Australian singer- songwriter Meg Mac spoke to David Hennessy ahead of her first ever Dublin headline show and two London shows this week.
She may be relatively unknown on these shores but Meg Mac has long been established as one of Australia’s best singer- songwriters.
This week she plays two London shows as well as her first ever Irish headline.
The Mac in her stage name is short for McInerney.
Born in Sydney, Meg was born into an Irish family with parents coming from Cork and Donegal.
Earlier this year she joined big names like Dermot Kennedy, The Frames and Kneecap for the Misneach festival in Sydney for St Patrick’s Day, probably the biggest celebration of Irish culture to ever be held in Australia.
It was in 2013 that Meg first announced herself as a talent to watch out for when her song Known Better was selected for Australian national radio station Triple J’s Unearthed progamme.
Accolades were soon coming her way. She was named Unearthed Artist of the Year by Triple J while Marie Claire Australia chose her as an Artist to Watch and she received a nomination for Rolling Stone Australia’s Best New Talent award.
The ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Music Awards in 2015 saw her up for Best Female Artist and Breakthrough Artist while Meg was yet to even release her debut album.
When her debut collection Low Blows landed in 2017, it went straight into the ARIA Chart at No.2 and was critically acclaimed.
She would follow this with 2019’s Hope which would make it into the top ten while 2023’s Matter of Time would give Meg her first number one and see her nominated for Best Solo Artist at the ARIA awards while the album was nominated for album of the year at Triple J’s J Awards.
Later this year she releases her fourth album, It’s My Party.
Meg Mac chatted to the Irish World ahead of her shows in Dublin and London.
Are you excited to be getting back to Ireland?
“Yeah, last time I went I was opening for Jacob Banks but I literally flew into Dublin that day, played the show, flew out so I didn’t do anything.
“And then the time before that, oh my gosh, I can’t remember.
“I went so many times when I was a kid but it’s been a while since I’ve actually been there.
“I’m really excited.
“I haven’t been down to Cork since I was a kid so that will be nice.”
You’re playing Whelans, an iconic venue..
“Every single person asks me, ‘Where are you playing?’
“And I say Whelans and they go, ‘Oh my God, you’re gonna love it’.
“I’ve got friends in Australia and they’ve played there and I was meeting people at festivals over the weekend and they were like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna love it’.
“I’m nervous because I’ve never played my own show in Dublin, this will be my first show.
“I’m sure half the tickets are probably my family, cousins and stuff but it will be good.
“I’m really excited because I’ve always wanted to sing in Ireland but I just haven’t really done it yet so it’s time.”
Does it feel really overdue in that way?
“Yeah, It feels like, ‘Why haven’t I been here before?’
“But even London- I haven’t done that much outside of Australia.
“Europe and UK and Ireland are not territories I’ve been in that much so it feels like it’s time to do that.”
Does it feel like home when you get to Ireland?
“It feels nice.
“I remember staying with my auntie.
“She lives in Donegal.
“She was making us dinner and she went out to get the potatoes, dig up the potatoes from the garden to eat.
“I had never experienced that in my life and I was like, ‘Whoa. This is so cool’.”
Do you think your passion for music comes from your Irish heritage?
“Yeah, my parents both just love music.
“Mum was always playing music, she was always playing accordion and piano.
“My dad was more of a music listener so he was always playing music.
“And everyone in my family can sing.
“There’s less instrumentalists but everyone can sing in my family, all my brothers and sisters.
“So when people ask me, ‘Oh, what does your family think about you singing?’ I’m like, ‘It’s not a thing. Everyone can sing. I’m not special because I can sing. It’s just normal’.”
Your band kind of shows that, hasn’t your sister Hannah been one of your backing singers for a long part of your journey now?
“Yes, since the beginning so for over ten years she’s been in my band.
“Then recently I did some shows in Sydney and Danny, my friend who normally sings with me, couldn’t do it and then I was like, ‘Oh, who am I gonna get?’
“And I got my brother to do it so it was me, my brother and my sister.
