POST-BURNOUT
The New York-based Bostonian singer-songwriter and advocate Casey McQuillen has enjoyed a lot of success since she joined Season 13 of American Idol, which has seen her tour with acts like James Morrisson, Will Young, Marti Pellow, and Newton Faulkner, and appear on The Kelly Clarkson Show to raise awareness of bullying and mental health.
Recently, Casey supported the Swedish Eurovision winner Loreen on her European tour, before joining the American singer-songwriter Anastacia for her European tour, which included a sold-out date at Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre. When we spoke with Casey, she was a few weeks away from the Dublin date and was calling in from the tour bus in Spain.
“I’m on my very end with being out with Loreen, which has been so fun,” Casey said when she spoke with us. “This tour is a very feminine-heavy tour; Loreen’s at the top of the bill, and then there’s another Eurovision artist named Luna at the middle of the bill, and then me. So, it’s the most female-oriented tour I’ve ever been on.
“My band is Stacey Keller. She’s a Nashville artist that I’ve brought out with me. I’ve got a female social media manager with me. Luna has a bunch of women on tour. So, this tour bus has had four bouquets of flowers on it, there’s candles burning, incense, everything. The few men on the bus have been like, ‘This is the best-smelling bus I have ever been on!’ [Laughs] I didn’t know tour buses started at a neutral place; I thought they came smelly but, turns out, it’s been all the men!’ So, it’s been a pretty good first tour bus experience, in lots of ways.”
Beyond music, Casey has made a name for herself as a mental health activist. We asked how this touring schedule gelled with her health. “You know, it’s been really challenging this month because of the tour bus,” she responds. “I am never alone, ever. I’m a professional singer, I’m pretty extroverted, I like being around other people, but I’ve definitely noticed a social fatigue.
“I think there’s this really weird… – and maybe this is too honest an answer. I don’t know – I do therapy weekly, virtually, with my therapist from home, and I think something that I’m still learning to process as an up-and-coming artist is meeting so many people and getting praise, and applause, and hugs, but not being with my family. Like, I’m fleetingly and positively with thousands, but I’m not connected with my people at that time.
“And it’s funny, I said to my therapist that I was feeling a little isolated, I think. I tend to do this, where I feel dismissed. I said, ‘Oh, my God, but listen to me, how much praise does somebody need?’, and he said to me, ‘Praise and love aren’t the same thing. Like, there’s no amount of applause that you can receive that would be a substitute for missing your sister. Those aren’t the same thing.’
“So, I think that’s something I’m learning to deal with, is I really like meeting new people – meeting new people doesn’t drain me, it fills me up. I love meeting the fans after the show – but it is different to sitting around the pub with my friends. So, one of the ways is my friends are coming to visit me, which I’m really excited about! And my parents pop in and out of tour a lot, which helps, but I think that is just a continuous thing of adjusting, of ‘How do you build community?’
“Also, I think what’s funny about tours is you build this tour family – this happens every tour, where you have your besties and you have this sense of community that comes together. It’s a lot like summer camp. That’s how I describe it to people, it’s just like summer camp – but, like, you know, this tour is going to end in a couple of days, and I’m going to go out with Anastacia, and I’m going to be without those friends that I’ve made.
“So, I think it is such an odd human experience to meet thousands of people, meet dozens of new friends, and not your family. Most people have their family, they sometimes have their friends, and they rarely meet thousands, and my life is flipped in the other way, and I’m just trying to be kind with myself and be communicative with the people around me as I learn how that’s going to affect me, as an artist, because I think it will affect me differently than it will affect other people.
“But the one thing I’m trying not to do is press it down and not acknowledge it, because I think even though it’s a really good problem, it’s the dream, it’s the goal, it still is a really odd human experience that we’re not, necessarily, designed for, and I need to be careful to make sure that I set up the neurons in my mind as I experience these things for the first time to process them in a way that’s good and not self-destructive, you know?”
Beyond the litany of great support slots afforded to Casey in her time, she is also an in-demand artist who has done numerous headlining tours across the UK and North America. We asked how these more intimate club shows contrast with the theatre and arena support shows. “It feels frickin’ awesome!” laughs Casey when responding. “My first headline run, ever, I booked six dates after doing one run with James Morrison. I was like, ‘OK, let’s give it a shot! Let’s see who comes!’
“And we played small clubs and we had fifty people, which, I gotta tell ya, might not sound like a lot, but that’s a huge turnout for people seeing me for thirty minutes and they didn’t know who I was! I was very excited! I just did solo acoustic, and I remember Leicester. I love Leicester. All my favourite fans are in Leicester. Hi, guys! [Laughs] But I love playing the same venue in Leicester.
