In Conversation with Fiadh Rua Gregg

Join our host, Jennifer McMahon as she chats with vocalist, educator and newly graduated music therapist, Fiadh Rua Gregg. 

Fiadh shares her journey so far, lets us into the Shy Mascot world and even gave us a sneak peak at the bands new single, Prince Lotor Flow- out May 1st.

If you're heading to Bray Jazz Festival this year, you can catch the band on May 2nd. 

Follow Fiadh for more delicious music here: https://www.instagram.com/fiadhruagregg/

Follow us for more: 

https://irishwomeninjazz.ie/

https://www.instagram.com/irish_women_in_jazz/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hello, and welcome to the Irish Women in Jazz Podcast. I am your host, Jennifer McMahon, and I am here today with vocalist, music therapist, member of Shy Mascot, lots of things. Fia Rua Gregg. Hello, Fia.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Hello.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hi. You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, pleasure. Um, we've been thinking about this for a while because you did the peer-to-peer session and normally we try and do like the podcast, tie it together with whoever's hosting a workshop. So we missed you this year. I think it's always nice to start with a little bit about where you came from or what brought you to music or why specifically jazz.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

My first, I don't know, I was in primary school and I was in choirs like anyone might be. And then one day I came home from school and my dad said, get your coat or put your things down or whatever. And I went to a piano lesson when I was I'd say I was probably eight or something. Um, and then I was doing classical piano lessons and there was school concerts, so I auditioned singing and someone else played the piano, and I got in to the school concert, which was a big deal for me at the time. Um it was singing Mad World, so then I was probably got the singing bug or the performing bug, I think. And then I went to secondary school and had a great music teacher, Brenda Burke. She became my piano teacher um as well, and I had a singing teacher, Rhea Cherniak, who was also wonderful, and kind of uh inspiring me in different directions. Uh, Miss Burke was very into jazz, she performs and plays around Dublin and has for years as well. Um, so maybe yeah, kind of nudging or showing me things and introducing me to things, and I was doing classical grades, but I was never particularly into that, like I was rubbish at practicing, just wouldn't at all. Um, so then we kind of had a compromise, like I would do a bit of great stuff, but also she would show me um chords and how to accompany myself as I sang, so that became more interesting to me. Um, and then I was going to college, and that was just assumed or my natural stepping stone that I would go to college, or that you know that's what I was aiming for. I was quite interested in speech and language therapy a bit, but also music. Um, so they became my things, and I auditioned for a bunch of different music courses in Dublin and got into a bunch, which was great, uh, and got into Newpark. So I knew I had gotten in before I did the leaving search or anything, which was kind of helpful, but also um maybe I wasn't stuck. I don't know, no, sure. I did my best. Let's say I did my best, but anyway, I didn't get the wild dream of speech therapy points. Um so I went to New Park and was launched in and day one uh soloing over a piece, which I just remember like terrified and looking around and just thinking, what am I doing here? And just not having a clue, but maybe very excited. I don't remember being like terrified. I love the beginning of something where you're not supposed to know what you're doing. I think it's the expectation, the pressure, the later stages that gets me. That kind of kills me. But also everything was kind of step by step and like falling into things, and also you wonder later, I maybe reflected back how much I chose to do those things, how much I was this making this really conceded effort. This is really what I wanted to do. But in going to New Park, um I there was probably 20 of us in the year, I'd say four of us had come from school, uh, and lots of other international students. You know, at the time it was a private course, so it really attracted international students, which which made for such a nice mix and like such a great perspective and so many different perspectives, and a lot of people being there because they really wanted to do it. Yeah. Um, they had maybe done other courses or done other jobs or blah blah blah, and it was a nice environment to be in, I think, because it kind of uh whether I I was really interested in it, but I think there was that kind of uh drive from the collective group, year group, that was was a bit of a buzz that was like and different to my friends' college experiences, I think probably. So that was New Park, and then finished and um was out in the big bad world and maybe not doing there was some shy mascot things emerging around that time. Um Andrew O'Farrell and Aina Ryder had I was gonna say been in love, but no, we're fangirling, we're very big fans of Jamal Franklin who was playing with mixtapes from the underground and doing other kind of gigs, and had said, Oh, do you want to come in and jam with us? Nice. I think still at the end of when we were in New Park. So then when we were leaving in those coming those following months, we started playing together. So there was little beginnings of something happening there, and uh Keith Tobin was all the bass player in the band, that's the five of us. Um so that was kind of murmuring, but I don't know what else I was at. It was also kind of hard to leave college and to not have the next step, as well for me. Like I love rules, I love an institution, I love being told what to do, you know, like so you don't have any of that. The stabilizers are off and it's just vast and open. Um, so that was kind of a bit funny as well. But then I began teaching in Waltons at the maybe the following year, uh teaching singing vocals and maybe the beginner group class I was teaching. That was kind of wonderful. I really fell in love with that. I really love teaching singing, began doing different training and trying to just um up my game, you know. Like it's hard when you're teaching singing, everyone's voices are so different. Yeah, it's not the generalized standard instrument, and people's motivations are very different as well. There was a big learning curve. So maybe I did some, yeah, I did went to a few vocology and practice uh seminars or or weekends, they'd have kind of uh a load of workshops over a couple weekends a year. So I did a few of those, and then I did a uh BAST course, which is be a singing teacher. Um, so that's like you can do it as a 10-week programme or you can do it as a weekend thing. Um so that was very useful as well. Yeah. Was finally like putting pieces together, adding things up, which was nice.