Clare artist and songwriter Oscar Blue on grief and memories as latest single is released

ON SATURDAY mornings, Oscar Blue’s dad would drive him to hurling matches, music blasting in the car - although some of the lyrics took him and his friends by surprise. 

“My dad would drive me to like football or hurling matches and he would be playing CDs in the car all the time. He would have played a lot of U2 in the car. He had their album. I remember him playing The Sawdusters in the car and me and my friends just laughing our heads off at some of the lyrics,” Oscar recalls.

Originally from Ogonnelloe, Co Clare, Oscar Blue decided to start a YouTube channel in his early teens, after receiving great feedback at school. 

“I had been writing some songs and enjoying it. I was trying to figure out how to share them with people, but I was so nervous. Then during my first music class at secondary school, I had to play for all my classmates and I was so nervous, but everyone was so lovely and encouraging. That boosted my confidence. When I went home that night, I started a YouTube channel posting covers. The second I shared music on Youtube, I knew that I wanted to share music for the rest of my life,” he says. 

After the release of an EP and several songs, he recently shared his latest offering, Ghost, which touches on a topic that might be familiar to a lot of people. 

“Ghost is a song that covers the very modern theme or topic of ghosting and that's an experience that I'm sure a lot of young people can relate to nowadays.  It’s a very atmospheric song, I think it's quite autumnal. The song also captures the feeling of being alone in a big city, despite being surrounded by people,” he says.

Has he ever been ghosted? 

“Yeah, of course,” he laughs. “It’s now probably a universal term throughout  humanity.”

According to him, it can be difficult to know where to draw the line when it comes to what might be too personal to write a song about. 

“I always struggle with the question of is there a point that maybe you're over sharing or you don't need to talk about something in so much detail. I guess it also has an impact on the people around me too. I'm not always just telling my story, but I'm telling their story.

“I can think of like circumstances where  people very close to me who have lost people close to them or I've lost people close to me.  And I could write a few sad songs, you know, about death and grief, but sometimes maybe those songs are better off to be kept for me and for me only, because I'd rather write a song that would celebrate memories.”

Celebrate memories - that’s what he did with his song Backyard Mafia, dedicated to one of his close friends who passed away. A song he performed on stage in UL a couple of years ago, while opening for Kodaline in UCH.

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“I remember that night, that was a lovely night. One of my friends had passed away a few weeks beforehand, so I dedicated Backyard Mafia to him. It’s still one of those that's quite emotional but yeah that was a really special night,” Oscar Blue notes. 

Before he gets on stage, the artist needs to clear his head and focus.

“I'm a very anxious person. I think often times musicians maybe come across as super confident. A lot of my friends and people would often come up to me and just say ‘How do you put yourself out there so much?’ A lot of the time I just want to be alone for a few minutes before I go on stage, so I'll often go for a walk by myself before going on stage. I like to be not around too many people so I can just focus on what I need to do.”

At the early stage of his career, he experienced how comparison was the real thief of joy. 

“There’s no one way of making it in the music industry. It's very easy to look at other artists that have come before you that have been successful, and try and emulate what they did, or try and look at the way they grew their business even, try and follow in their footsteps.

“Really early in my career I’d look at artists that had similarities to the early stages of my career and I tried to follow in their footsteps, but really I think in the music industry, it's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. You’ve just got to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, go wherever you’re getting the most enjoyment, wherever you're getting the best feedback and follow this natural course.”

At the moment, he is working on a new single, which will be released early next year. But beforehand, he is looking forward to the holidays.

Speaking of, he recalls: “My favourite Christmas memory was the simple thing - coming downstairs as a child and seeing my first bike. It was like a big, blue, shiny bike. I just remember the joy of that, the magic of Christmas and Santa Claus, and the love I felt for my family. And I guess, for how magical life can be.”