POST-BURNOUT
For the Tipperary singer-songwriter Miriam Carley, music has always been a part of her life. As a kid, everyone in her household would sing, and her grandmother would win competitions. “She lived on the Galway-Roscommon border, and she used to win all the awards for singing,” Miriam tells Post-Burnout. “And, actually, funny, her teacher actually wanted her either to be a musician or a teacher, and I’m both of those things now! [Laughs] So, it took a generation down!”
For Miriam, her first performance in front of a live audience was around age five, when she landed the role of Gretl von Trapp in a local production of The Sound of Music. “I was quite young at the time, because, apparently – my mum always remembers this – ‘You were meant to stand out and say, “Oh, Gretl,”’ something like that,” says Miriam. “And I couldn’t remember the name, so I stepped out and went, ‘Sorry, I can’t remember the name!’ and your one goes, ‘Just say your name.’ ‘Oh, grand! OK!’ And your one was like, ‘That four- or five-year-old knows what she’s at!’ So, it literally started with The Sound of Music, and then, from there, I just stayed singing.”
Although she came from a musical family (probably not too dissimilar from the von Trapps, based on her descriptions), Miriam was the first in her household to pursue music professionally. Initially interested in becoming a comics artist in the style of Marvel and DC Comics, she instead went on to get a B.Ed. in Teaching and an MA in Geography, but music never escaped her life. “I started being in cover bands and stuff like that, when I was in college,” she says. “And it actually helped pay. So, I used to work, during the day, in Life Style Sports, and then I’d do weddings and stuff like that at nighttime. So, that’s actually how I paid for college and stuff.”
Miriam initially got into teaching, due to her own experience of being bullied in school, which made her take a sabbatical from performing for a number of years. In her own words: “Bullying, it’s a big no-no. It’s actually why I went into teaching, if I’m being really honest. That’s part of why I went into it, because you see it, and it can really damage somebody, long term.” Feeling that music was a good means of creating harmony between students, Miriam set up a choir in her school, which both showcased kids’ talents and grew their confidence. Yet, she still yearned to perform music professionally.
With enough good credit built up from her work with the choir, the school’s principal accepted Miriam’s request to reduce her hours, so she could study Commercial Modern Music at Dublin’s illustrious music college, BIMM. There, she made lots of connections, including with her guitarist Kevin Maxwell – who had been a fan of the cover band Route 66, which she had been in – and fellow singer-songwriter Roo Elizabeth. “I think BIMM’s great for creating community,” she says. But even in this environment of like-minded musicians, her fellow classmates were amazed by her career, as she had been performing full-time as a session musician whilst studying. “It was very funny, though, when I was in the course, a lot of people were like, ‘Wait, how many gigs have you done?!’” she says. It was while here that Miriam would venture out and create her own project, called Micah.
Inspired by acts as varied as Evanescence, PVRIS, Rebecca Black, Tovo Lo, and Tinashe, Miriam began writing for her new Micah project during the COVID-19 lockdowns. “I’m very honest,” she says of her songwriting. “And I think it’s kind of a case of…I used to write for other people, years ago. I wrote for other bands; I used to get pulled in for it, and then people were like, ‘Oh, you should really release your own stuff.’ I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Right.’ At the start of it, I was writing for the audience, but I wasn’t writing for me. And what ended up happening was COVID happened, and I kind of reset everything and I said, ‘What am I doing?’
“And all of a sudden, literally coming out of COVID, I started writing from my perspective – like, very much like, ‘This is what’s happening with me’ – and being very, very honest, to the point where your ex can go, ‘Is this about me?’ [Laughs] You’re like, ‘No!’ So, it’s a very honest point, but it’s been very cathartic for me, and a few people have said the flow of the songs [are] very natural, very quick. Like, I will write a song in under five minutes; like, I’ll have, generally, the bones of it. If I have to spend too long trying to figure it out, it’s not for me. So, I think COVID, in a weird way, has made me a better writer.”