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Do you find sorry to cut across you, but uh because that resonates with me as well about when you're teaching singing, obviously everybody's voice is different, it's not um just like play this G and then you sing a G. And there's so many other things obviously involved, and everybody's coming from a different place. And you as a singer are coming from a place where you've been working on your own instrument, but also maybe you've only really worked on your own kind of problem areas, you know, like I don't know, breathing or phrasing or whatever, and maybe there's some things that you never really had to work on because that wasn't what you needed, so you must have had like m dozens of students, right? So you're kind of learning in that same way, I feel, about as many different people as you are just about you and your voice, you know.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, maybe there was lots of saying, Oh, I'm gonna actually look into this and come back to you, or let's try this for now, or let's and you know, saying that you don't know something and going and finding something that's helpful. And there was like that's such a fun way to learn. Do you know when you find a problem and find a solution to it and and come up with that stuff together, or going and looking at different resources? Um so I think there was that, but also I remember just like it was a lot. There'd be times you'd come out and think, I haven't done right by that person, or I haven't given them everything. But like hopefully there's always something that you can teach them, yeah, or show them. So uh, but navigating and like male voices compared to female voices as well, was just like I keep singing something high, and they're singing miles down below, or you know, it it sounds so different. Like, how are they supposed to emulate that, or else they do emulate that, but I'm asking them to do it to Octaves Below, or um, I had some really great students as well. Um, like there's one person I'm thinking of in particular who was so into the semantics and wouldn't let me off with anything and really wanted to know exactly what was going on, and didn't mind me saying, I need to go and look at this, or I'm trying this thing out with you here. And so it was such a fun relationship. They were very they were hour-long lessons and very in-depth, but like they were kind of great. And I taught him again a few years later, and it was very fun to see how his voice had come along and the changes, and he he had done so much work in that. Um, I think as well, like students don't practice that much, yeah. You know, like there's something of really what the agenda is here, what people want from it, because then maybe they just want to come in once a week and sing their heart out.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, totally. And don't really yeah, and then just managing your own kind of expectations there as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Yeah, and then um COVID came along and I was able to teach online, which was uh I guess a positive, and I was living with my parents and uh uh at a certain point feeling very cooped up. And I went and we were probably deep two years into COVID at this point, and I s like rented a little cottage in Dublin within my five kilometres, within my thing or whatever, you know, a little place for two days, I think. And I sat down at one of the vocology and practice conferences. There was a seminar of it, was very into the managing and marketing yourself. And it was um, I can't remember all the details, but there were l small little cards and like 50 things of different words or different parts of your day, and what was a priority and how you might fill them in. So you put them into most important or like important and not important, and you're kind of clearing the stuff, finding the things that are really important to you and what you want in your life, this kind of stuff. Um, and I was trying to write um, you know, whether I did like performing because I would have been doing various gigs at this point, and ones that I did enjoy and ones that I really didn't, where I was just on stage and feeling uncomfortable and not really being into it, and you know, it's hard to figure out what the ingredients are that make a good gig or a b and now I don't mean good and bad because feck that, but like you know, one that feels right to you or one where you feel really uncomfortable. Um so I was kind of yeah, this kind of thing, and and just trying to clear out my head and and find out what I wanted to do next. Um and I guess I landed at music therapy then. Although there was several other murmurs before that, but just that was kind of my yes, okay, this is what I'm going for. Um, and it felt like the first time I was really making a decision, an active decision for myself, as opposed to things um coming up. Okay, so I was like, this is my next thing, uh, and began looking into it, and uh my very good friend Sarah Walsh, her friend had done the course in Edinburgh, um, and we did a phone call together, and that was helpful just to hear some things of what to look at, and uh another friend of a friend, because there I don't know any music therapists in Ireland really. Uh or there's there's one girl who did my course and has come back and is working as a music therapist, um, but you know, like it is still small and um underground or something. Yeah. So in a way, maybe the jazz scene is too in Dublin. I spoke to a few little people, was trying to listen, trying to learn, trying to to figure out what it was. But as far as I knew, it was something that I ticked the boxes that I was very curious about. So I did an audition uh remotely over Zoom and uh got into the course and began a two-year um master's in music therapy in uh Queen Margaret University. And then there was two years of that, and coming back here for um there was maybe four months of a summer in between, so I got that year in between as well that I was back in Dublin and then away and then back again.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Well, how was life in Edinburgh? Did you gig much over there, or was it more just um head in the books kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 14:24

