#169 Chloë Agnew
Chloë Agnew is a singer, songwriter from Dublin, Ireland. From the age of 14, she gained fame for her integral part as one of the original (and youngest) members of the internationally acclaimed music group Celtic Woman.
In 1998 Chloë won the Grand Prix at the First International Children's Song Competition in Cairo, Egypt, where she represented Ireland. She made her PBS début in 1999 as part of Handel's Messiah performing alongside Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Roger Daltrey and Aidan Quinn. In 2004 Chloë had just finished recording her second solo album ‘Walking in the Air’ when she was cast as one of the original soloists for the PBS production Celtic Woman. The Celtic Woman PBS Special first aired in March 2005 and within weeks the group's eponymous debut album reached #1 on Billboard’s World Music chart where it held the top position on the Billboard World Music chart for 81 weeks. Their second album, Celtic Woman: A Christmas Celebration knocked their first album to the #2 spot on the World Music chart when released in October 2006. Chloë is featured on a total of 14 of Celtic Woman’s albums, with songs recorded in English, Irish, Latin, Japanese, Italian and German which have sold more than eight million copies worldwide, all of which debuted at #1 on Billboard's World Music chart. Celtic Woman sold-out concerts in prestigious venues across the globe from Carnegie Hall, Red Rocks, Colorado, Radio City Music Hall to several Arenas in Europe, Japan and Australia, performing for almost three million fans. She has performed with Celtic Woman on the US TV shows Dancing with the Stars, Regis and Kelly, The Today Show and Good Morning America and many more. In 2013 Chloë made a guest appearance on the show ‘Bold and the Beautiful. While touring with Celtic Woman Chloë performed for three consecutive US Presidents (Clinton, Bush and Obama) before she turned 20. In 2012 she was named Best Female Vocalist at the Irish Music Awards.
She has performed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and collaborated with Emmy award-winning tenor Eamonn McCrystal on his album ‘And So It Goes’ in a duet with Rita Wilson. She is featured in several television shows that are currently airing on PBS including The Power of Music with Ethan Bortnick and Damian McGinty (Glee Project/ Celtic Thunder), and the Nathan Carter Celtic Country show. Since 2017 Chloë has been touring with top Irish artist Nathan Carter on his U.S. tours and for the past four seasons has been the headline act for the highly acclaimed and always innovative Atlanta Pops Orchestra. The popular show ‘An Irish Heart,” as well as their holiday shows have taken Chloë and the Pops to performing arts centers throughout the Southeast and Midwest. She has become a ‘Voice of the Irish’ for the University of Notre Dame performing for many events at the University including opening for the band Chicago at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Party in Dallas, Texas where she performed a song with the legendary group. She has also performed with IBMA award winning bluegrass Entertainer of the Year Balsam Range and John Driskell Hopkins of Zac Brown Band. Touring her solo show Chloë Agnew: Live Concert has brought her to many PAC’s, concert series, theatres, music halls and festivals throughout the US and Europe.
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Transcript
Rae Leigh: Welcome to a, Songwriter Tryst with Chloe Agnew. Thanks for joining us.
Chloe Agnew: Hey, thank you so much for having me great to chat to you.
Rae Leigh: I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about your story because it started so early. I like to start by getting you as the artist to share a little bit about who you are and where you come from?.
Chloe Agnew: I'm a singer songwriter from Dublin Ireland, as you mentioned, I started out very young in the business. I come from an entertainment household, both my parents are in the music, entertainment business at home in Ireland. So I kind of practically grew up. On the stage or in and around music, it was a way of life in our house
it was kind of a family business. And I think for large part of my early years, because that's what everyone's parents did, that they were always in positive shows and things like that. So it was, it was a way of life. And, I started singing, performing very young in various different choirs.
Just being around. Theaters and venues with my parents growing up. And then I did a charity single when I was 11. I sat in a panel at the time. Making shortly after the events of nine 11. And there was this appeal to children all over the world to donate some of their pocket money to, to the children who'd been affected by us.
And, it was it to encourage kids to do what they do best to raise some money. And myself, I'm at a singing pilot line at the time. We lost sand together and we decided we would do this little song and we released it for charity. It did Really well, that it was shortly after that, that a record company in Ireland were kind of looking for Charlotte church who was really famous.
And in the UK and Europe, at the time, they were kind of looking for an Irish equivalent. And, they approached me to see if I would do an album. So I did my first album with them when I was 12. And then I did a second one just before I turned 14. And then it was shortly later that year that's a creative team.
Came up with the concept for the music show Celtic. They asked me to become one of the members of that. And to be honest, I mean, people have heard me say it a million times. Celtic woman initially was only supposed to be a one night show. So I was only, I had just turned 15 at the time. yeah.
