“When I was in primary school, there was one of those things where you write about what you want to be when you grow up, and I wrote, ‘I want to be a rockstar!’” recalls the Irish musician Leila Mary when she spoke with Post-Burnout.

With multiple generations of musicians on both sides of her parental lineages, Leila was raised as a musical child. One of the earliest video recordings of Leila’s life featured her at her grandparents’ piano, experimenting with dissonant storytelling through a makeshift scale. “I wrote music pretty much since I could speak,” Leila recounts. “I tortured my entire family, singing, since I found out what singing was!”

Throughout her childhood, Leila took singing, tin whistle, and recorder lessons, enrolled in music classes in primary and secondary school, and attended music camps, all to make her rockstar dream a reality.

Despite Leila’s all-encompassing musical background, it wasn’t until she was a teen that she discovered the music that really lit her fire. As she recalls, “I had always loved music, and I always knew that I wanted to write music, and I remember, one day, I was sick and off school, and I was on YouTube, and a My Chemical Romance music video got recommended to me, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that name before. Let me check this out,’ and I was immediately like, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life! I want to make music like them!’”

Beginning with their song “Teenagers,” Leila went on to watch “every single music video” from My Chemical Romance. “I was obsessed,” she states. “I have watched every single My Chemical Romance interview that is there in video form. Like, I was obsessed! And it was like, ‘Oh! Gerard Way is a nerd!’ Like, they were losers in school; they were like nerdy losers, and they can make this cool music.

“And I always thought, ‘Awwh! I’m just not cool enough to make music like that,’ and so, when I realised, ‘Gerard Way’s a nerd, and he was bullied, and he was weird. If he can make cool music like that and be cool, surely I can do that!’”

At sixteen, Leila learned to play guitar and bass, and, a year later, she dropped out of secondary school early to do a PLC course on music. “I think I have always been a little delusional, in that I was like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to be famous one day!’” Leila laughs, explaining why she took the chance.

Leila enrolled at the Bray Institute of Further Education. “It was the first time in my life where I really felt like I fit in,” is how she remembers BIFE. “It was like my life was just beginning. It was like, ‘Oh, this is how great life can be.’”

When questioned about how a formal education in music compared to learning autodidactically, Leila responds, “I had done some music in school, and I knew some of the theory, other than modes. I had never heard of a mode before in my life, but I knew a lot of the theory. I had no idea about most of the stuff we learned in music business; that was very, very handy.

“I learned a lot about playing with other people and getting the balance, and getting to work with people who wrote a whole lot of different genres, and different playing and writing styles. It was my first experience playing in a band.”

Upon completing her PLC course, Leila began temping for other artists as a session player, primarily contributing bass or keys. But it wasn’t until she enrolled at the Dublin branch of BIMM that she first saw the path that would lead her to her childhood dream of rockstardom.

 “That was kind of the first time I was singing by myself and got a lot more confidence on stage,” Leila recalls of her time at BIMM. “I had a little band thing, and different people playing for me, and stuff. And that’s kind of where that all started. It must have been second year that I started properly getting into my character.”

Leila recorded an original song called “Petulant Child” with BIMM’s facilities, which would later become the first single released under her new eponymous project. Describing her music as “gothic-grunge” with elements from riot grrrl, Leila cites primary inspirations from My Chemical Romance, Patti Smith, Evanescence, and Hole.

Of the two introductory singles that Leila released in 2025, both deal with themes of frustration and consternation, but, musically, the two are very different. “Petulant Child” (released in March) is a thudding, down-picking, heavy grunge song with epic and fantastical lyrics and a haunting vocal delivery, whereas her follow-up, “Innocent” (released in October), is a direct, prosaic, sardonic, aggressive melodic punk tune.

Speaking on her versatility, Leila admits, “I think I write very organically. I think it’s a hindrance, sometimes, because a lot of the songs that I write don’t necessarily fit automatically into that goth-y/grunge-y vibe, and I either have to change them into it, or else be like, ‘I’ll save that for a different project.’

“I have sometimes tried really hard to write stuff in a specific genre, but it always feels disingenuous or something; like, it doesn’t feel like it came from the heart. I think ‘Innocent,’ […] I just had a bad night, and had a bit of a falling out, and I was walking to a rehearsal through Dublin City, and I just sat there on my phone, on my Notes app, typing out the lyrics, and it was like a diary, almost.

