation. Someone said they assumed that it was about me running back to my wife, which is definitely not what it means (to me anyway!).
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