I was only a kid and I joke that I thought I was going to get the next day off school.
I didn't think that one night was going to turn into. 15 years of my life. So it, Yeah. I, I joined the group and, it, it took off I'm so kind of, for me, what's crazy is I toured with that music group for the best part of 10 years. And then to the last seven, I'd pretty much been out on my own, hustling and working away.
And that's where I fell really. Once I left Caltech, when I really threw myself. Songwriting and my son and my music. And so my life has been bizarre and that one thing has kind of led to the next, you know, and I kinda here I am and yeah, I kind of never set out to be a singer to follow my parents into the industry, but yeah, one thing just kind of left to the next and I wouldn't have it any other way that I'm here.
Rae Leigh: Well, they must've been, what, what were your parents doing in, in the industry within musical as well and an autistic?
Chloe Agnew: So my mother very much like me started out at a very young age and in Ireland and performing, she was kind of one of the female pioneers of television in Ireland. An all around dented entertainer, a singer downstair comedian. She, she kind of does it all. She's gifted, diseased with talents as we joke, but, and then like, my dad, is the principal of with the national concert orchestra at home in Ireland.
It just, just different, different musical worlds. So I kind of grew up with, such a wide variety of genres. As opposed to a music. I don't think now anybody who knows me or has followed my path in the industry, certainly since I've been out as a solo artist, moving on from Celtic woman knows that I I've thrown myself into loads of different musical styles, both in performance and in songwriting.
And, I kind of love that. I think you've just been exposed to lots of different genres of music growing up. Has it has allowed me to. different genres and I'm falling in love with a, to my parents coming from different musical worlds.
Rae Leigh: Well, it sounds like you didn't have much of a choice, whether you, no matter what you wanted to do,
Chloe Agnew: Yeah. It was kind of always destined to be.
Rae Leigh: destined to be. Yeah. But do, do you know when there was a, if there was a moment in your life where I don't know, like where you felt like music, or even just singing and songwriting and being that like expressing yourself through your creativity.
Where that really became, like you realized that was a part, a big part of who you are.
Chloe Agnew: Well, I think for me, as I said, because the younger years everything happens so quickly, it just wasn't like, as I said, when I trusted his back counting one world, and At that took off, I, I found myself touring with that. And as I said, for the best part of 10 years out, it was really the only.
Oh, she coming up to the kind of the end of my room. Then when I got this log inside of me, it just thinking, I was about to turn 24.
I've been touring almost with the best part of 10 years with them. And I just thought I kind of need to do something. Else I need to do something different outside of Celtic woman.
It was such a, an intense schedule and life, that I had a world that I become part of that I kind of thought, it takes up your entire year and I suddenly got this. Agents, I need to try and do something different. And, so that's why I decided to take a step back from the group.
The craziest thing happened in that when I stopped, I kind of went through this quarter-life crisis phase of realizing that I had never Yeah.
24 that I hadn't actually stopped. Since I was a kid and I actually didn't really know who I was outside of Chloe from Celtic woman. I didn't know what my musical identity was.
And I don't know. I honestly, Yeah.
I had a really scary moment of, of questioning whether I even wanted to do music, because I just was a bit lost in not knowing really who I was. And all of my friends had kind of taken, you know, a year out of school to go traveling or they, so many. Came over to your side of the world to Australia to live for a few years or they, they went to Europe traveling or they went to college and I never really did any of those things.
So it was only when I stopped. Did I kind of go, oh my God, what do I do now? And I was at this real crossroads of deciding what would happen next. And ultimately I think I decided, I don't know what else to do with my life. Music is my life. So I've got to figure out what new connection I can find.
With music to make me fall in love with it, and a different way to make me feel inspired and found as an artist and as a person. And honestly, that. was songwriting for me. I joined the Los Angeles school of songwriting and I miss, I moved to, to LA basically I applied for my green card And I decided to get a bass.
I just wanted to try something different than I had a couple of friends out there. And, I thought I'll get to this like, oh, and I, I had no contacts reading or anything like that. And some wordings, a little Los Angeles, and it was a great place for me to, to learn from great mentors and, to just meet a community of people who had the same interests and same Hashan as me and the same desire to try and figure out.
What comes from the inside out and how to translate that into music. And that's really where I started, throwing myself into, to figuring out that this was something that was, , a whole new love for music that I didn't realize I would, I would fall so much in love with. And I think from that, Really, that was kind of the moment for me.