I did a few gigs. There's the Jazz Bar, it's called the Jazz Bar in Edinburgh, which is so cool, and they have music every night of the week, and there's always people in there, and they'll have maybe three, two or three gigs a night. Um, and you know, they pay in different rates, there's maybe two jam sessions, there's a mix of m folk and different things, but I was just like, I'm always frustrated by the lack of a home for jazz in Dublin and a venue and a stable structure. There's all these people doing great work and initiatives, and things pop up, and for a while it feels like a staple and then it kind of falls away. Um so I'm always very curious when I'm somewhere else, what their scene is like, yeah. Um, so they had this venue, which was really great. Um, and I began playing with Elspeth Tugwell, who was in my course, uh, a guitarist, a really great musician, and it was a very different way of playing for me. She's very um kind, and not that other people I played with hadn't been kind, but she's really um generous and excited, and I think I'm a bit of um a wimp or have a gentle ego, or you know, if I present an idea and it's not well received instantly, I will retreat and take it off the table, and we won't be doing that anymore. Like to my detriment, like that's a silly way of being, and you know, we'll try work on it. But Elspeth, I would suggest a little nugget, and she'd be like, Yeah, that's cool, and then we might do a little something on it, and then you know, a week would pass and she'd say, Oh, I was working on your idea, or you know, it was just such a good, like it was absolutely the nicest thing. So we would get together and play, we'd play different songs um and covers and originals a little bit, um, and that was going on during the course, and so we did we played at the with Lara Sweeney, uh, joined us on saxophone and piano. She's a great multi-instrumentalist, a lovely energy as well. Um, and we played at the Edinburgh Arts Fair a few years ago, and we played in the jazz bar, we did one of those nights, so yeah, there was some of that music going on as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Nice. Um, it's cool though that you know you were saying how initially leaving Sir Time you were interested in like uh speech and language therapy. Yeah, and then later when you were teaching, you were going to study like vocology, vocology, vocology and practice. And then to go on then to music therapy, it seems like there's like a thread there that maybe is connected. I don't know, yeah, maybe not consciously, but yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

