Conleth Kane is an infectiously energetic, refreshingly cheerful singer/songwriter making his mark both on the London gay scene and further afield.
Originally from Northern Ireland, he’s been throwing himself headfirst into performing, with rip-roaring gigs everywhere from intimate bars in Soho to, most recently, a glittering appearance at Limehouse’s infamous Troxy.
Now, he’s got an edgy new single out and is scheduled to perform at prides across Europe over the summer. He sat down with Dylan Jones to tell him all about it.
Hey Conleth! So you’ve actually met an actual Spice Girl. Tell us about that!
Well, I had tickets to see Mel C at Shepherd’s Bush and couldn’t go because I had a gig. One of my best friends who’s a radio presenter, was interviewing her live on air, and said ‘oh, my mate Conleth is meant to see you in London this weekend, but he can’t because he’s performing at Troxy.’ And Mel C had just done Sink The Pink, so she was like ‘oh, I sung at Troxy last weekend!’ so she invited me to come to her gig in Belfast. And I was in the crowd, and some of her people came up to me and were like ‘are you Conleth? Mel wants you in the dressing room’ and all the gays around me were like ‘OH MY GOD.’
So it all worked out!
I got to do the gig at Troxy, and Mel C invited me backstage at her Belfast gig! It couldn’t have worked out any better.
Is Mel C your big diva then? Everyone has their big diva.
I love the 90s. Everyone says the 80s and 70s birthed the best music, but I thought the 90s was brilliant. I grew up being obsessed with Erasure and the Spice Girls. When I went into singing and songwriting, I got massively into Mariah. I loved her songwriting. I remember getting one of her albums, and I opened it up and looked at the credits and realized…this girl writes and produces her own songs, and she sings them like no-one else. She wrote Hero, she wrote Anytime You Need A Friend, she wrote Fantasy…she wrote Vision Of Love when she was sixteen! So talent-wise, it’s all about Mimi. But at school, on non-uniform day, I would turn up in my Spice Girls t-shirt.
What do you think of music these days then?
The music industry’s just so different now because of iTunes, and downloads and Spotify. Now, you can kind of release music whenever you want. Back in the day, albums were always released on Mondays. And there were chart battles on a Monday! Like Boyzone and Steps battled it out! Or Victoria Beckham and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, that was massive. Or Geri vs Emma, that was like Labour vs Conservative! But I think music at the moment is in a fairly good state. I love artists like Adele. And actually I think British music sits at the top.
Well, there are very few reasons to be proud of our country at the moment, but you’re right, one of them is music!
Well we’ve always led the way in music. I think The Beatles, and Adele and the Spice Girls are the biggest selling pop acts ever. And One Direction. I think as a nation, the music’s quite cool.
Why do you think that is?
It’s Britpop isn’t it. Everyone comes to London to try and make it, and London rubs off on the majority of stars who make it big. London’s the coolest city in the world. The people who want to make the best of themselves in their own industry kind of have to come here. And I think that’s why London generates the best artists. It would be a lot easier for me to sit and write songs back in Northern Ireland, but I couldn’t think of anything worse! And I’m influenced by London.
Well it’s great! It means that you’re versatile.
Well…[winks]…but yeah I’m like Madonna! Every release has been something different.
So do you think the modern way of consuming music is better or worse for artists?
Well, it’s much easier to get music out there. And it’s a better platform. It means you can do it without a label. Like, I design the artwork and everything. If I were with a label, I wouldn’t have a say in when it was released, how my songs sounded, what the artwork looked like, what gigs I can do…any of that. I’m a really creative spirit, so I would hate not being able to do that. But artists don’t make as much money as they used to, because of all of these online platforms. A single used to cost, what, £3.99 in Woolworths? Whereas now, it’s on iTunes for 99p. Or people stream for free. So the downfall of not having a major label behind you, is that you’re not gonna shift 100,000 copies of your song. A hundred thousand people might watch my Facebook video, but that would transfer into 2000 streams and downloads. Which then turns into about £70 quid. And you spend £700 recording it!
How DO you record songs? What’s your “creative process”?
Well, if I spend more than an hour on a song, I bin it, because I can tell I’m overthinking it. I wrote ‘I Wonder’ on the bus from Kings Cross to Wood Green. A 15 minute bus journey, and when I got off I had ‘I Wonder’. And now it’s about to blow up on Irish radio.
Well creative stuff is interesting isn’t it. You can either do it or you can’t. You can’t force yourself.
I always find I write my melodies in the steam room at the gym.
Oh!
I’m always running from the steam room to the locker room to get my Dictaphone. So I jump up and run to the locker room to record a line or a chorus. Ideas always come to me in the steam room, I’m like a yo-yo!
People probably think ‘what the fuck is he doing’
The girl who works there always asks if I want a towel and I’m like ‘no I’m ok!’ but I don’t want to say I’m writing a song. But when I’m on my own, in an acoustic space, surrounded by steam, I can write music!
Interesting!
Yeah, I’ve been writing some new stuff that’s come from Virgin Hammersmith steam room.
I always think of ideas when I’m walking around the Co-Op. Or when I’m smoking. Are you one of those artists who gets inspiration from hardship?
Well it all originally came from a break-up. For months after my ex and I broke up, I had my head in the sand. And then all of a sudden, I thought, ‘right, let’s write some songs.’ And it just went BOOM. I’ve had zero contact with him since we broke up, and I still wonder if he knows what’s going on with my career. I sort of want to see him so I can thank him.
Well that’s great! Turning your pain into something good.
I found the break-up really hard, and loads of my friends said I should go to therapy, or go on holiday, something like that. But the only thing I could do was write, and it was the most cathartic experience.
SO…what are you up to this summer?
London Pride and Gran Canaria Pride! And I’ll more than likely be doing Belfast too. Also Seventh Heaven are gonna do a remix of either Grass Is Greener or I Wonder, so that I have a massive club number to sing! That’ll suit Prides really well, so I’m not standing there with a piano. Seventh Heaven’s remixes are great, it’s like someone’s thrown everything gay into a blender, and produced music out of it!
You were out and about in Soho last night…what do you think of London’s gay scene?
I’m really getting into it! I’m starting to perform a lot on the scene, which is great. I think London has a really cool gay scene. I mean, it’s sad when you read about places closing. But I love the core Soho bars like Comptons and The Duke of Wellington. I love The Yard too! And Vauxhall too, like The RVT and The Eagle! This is what’s so brilliant about doing what I do now, being a singer. When I was acting on TV and in theatre, I used to worry about where I might be seen, because of casting directors and stuff. I felt like I might not get cast in certain roles if I was seen in a gay bar. Now, I’m more my own person and I don’t give a shit where I am or where I’m seen, or who I hang around with. I’m loving it! I think we’ve seen the worst of the chemsex era. I think the London gay scene over the last five years had a massive dark dip, where it came to drugs, and people not being in control of themselves. I mean, I’m no angel either. But I think people are getting back out there, and it’s less dark, and people are living for themselves. People say the gay scene’s dying, but I was in Comptons on a Wednesday night, and the queue for the bar was four deep! What’s dead about that?!
Conleth Kane new single “I Wonder” is out now.