“We’ve never done that before.
“I’ve never been on stage with my brother. He only had a few weeks to learn all the songs, but it was really special.
“It was really nice.”
What is the meaning behind calling the new album, It’s My Party..
“Well, that’s a song that I sing on the album, ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to…’
“I do a version of that song so it started with that and then I just did that for fun and then we were kind of working on it and we were like, ‘Oh, this actually would work for the album’.
“And then I was like, ‘Maybe I should call the album It’s My Party’ because it kind of seemed to sum up the feeling of the whole album.
“I feel like I’m at that point in my life where there’s no point in doing stuff if it’s not fun and you just need to do it even if people around you don’t agree or want you to do certain things.
“It’s your party, it’s your thing.
“You’ve got to do what you want to do and it kind of felt like it sums up where I’m at in my life.”
Obviously it’s album number four and, as you say, you have had a career of 10+ years already, is something else the title is hinting at that you are now at a point where you can do what you want to do and how you want to do it? Is that how it feels?
“Yeah, I think at all points I have been able to do what I want to do but for some reason I didn’t figure that out.
“It’s always up to me but I’ve let other people’s opinions kind of guide my choices and now I’m at the point where even if someone’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m going to do it anyway’.
“I think realising that it’s up to me and I can get to do what I want even if it doesn’t make sense, it always ends up making sense in the end.”
You have already released the single He Said No to give a taste of the album.
For the song you have taken inspiration from John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane but told the story from the point of view of the person left behind on the ground..
“Yeah, I love that song.
“The song is one of my favourites on the album because I was working with the producer Bullion (Nathan Jenkins) and I was like, ‘I want to do a song where the music’s already made and then I have to sing over the top’ which is not how I normally write songs.
“We had this whole track.
“It was made out of that vocal loop but there was nothing else, no singing on it and then I had to go away and figure out, what does He Said No mean?
“But then I had to be like, ‘What is this story?’
“I have dropped people off to the airport too many times and I just love the airport scene.
“I love that Leaving on a Jet Plane song.”
Don’t you have youre retired pilot father to thank for the aerial footage from your He Said No video?
“Yeah, he was a pilot for Virgin Australia so he would just fly around Australia and make time lapse videos of all the flights.
“And then when we were working on the He Said No video I was like, ‘I have these videos from my dad’.
“And we didn’t tell him and I just put them all in the video.
“And then I showed him and he looked so happy.
“Finally these videos of his life are kind of incorporated into what I’m doing so it’s like a collaboration for our video.
“It’s really cool.”
What sort of Irish music have you been inspired by?
“My dad loves The Pogues, The Fureys.
“There was one song, Willie McBride, my dad used to just play that for us and we all know all the words to that song.
“I love the story.
“It’s heartbreaking but I love the story of that song.
“And then my mum was always singing so some songs I know just from my mum singing them but I don’t even know where they came from but she’s always singing all those songs.
“My dad loves Van Morrison.
“During COVID, I went through a big Enya phase, it’s probably seeped into my loop pedal because I love looping my voice.
“And same with It’s My Party.
“It’s not out yet but there’s lots of vocal layers and I love just playing around with that.
“I played at Misneach Festival in Sydney earlier this year.
“We met Amble and I love them now.
“And now I follow what they do and I’m like, ‘I love that’.
“Since playing that festival, I’ve been discovering more current Irish music that’s happening now.
“I think before Irish music to me was more what I grew up listening to or what my parents played and now I’m actually checking out Irish music.
“It’s cool.”
What was it like to be part of Misneach with Dermot Kennedy, The Frames, Kneecap etc?
“It felt really obvious that I was the Australian.
“Me and Matt Corby were the non-Irish people.
“I reckon it must have been 99.9% of Irish people in the crowd.
“You would walk out there and everyone was Irish.
“I’ve never seen that many Irish people all in the one place.
“I was like, ‘Wow’.
“And I’m Irish but I’m not Irish Irish.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I feel so Australian’, but it was really cool.