I I maybe the older I guess or from doing those different things. I I definitely love when music is for everyone, or um people can use it in different ways and the different roles it can play and how it can come into somebody's world. Um I think that's yeah, and that's a later realization. I don't think I'm I've always been uh consciously stepping down that road. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Um we just I had a chat the other day with Pia. Oh Piacell. And she's talking a lot about community music and her master's um I'll let you listen to the episode, but she went and studied uh voodoo rhythm rhythms in Haiti, but you know, she had a big focus as well on on um community music and music that is shared is shared and what it means in these kind of ritual contexts and what it means. You know, she does a lot of uh group work, community work, and um and yeah, I just I feel like that's a common theme. I wonder if that's something that's kind of obviously we each have our own individual uh North Star for what music is for us or what. I feel like there is a common theme in music where people are bringing it back to the community as well, even if that wasn't necessarily their initial um pursuit. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like that since COVID, there's more of a a desire for people to just get together, and like you know, singing together is just one of the loveliest things, apart from all of the science behind it, it like yeah, we know that it's good for us, you know.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yeah, I went to Pia's workshop um and there was all the in the run-up to Christmas, and I knew uh all these different supposed to be meeting up with friends, and I pushed the friend later 'cause I wanted to go to this because I just thought like it's something where you're not talking, something where you're you know you're feeling really connected to people but without having to say anything in particular, and you're not expected, you know, to do anything in particular, and there's something very quiet in it, in and and quiet in that maybe you can listen to yourself or something. Do you know when there's all that hustle and bustle at Christmas time and it's so loud externally and I think internally, like it's so nice to go to a space and just be in your own little bubble, but not alone, you know? There's this kind of uh comfort in that. Um but I do, I mean, I think there's lots of great work, as I said, in the jazz Dublin scene, and like it's lovely to see the Irish women in jazz and you being so productive and making so much happen and cooking Dublin. I just think Hayley Kavanaugh is uh incredible of just like making a space or even that Instagram page of having a single place that people go to the same way. Maybe Red Keane would have done he was doing great work as well. Yeah, that people can go to to find what's on and to find because I think we do have a disconnect, there's slips of you know, the people missing out in in the jazz scene in Dublin.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah, totally. It's funny because that comes up all the time, and it's uh everybody, I think everybody feels it, you know, everything feels quite like disparate, yeah, and you could be engaged with one say organization or whatever for a while, but then like you said earlier, things kind of start up and then they fizzle away. And I think I I do wonder if it's because we don't have like a sort of infrastructure for like the progression of the music, you know, like it's great. We have so many amazing musicians, yeah. We have some really solid venues that are like open to having gigs, which is great, but it's like agents, managers, people to help export the music from Ireland. I think we need these kind of things, and um I do wonder that as well.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Like, there's a study in there, you know, like why does it get to a certain point and then it kind of fizzles away, or yeah, because it's it seems to be very um grassroots run or led, and I guess that's tiring as well. You know, people are give their all or the you know, being in an art industry, you might have a next project, something else might need more time, and then it kind of you run out of steam, and I think. Like um the disconnect as well between whether it's about the musicians and we're hardcore and we're artists and whether that art funding reflects that. If they're providing the fee for the musicians or for the venue, or whether it's a commercial endeavor and you know uh a bar is having music in. And obviously the hospitality industry industry, there's a lot of difficulties there, even within themselves, but you know that they're kind of at odds with each other and where you kind of fit in, and the audience, I think. I like it's funny when you talk to um middle-aged peoples, older peoples who like would say, Oh, I love jazz, or you know, they'd be it really familiar with lots of repertoire or their favourites and say, Oh, there's no jazz scene and there's no gigs and up, there's nothing on, and them not knowing, you know, you have to know to know that there's stuff on, which is a hard thing as well. And and who, yeah, like whether it's promoters or managers, that they're the people really welcoming them in and trying to create a friendship or a bond. I think there's a I don't know, there's a gap. There's a yeah, but also another thought that feels adjacent in my head, but like uh it was really nice to see Emily Jane Cook. Is that who's I think is everything about cooking in done? Yeah, Emily Jane Cook, yeah. But she her releasing music the past year, and I loved that. I loved that she'd graduated within the last two years and was recording and releasing because that's not something that was uh a a priority or that seemed to be a priority when I did New Park or for myself, you know. And like there's something about getting your music out there and getting heard and um which is rich coming for me. Like I was walking in and thinking, God, I don't have uh in certain ways there's not loads to show for what I've done in terms of recording um or having things released in that way, but like it was just that's a really nice thing to see, and does mean that people can hear your music and this young artist is connecting with an older listenership potentially, you know, and and having thought that that might do something as well. Yeah. Um I just wanted to say that.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, yeah, no, it's great. Um we actually have an episode coming out as well with Emily Jane very soon. Um and she talks about that experience and writing that um P and yeah, how the you know the final year is kind of composition heavy and how she took those compositions into into the new project, which is yeah, it's great. It's so great to see it. Um and I think she's one of those like I I feel like her style is is is it straddles the borders of jazz and other things, you know. So I feel like she's one of those artists that's gonna kind of bring other people to jazz whether they kn knew that they liked it or not, you know. So what's going on? Uh I mean what's going on right now? Like you're saying not a lot of recording, but like you you recorded some stuff with Chai Mascot re recently, or you released some stuff recently. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

