Aoife O’Donovan, 39, and her band I’m With Her won a Grammy for Best American Roots song in 2020. She also featured on the 2013 Grammy-winning album The Goat Rodeo Sessions. She is co-founder of the string band Crooked Still and has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra.
What was your childhood or earliest ambition?
I had an American Girl journal. Where you had to write what you wanted to be, I put a singer or a doctor. My parents were musicians, I grew up around a lot of music, I sang all the time — I never shut up, basically! I was never really on the road to being a doctor . . .
Private school or state school? University or straight into work?
Public [state] school in Newton, Massachusetts, a lovely school, very rich with music and theatre. Then the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC).
Who was or still is your mentor?
I remember Mr Travers, my high-school music teacher, saying, “I really think you should check out the programme at NEC”, at the eleventh hour. That really did alter the course of my life.
How physically fit are you?
I run pretty much every day. It brings me a ton of joy and keeps me mentally healthy.
Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?
Raw talent matters hugely in the arts, but then you have to work really hard. It’s the combination of work ethic and talent.
How politically committed are you?
I wish that I were more committed. As time goes on, as I became a parent, I found myself being more viscerally affected by the political climate and I’ve become more engaged. I try to make contributions to my community, and I’m trying to teach my daughter to become a member of society who thinks about how we live.
What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess?
An electric guitar — a vintage Gibson. I just haven’t found the right one to bring home yet. In fact, I would love a music studio in my house, with keyboards, amps, guitars, everything.
What’s your biggest extravagance?
I love buying clothes.
In what place are you happiest?
With my family. My husband is also a musician, we travel all the time, but it doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re all together.
What ambitions do you still have?
To continue to put out new music that will excite and get a reaction. To make conversation happen. To make tears happen. To ease pain. Even to make people angry.
What drives you on?
An innate desire to keep rocking forward: not standing still, not looking backwards. And I love the idea of making the people who love me proud. And supporting my family. As a freelance, it’s not a given that you’ll have a career next week or next year.
What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?
I’m very proud of my participation in my community. I have achieved a certain level of respect — people can count on me to be a consistent collaborator. I am dependable as a musician.
What do you find most irritating in other people?
Insecurity. I get frustrated with it.
If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would she think?
“Wow, I can’t believe she’s still doing this.” Though I did think and hope I’d still be doing this 20 years down the road.
Which object that you’ve lost do you wish you still had?
On tour, I stopped at a gas station, came back to the car, put my feet back up on the dashboard, and when we got to where we were going there was only one silver Birkenstock in the car. What can you do with one shoe?
What is the greatest challenge of our time?
How we deal with climate change. Paired with the vast information we have at our fingertips. Those things combined are both terrifying and give me a lot of hope.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
I do not. I never have.
If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score?
Ten. Not because my life is perfect, but because there’s no point in thinking about the things I’m not satisfied with. Life is what it is.
“Age of Apathy” by Aoife O’Donovan is out on January 21 on Yep Roc Records. Her European tour runs until 12 February
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