“They got everyone up to sing.
“Dermot got everyone who was part of the day to sing at the end.
“We were practicing backstage and just singing this Irish song that they taught me on the day.
“It was The Parting Glass.
“Me and Matt Corby were like, ‘Quickly, teach it to us’, and we were like learning it so it was just so nice.
“It was nice to feel part of that family.
“Even though I felt like an outsider, it was nice to be a part of it and be asked to be there.
“It was just a special day to be a part of.
“My mum and dad came, my brother was there.
“My whole family came to experience it and it was cool because it was a unique kind of festival.
“I’ve never seen anything like that.
“You see St Patrick’s Day events but I have never seen it cross into music in this way.”
What has been a highlight of the stuff you have done so far?
“I always look back to supporting D’Angelo around America.
“I still can’t believe that I did that.
“That goes down in the history of my life as a highlight.
“The shows I just did were so cool.
“I’m really excited to start planning my It’s My Party album tour.
“The album’s going to come out end of the year so it’s really fun to kind of figure out how to bring it to life.”
Do early tracks like Low Blows, the title track of your debut album, remain in the set? Are they staples that you will always do?
“Roll Up Your Sleeves is one of my early songs and that is still the most popular song.
“I usually end the show with that song and that’s the one that people sing along to.
“It never gets old, that feeling of singing that song.
“The lyrics are, ‘Everything is gonna be all right’ and then you just have everyone chanting back at you.
“It just gives you this positive feeling.
“I really like that one.
“I love playing everything but it’s hard to fit everything in now so I have to pick from each album which moment is good.
“But Low Blows I always do that.
“Then it’s exciting because I don’t know now from the new album what everyone’s favourite is going to be.
“He Said No feels good.
“I’ll definitely do that one at the show.”
You must have written those early songs at home with no expectations and not knowing who would hear them and now you have taken them to massive festivals..
“Yeah, I never would have known.
“The whole EP I wrote before I had a manager.
“I didn’t have a record label.
“I didn’t even understand how the music industry works.
“And you’re also not writing thinking about the listener, you’re just writing for the fun of it.
“And now I have to consciously try and not think, ‘What will people think of this?’
“At the beginning it’s so pure, you’re not influenced by the outside.
“I always think about those early days and just how it was so innocent and special, and I’ll never get that feeling again.
“I have to really try hard not to let the outside world come into my brain.”
When did you know you wanted to pursue music?
“I always loved singing but I didn’t really have a concept of writing songs.
“And then when I was 18 and leaving school, that’s when I was like, ‘Oh, you can make up your own song like that’.
“That was a big discovery for me and that’s when I was like, ‘Oh, this feels like something I want to do’.
“Before it was like, ‘I love singing’ but I didn’t feel like ‘I have to sing’.
“But when I made up my own songs, it was like the whole world was opened up for me.”
What was it like to get your first break in Australia?
“It just was like little steps but every step just worked.
“I saved up all my money.
“My first song cost me $1,600.
“I was like, ‘Okay, my plan is I’m gonna record this one song’.
“It was called Known Better and then I uploaded it.
“And then I got an email and it was like, ‘We’re playing your song on the Australian Music Show Tonight’.
“So then I got to hear my song on the radio for the first time.
“And then after that it was like, ‘Oh, I better record some more songs’.
“It all just came through Triple J Unearthed.
“That platform you don’t have to have a manager, a record label.
“I didn’t have any idea what I was doing and I was able to start my career.”
You spoke earlier about feeling Australian but you feel Irish too, right? I mean your blood is 100% Irish..
“Yeah, my whole life we were five kids in the family so always we were the odd ones out, the McInerney family and we all sing and just always felt not Australian really in a way so felt very Irish.”
The single He Said No is out now.
Meg Mac plays Whelans in Dublin on Tuesday 2 September, The Lexington in London on Wednesday 3 September (sold out) and Omeara in London on Thursday 4 September.
It’s My Party is out later this year.
For more information, click here.