We released some stuff recently, and I think we have an album. So like there's um there's definitely more releases coming up in the next year. I think that's we're practically ready to go, and that's a big um excitement, buzz. Um we recorded it a few years ago now uh in Black Mountain Studios. Uh really nice experience, like going up and escaping it's by the sea. We went for a swim, I think, one of the more we stayed overnight and then went for a swim the next morning, which was kind of yeah, and we were all in the room together. And I think with Chi Mascot, we're we're really not often all in the room together these days. Um we don't really live in the same place and all have lives and busyness, which happens. Um so it feels really good when we do get together and do get to record stuff. Um and yeah, so we've recorded it a few years ago, but these things take time with recording and uh mastering in engineering and then promotion costs and trying to get into that and trying to um like work on an algorithm or you know, find your way into that mass of things that are going on, or whether you're you know, your um activity within social media and how much you want to engage with that. We have music to release for 2026, which I'm very excited about to finally have people hear it. If people have come to our gigs, they'll have heard the tunes, lots of them. Um so it's great hopefully to be able to share them with the world and to have more people hear them and to have like our catalogue and to be able to show something for that chapter or that period of what we were working on.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Here is an excerpt from Prince Loderflow, the next single from Shyl Mascot. It's coming out on May the 1st. The band have a gig in Bray Jazz on May 2nd, so go and follow their socials to find out more. And here is Prince Loderflow.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Four star pro, know my role. Not a smart, dumb rapper. Tryna force art though. Far as morons go. My so-called foes could be Sauron cloned with that more door glow. Cats combined to form Foltron, no, but still can't stop the prints, low torploe, fillin' it, backslash articulate, maximum carnage, tag team finemist, man, catch wind of it. Y'all get the gist of it. Firebars drop jewels, ask fitness. Yeah, you're dealing with a lot of science. I got my Hotdenberg hat on, periodic straight cooking damn stone.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Are you collectively like collaborating on the songs?

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Yeah, I think it can it does vary depending on the song. Um some stuff will work from a jam that we start together. Some times, yeah, someone will bring an idea, or you'll just be adding a melody line over, and um yeah, it can there's options which I mascot. Um but I do have things, you know, it's nice to come like coming home. I came back in December and sitting down and playing through my back catalogue of my songs that no one's ever heard, and um, you know, it's nice to remember them and feel in touch, and I still quite like a lot of them. So I would love, I would love to document. I think maybe that's a good thing to do in 2026 is try and have documents of things where that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

I got very excited about that about hearing your back catalogue. And where where can people find you and your music well you and Shy Mascot and how can they keep in touch to know what's coming up?

SPEAKER_03 32:35

I think probably Instagram is the best thing these days for me. Um that's where most of my things are. Um and Shy Mascot, yeah, Instagram and Spotify. Um I've yeah, I've sung and Keith Tobin's released some things on Spotify as well. Um so there's those extra things if you want to check them out.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Well, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Thank you a lot. Yeah, looking forward to all the new music. Yeah, maybe we can do this again in a year or so and see how the year went. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. One more time, Prince Loader Flow is out this May 1st. The band are playing at Bray Jazz Festival on May 2nd. Do follow them on their socials. Check out the single as soon as it's out. Till next time.