“I played this show – I’ll never forget it in my entire life – I had been opening, and opening, and opening, and I’m really good at it, I’m really good at being like, ‘C’mon guys!’, earning it, like, ‘You don’t know me, but I’m going to entertain you, we’re going to have a good time,’ right?
“And I got to this show in Leicester, and everyone was standing in front of me, and I got to this song, ‘Skinny,’ that I have – it’s a mental health song about body dysmorphia – and it’s been a real connector for me on previous tours with new fans, and I had laboured over that song. Truly, the bridge, I think, took me two weeks to write. I was on the subway with the Notes app, editing. And I went to sing it, and everyone sang every word, and my parents were in the audience, and they had been touring with me a bunch, and I made eye contact with them, and they were like…[Pulls amazed expression]. And I actually had to kind of disassociate because I was like, ‘I need to keep singing or I’m going to cry.’
“And after that, I said to the audience, ‘This, to an outside observer, might look like I’ve taken a step down, right? You’ve seen me at The Palladium, and now where here at this club, but I was at the top of someone else’s ladder. We’re at the bottom of my ladder. My ladder. I have it; it’s mine. It’s ours. Like, this is our show.’ So, it’s such a different feeling to be building your own ladder versus standing at the top of someone else’s.”
While building that ladder, a new step was added on April 11th, when Casey dropped her recent single, “Better Than This,” which encapsulates the feelings about her success. “I wrote it this summer [2024], about how scary it is to get on a plane to come to Europe to do this,” she says. “And I had this thought that my grandparents left Ireland to come to America for a better life, and now I am coming back to pursue art.
“They were trying to be fed and educate their children, and they’ve succeeded so tremendously through their sacrifices that their grandchild is flying back to play at the 3Arena in Dublin. There’s something really beautiful about it, it’s very emotional for me, how my ancestors, the Irish-American identity, is an identity of hope. We got on a boat and we said, ‘It’s got to be better than this. I’ve got to have more opportunity than this,’ and now I’m doing this, but it’s from a different perspective of hope. It’s like, ‘Well, I have all this, but I’m going to try something more. I think I can do it.’
“And I wrote this song about being torn between your home and your dreams, and how tied that is with my identity as an American and as an Irish-American, and how joy, pain, hope, and loss are so intertwined; they’re the same side of the same emotion. So, I sing this song every night, called ‘Better Than This,’ about leaving and going far away in pursuit of a dream. I sing it every night, and what’s really amazing about it is that I’m literally singing the lyrics about what I’m doing.”
Casey’s attachment to Ireland was so strong that she wanted to gain Irish citizenship. “I got my Irish citizenship. I applied over a year ago. My grandfather is from Carndonagh, Donegal, and I’m 100% Irish-American,” she says. “Though, of course, the Irish-American identity is different from the Irish identity, it is a very strong identity in and of itself, especially in Boston, where I’m from.
“Irish pride was something I was really raised with. I think I was 12 when I looked at my history teacher’s ring, and I said, ‘What’s wrong with your ring?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Where are the hands? The girls have diamonds, the boys have hands.’ He said, ‘That’s just Irish people, Casey!’ I said, ‘It is?!’ All of the men in my life have had Claddagh rings as their wedding rings! So, we’re pretty Irish! [Laughs]
“So, it was really emotional for me. What was so beautiful for me about getting my Irish citizenship is that it felt like coming home. It didn’t feel like I had to prove…They didn’t ask for my income, they didn’t ask me to sing. So much of life, you have to fight for and claw for your place, especially in my career. Constantly clawing, constantly proving, constantly asking for, striving for, and, with this, it was so beautiful in the sense that they were like, ‘Who are you again?’, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m McQuillen-McLaughlin-McDonald,’ and they went, ‘God, that’s so great! Welcome home! We’re so glad you’re back!’ And it was just beautiful! I’m going to cry!”
Next month, Casey will once again go out with Anastacia for her UK tour, before returning to Europe in September to kick off a headlining tour, which will include a date at Dublin’s Crowbar Terrace on September 25th. “That’s going to be so great,” Casey says of the gig.
“I was in Dublin in the fall, doing my school at Temple Lane. Right after I got my Irish citizenship, I booked a week in Ireland to get back in the schools. So, I really wanted to come and add a date on my headline tour. This is my first time doing Europe, and I’m really excited. So, come out. It’s just going to be really important, and it’s good for your mental health, and it’s super good for my mental health if you buy tickets! The thing you can do to make me feel better is buy a ticket to my show! That will make me feel way better! [Laughs]”
Casey McQuillen’s latest single, “Better Than This,” is out now on all streaming platforms. Tickets for her show at the Crowbar Terrace on September 25th can be purchased here. You can keep up with Casey through her website.
Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.
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.