“I actually feel like the Irish and the Midwesterners have some kind of kinship that I can’t really explain.”
Orla Gartland, the indie pop singer-songwriter flies from her native Ireland to St. Charles, IA this week, where she’ll play the Hinterland Music Festival on Sunday alongside artists like Sierra Ferrell and Lana Del Rey.
Gartland released her second studio album, Everybody Needs a Hero, in October of 2024. Gartland, who got her start posting covers on YouTube as a teenager, took a different approach with her sophomore release compared to her debut. Where 2021’s Woman on the Internet drew inspiration from singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Regina Spektor, on Everybody Needs a Hero, Gartland went for bigger, bolder alternative pop.
“By the time we made Everybody Needs a Hero, I suppose I had just kind of grown into myself a bit more, and I was very keen with the second record to just be more committed in every creative decision,” Gartland said. “I wanted to be more decisive, more brave, making big, broad strokes [...] just growing up a bit with more confidence and going for a bigger sound.”
Both records feature Gartland’s introspective lyrics about emotional turbulence and self-doubt, but Everybody Needs a Hero shows the growth between them, reflecting on relationships and autonomy as she approached 30. It turned out that the hero Gartland needed all along was herself.
“I was thinking a lot about being a woman, and by extension, this kind of frantic, manic pressure that some of us put on ourselves to be a lot of things to a lot of people,” Gartland said. “This hero imagery for me kept coming up, and when I shot the album cover, we had me in a kind of classic sort of superhero pose. I was kind of this self-appointed hero that no one really asked for, answering the call and running around in this way, trying to help everyone but myself.”
Gartland’s music is full of powerful moments, both sonically and lyrically, one of her most emotional songs is titled simply “Mine.” A personal story of sexual assault and the complicated hurt that it brings, the track stands stark and minimal on what has been up to that point, a maximalist pop record. Gartland has learned to prioritize self-care while on tour.
“Like many people, I go to therapy. I do that very religiously; I have for years. I have an amazing support network of friends, and speaking openly and honestly, which is honestly something I was not used to at all. A lot of what I'm trying to do is become more vulnerable. I feel the kind of tangible benefits in that, whether that's for myself as a person or for others. Again, if you can sing about something and start a conversation or make someone feel less alone, it's not a bad experience. It's amazing.”
Those at Hinterland will experience both the vulnerable and empowering moments in Gartland’s work when she performs at 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, August 3.
[this recorded conversation was edited for clarity]
