Thea Gilmore is a defiant risk-taker and riot girl wrapped up in a ball of fusion, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
With a father from Co Cavan and a mother from Co Wicklow, it's a safe bet Oxfordshire-born songwriter Thea Gilmore is more than a chip off the old block. Now living in the old-world Cheshire town of Nantwich (she relocated because her record producer and manager live there), Gilmore's recollections of spending three weeks each summer in Ireland walking the hills of Co Wicklow remain vivid and influential. Her background comes across as out of the ordinary and quite likely more upper- than middle-class (her father was an equine chiropractor, her mother a falconer), and her pronunciation of words is neat and clipped without sounding too typically silver service.
She grew up with if not revolution in the air, then certainly music coursing through the house at all hours: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and The Beatles gave her a love of words and melodies that has filtered down to her own music. From her début in 1999, Burning Dorothy, to her recently released fifth album, Avalanche, 23-year old Gilmore has made all the right moves on her way to recognition as one of the UK's leading - and best-selling - independent music acts. And she's not just another singer/ songwriter either: Gilmore is made of sterner stuff, for which we can thank the acerbic talents of, initially, Dylan and then, when she was slightly older, Elvis Costello.
"My diet consisted of lots and lots of Bob Dylan," she says matter-of-factly, as if a singer/ songwriter's daily diet should consist of nothing else. "Except as a kid I didn't realise who Dylan was - he was just a geezer with a croaky voice, singing fantastic words. It's only recently that, in relative terms, I've come to understand just how influential the guy really was. And how lucky I was to have grown up with music like that, because most of my peers were listening to New Kids On The Block or Paula Abdul. I was grooving to Subterranean Homesick Blues and not realising the significance of it."
Dylan is, says Gilmore, one of the many reasons why she is what she is - the importance of blending words and tune became more apparent to her the more she listened to him.
"It's inspirational to be surrounded by an atmosphere of that," she says. "At the time, I probably didn't understand why all my friends were coming up to me and asking if I'd heard the new Bros single. I'd say no, but have you heard the new Bob Dylan album?"
Gilmore's trail from ingénue to genuine contender has been a steady if occasionally frustrating one. Overlooked by the majors, ignored by the Mercury Prize panel yet fêted by critics and her growing fan base, she remains an indie chick by virtue of her resourcefulness and her steadfast attitude towards writing lyrics that are provocative, passionate and contentious. She despairs of the control she maintains that mainstream labels have over their acts.
"There's a move to make records that basically cater for what major labels would consider to be the lowest common denominator," she argues. "Unfortunately, that tends to be the kind of person who doesn't like listening to thought-provoking music or music that asks questions. Bands that I feel could easily bring their music into a political arena aren't allowed to - you can actually hear them having to pull back. A band like Coldplay, for instance, quite a great band, but you can hear them having to pull their music back constantly; you feel they're not allowed to. Yet it's clear that Chris Martin is quite a political animal . . ."
Gilmore wishes the music industry's major players would allow bands to speak their minds. Yet when they do, as in the case of the Dixie Chicks and their anti-Bush remarks, the rabble turn on them and burn their CDs; and radio stations drop their music from the playlist.
"It's frightening - music is supposed to be about free speech. Isn't it supposed to be the final frontier where people can do and say what they want?"
It's a good question, to which she doesn't profess to have any reasonable answer. Success for Thea Gilmore is being able to say things others should but don't. Success is doing things on her own terms - achieved by hard work, by luck and by choices.
"People don't ask questions any more," she fumes. "They're very happy to eat the television and the media they're given. They're quite full up with that, but no one bothers to sit down and actually ask who or what is feeding them."
Gilmore is a defiant risk-taker and riot girl wrapped up in a ball of fusion. Don't you dare put her in a box: "Music is about passion, and boxes don't really allow energy and passion to get out, do they?"
Avalanche is on Hungry Dog Records. Thea Gilmore will be playing selected live dates in Ireland in October