“I listen to every possible genre; everything from My Chemical Romance to Britney Spears to a million different things. So, I think I just kind of write what comes from the heart. I write it, and then I figure out how it’s going to fit in.”

After a year-long sabbatical from releasing music (an unintended pause on Leila’s part, which we’ll get into later), Leila returned this October with her latest single, “Cherry Tree”; her softest and most delicate release to date. Chronologically, it’s actually one of her oldest tracks, with Leila recalling that she penned it in 2019.

“I actually only had the chorus and the first verse, and how it was going to end, for a couple of years,” Leila says of “Cherry Tree.” “The second verse, I had about three different versions. One was going to be like The Princess and the Pea, and one was going to be Cinderella.

“But it’s very metaphorical. It’s not very obvious, and you can listen to it as is, but I use these very unobvious metaphors sometimes, where it’s almost like, maybe, I’m the only one who knows what this means! [Laughs]

“But when I was writing it, I didn’t have much life experience and not very much relationship experience, and I kind of felt like I was kind of viewed as very sweet and innocent, in a similar way to the fairytale characters, like Little Red Riding Hood; she’s an innocent girl, dropping off food to her Grandmom.

“This is a bit cheeky or something, but the cherry tree is a metaphor for virginity, I guess, and that being seen as ‘innocent’ and ‘chaste,’ and all this. Like, these characters in the first story, with Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf wants to eat the Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood, and she’s just dropping off some bread, or whatever.

“But, in this story, she’s kind of like, [Pantomimes coquettishly adjusting her hair] ‘Ohhh! Why is the Big Bad Wolf kind of…? He’s kind of fine!’ [Laughs] This is a very pro-furry song! I think the furries will definitely love this! Maybe I should get a furry, one of those realistic furries, for the music video?

“Then, the second story is this sort of sought-after princess, and all the princes in the land are trying to impress her, and she’s having absolutely none of it, but I guess I imagine her with one of the maids or something. It’s like a queer romance, almost; she’s the only one that can catch her eye, you know?

“But it’s like they want to make her ‘pure’ again, because she’s been made ‘tainted’ by this woman, but they end up running away together in the end, as a little happy ending, because not enough queer romance stories have happy endings, and this one is a happy ending! I think that’s important! It’s kind of the bisexual anthem, in a way! The fairytale bisexual anthem!”

In the gap between “Innocent” and “Cherry Tree,” Leila has been toiling away in the background on her debut EP, which is expected to be released at the beginning of next year. “It’s going to be four songs,” Leila says of the EP. “One of the songs is ‘Petulant Child,’ but it’s sort of a new, updated version.

“I’ve done them all with the same producer that I did ‘Innocent’ and ‘Cherry Tree’ with [Matt Winston]. It’s ‘Petulant Child,’ ‘Read Me Wrong,’ ‘Black Lipstick,’ and ‘I Confess.’ ‘I Confess,’ I like to think of as if a horror movie were a song, kind of. Like, folk horror. Like, an Irish folk horror, but it’s a song! And ‘Black Lipstick’ is my pop-punk banger. That’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s the one people will sing to!’”

Before the EP is released, Leila plans to release “Black Lipstick” and “I Confess” as singles. But if you just can’t wait to hear more from Leila, she’s hosting an event called Potions for A Weary Heart – A Night of Witchy Music for Samhain at Dublin’s Anseo this Thursday, with support from Maya Hope and Queen Bitch. “It’s going to be an acoustic kind of night,” she says of the gig.

“So, very witchy. We’re all trying to think of a Halloween costume to wear, which, none of us have decided what to wear yet! So, we’ll see what happens, but we’re hoping to get some people coming in in little costumes.

“We’re going to be celebrating Samhain. It’s myself and Maya Hope organising it ourselves, and it’s the first time we’ve organised a gig together, so it’s very exciting. I’m going to be switching between playing guitar and piano for different songs, which I haven’t done. […] So, I’m very excited.”

Leila Mary’s latest single, “Cherry Tree,” is out now. You can keep up with Leila through her website.

This Thursday, Leila will perform with Maya Hope and Queen Bitch at Anseo, Dublin. Tickets are available here.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

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.