This honest writing can be seen demonstrated in Micah’s latest single “Blame,” which released today. “This one’s a very honest song, I won’t lie,” she says. “‘Blame’ was actually written off me being quite badly treated in a certain environment, in the workplace, and it was a case of I kind of took it because, again, trying to be professional, and then it eventually…I was a bit [like], ‘Why am I putting up with this? I’m a grown woman, like!’ And the song is basically a case of, ‘You have your issues with you. That’s yours; stop putting them on me, because it has nothing to do with me.’
“Funny enough, when I look back at when I did write the song, I remember being like, ‘This isn’t my problem, like. Like, I’m a vocal point for you, for whatever issue you’re going through. You need to figure out why you’re going through that issue, but it’s not on me to sort that out for you,’ and that’s kind of…’cause I was taking it on myself, and getting quite down and quite depressed about it. It became a case where I got diagnosed with situational depression, and I was like, ‘Oh, dear God! Right, I need to change this.’ So, the song is literally like…at the end, it’s literally me going, ‘I figured this out. Like, I’m not taking this anymore. I don’t care. Like, it’s not my problem, it is yours. Sort yourself out.’”
“Blame” is a track off what was to be an upcoming EP, but which may eventuate into a full-length album, given the number of tracks Micah has penned and ready to go. Between balancing being a professional performer, recording artist and rising popstar with her daily teaching job, we asked Micah how she balances it all. “It’s tiring, I won’t lie,” she admits. “I’m tired most of the time. So, I kind of schedule it in such a way…So, what I actually do, I get up at half-five in the morning and I go to the gym, and then go to school, do my thing, and then, maybe, come home until about six, do my corrections and stuff, and then it’s music stuff. But I tend to do rehearsals and gigs, and they could be quite late at night, it’s just if you want to stay with it, you have to stay with it.”
To add to this schedule, Micah has two gigs coming up to coincide with the release of “Blame”; an all-ages in-store gig at the newly-opened HMV on Henry Street, and a headline gig at Upstairs at Whelan’s with her friends Roo Elizabeth and Natalie Moran. “Well, actually, today, we had nearly too many songs! So, we had to cut one or two,” Micah laughs, responding to our question as to what people can expect if they come along. “Yeah, ‘cause the way it worked out, I didn’t think I had enough originals, and then we did it and we were like, ‘It’s about an hour and a half,’ so we may need to cut down a little bit, for the headline. [Laughs] But, yeah, it’s going to be really mixed. There’s going to be some of my older stuff when I was kind of doing the pop, EDM; a bit of ‘Invisible Fire’ and ‘Take Me Away,’ that I did with Leo Dynamic1. So, that will be in the set, and then there will be some of the new ones; not all of the new ones, because, obviously, they’re still in production, at the moment. But it will be quite lively. There is going to be a little bit of an acoustic breakdown set, as well.”
With a tight band, great support acts, and friends and family travelling for the gig, Micah also wanted to provide something for her younger fans: her students. “Obviously, being a teacher, a lot of the kids were like, ‘Yeah, we saw it was over 18s! Like, what the hell, Miss?!’ [Laughs] So, I was told, even by one of the members in Hot Press, Mark, he said, ‘Oh, you should really think about doing an all-ages gig at some point, because, clearly, you have a teenage demographic that knows you and stuff.’ So, off the back of that, to cover the halfway point, I said I would do a gig in HMV in Henry Street, I’m doing a gig there for an hour. It’s an acoustic breakdown on the 13th of August, at three P.M., so at least the students can go to that. And I’ve warned them, ‘If you heckle me, I swear to God, I’ll pull you up and make you sing!’”
Micah’s latest single “Brave” is available to stream from today. She plays in-store at HMV on Henry Street on Sunday, August 13th at 15:00, and she headlines Upstairs at Whelan’s, with support from Roo Elizabeth and Natalie Moran, on Saturday, August 18th, with tickets available here. You can keep up to date with Micah on her website, which includes all of her social media links.
For a more extensive interview with Micah, which goes deeper on the topics of this article, as well as her going in-depth on the songs from her upcoming EP/album and talking about falling off a stage, tune into today’s edition of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews…, premiering today at 17:00 (IST) on YouTube and available elsewhere afterwards.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.