Athlone songwriter takes the plunge and moves to London
Singer-songwriter Ellen O'Meara, from Mount Temple, recently decided to take the plunge and move to London to pursue a career in music.
Ellen said she’s currently following the open mic circuit to meet people in London to try and secure her own gigs. She had been considering relocating to the UK for a while but finally decided to make the move two weeks ago.
“My goals are to hopefully get some gigs and record some more songs and see where it gets me,” said Ellen. Her new song ‘Body Issues’ was released on Friday, April 12 and was already featured on RTÉ Radio One’s 'Recommends' list two weeks in a row.
The local woman said she was “delighted” and “quite surprised” to be featured on the list, especially for two weeks in a row. Ellen added that the response to the new song has been “super positive” so far.
Ellen remarked that her new song was informed by her own experiences of body issues and the pressure to look a certain way.
The former Moate Community School student said she had always sung in choirs but only got the courage to start writing music and performing on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, after experiencing a bad breakup.
Ellen was on the Erasmus programme in Maastricht in The Netherlands at the time and began writing songs and poetry following her breakup. She performed at a few intimate gigs for open mic nights whilst studying abroad.
Following this, the then Dublin-based woman started posting videos of herself singing and playing music on Instagram and Tik-Tok. She explained: “There was very little to do social-wise (during the pandemic lockdowns) other than sing.”
Describing her music as “folk-indie”, Ellen added that she gets inspiration from the likes of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Phoebe Bridgers, John Waite and The National.
“I try to write from my own experiences. It sounds more authentic,” Ellen explained. She writes about topics such as heartbreak, society’s unrealistic beauty standards, and existential crises, along with providing a social commentary for the younger generation on various societal issues such as homelessness and emigration.
Ellen originally started posting videos of herself performing her own music on Instagram before deciding to migrate to Tik-Tok as the app is more anonymous and suitable for sharing music content. She said: “You can post one thing and get really big. I did one song and it blew up a bit.”
The Tik-Tok in question sees Ellen performing her own rewrite of 'Complex,' a song by Katie Gregson-MacLeod. The video has received almost 700,000 views and over 100,000 likes to date.
Ellen concluded: “It's nice to get positive feedback. I want to get more gigs and to get out there more. I love making music. She added that to have people tell her that they enjoy her music is great.
You can listen to Ellen's music by searching 'Ellen O'Meara' on Spotify.
Ellen is the daughter of Athlonians Anne Russell and Paul O'Meara.