I think when I, when I was like, right, well, I guess I have to do in this all my life. And I guess this is always going to be a part of my world, but now I just need to figure out who I am through it all, both as a person and as an artist, you know, as a singer. And, it's kind of been a roller coaster of a journey ever since.
Rae Leigh: I love, that. And I love, I love somewhere as well. So you're a woman after my own heart as well, and being around other people and learning from other people who have that same passion and understanding for songwriting and what it is and what it does, and not even having to be genre specific, just the freedom to.
Like a blank canvas to just take the words and the melody and create something brand new is, yeah, it's incredible. And it's exciting to hear that you found that and like once you know that about yourself, it's very freeing, so that's, that's a beautiful story.
Chloe Agnew: Yeah
And I kind of feel like it's one of those things that even only recently in the last couple of years, the more I have become kind of obsessed with it. I'm I try to to, to put myself in rooms with people. Inspire me or who I can learn from, or, you know, , it's the craziest craft.
It really is because I feel like, you know, there's some sessions. Yeah.
It kind of is. I'm like, there's, little I'll be, I'll be out for a run.
One line pop into my head and I have no idea that that could be the seed or the note of something. Beautiful, you know, a couple of weeks down the line, years down the line monster.
And they're like, you just never know where it's going to go. And then sometimes I find like you can find yourself in rooms with songwriters where you can leave a room and you can feel really fulfilled and rewarded and think that, you contributed. Really well to the con to the session and you feel satisfied coming here.
And then there's other rooms that I come out of that I'm humbled. I'm also terrified by the talents that are in the room with
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Chloe Agnew: It's songwriting, you're like, whoa, people have such varying. Skillsets within that world. And whether it be, the musicians, I mean, I've worked with incredible musicians in the room.
I've worked with incredible lyricists, incredible producers, and they all have a different thing to bring to the room and sometimes it can be so. Fulfilling cause you feel great about yourself, but sometimes I've walked out of rooms and I've gone, Oh my God, what did I do in that session? I, they were all so much more talented than me and he goes, so it's, it's such a crazy or else.
It kind of is, but it's almost like, that's why I feel like I'm continually learning.
About myself and I'm soaking up other people's experiences. And, and I think that the community I've found through that and friends, you know, it is such a, a rewarding space when you come into that, that room and you have an idea and then it morphs into something.
Because everybody else in the room has, has lived that in their own way. And they've got their own 2 cents to throw into it, you know? And I think that's been the most freeing part for me is, is seeing something grow out of your own personal experience, but it becomes universal because most of the struggles and the things that we go through in life, you know, we all deal with them, but just in our own way. .
that's been, I guess, best parts of discovering songwriting and making a part of my life in, in recent years.
Rae Leigh: Alright, it's addictive. Isn't it? And it's such a good feeling.
Chloe Agnew: Yeah. Yeah. it. really is.
Rae Leigh: talking about it. Like, you can hear the passion in your voice and it's like, yup. I know what that feels like. It's such
Chloe Agnew: I get that. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Okay. So now that you're getting to know yourself as a songwriter and you've done so much, and that's how we learn is just by doing right.
Have you learned sort of, or seen or noticed a pattern in when you are writing songs maybe specifically for stuff that you want to produce and you want to release under your name? Is there like a pattern or a message or something that kind of always tends to go into your music that you find just tends to come through?
Maybe even without you being conscious about it?
Chloe Agnew: Yeah.
it's interesting that you say that, I guess for me, one of the toughest parts has been because my world, has been so musically varied, because I love so many different genres. I sometimes find it hard to define what that one true sound or sentiment or, or feeling is, you know? And I think it's because.
I sometimes if I'm in a mood that I want to ride a little sassy, on B cells, that's the vibe of the day, or if I want to write a heartbreaking soulful ballad, that's the vibe of the day or something just fun and carefree country kind of feel that's what we go it's. So, I kind of think the best songs I feel that I, I, I. from, I mean, obviously it's always, we pull from your truth. You pull from your experiences and it's usually from, from pain, from heartbreak, from love, from, life lessons that you've learned, I, or things that people have said to me, you know, I mean, one of my favorite songs and I'm hopefully getting ready to release it this year.
Is a little song called short costs. And, I wrote it because I came home, you know, I've been on the road for a couple of months and I, social media, everything, people perceive things to be great and fantastic. And it's your highlight reel of how great your life is. And some this old man who I've known for years, he's a family, friends, Follow me on Facebook.
Oh, you're doing great. You're flying. And I I heard myself paying a tiny little violin on my shoulder, as I was saying to him. Actually the reality always, it's really tough. I'm hustling really hard. I'm slugging away, blah, blah, blah. You know what? I'm kind of telling them my rose.
And he looked at me and he said to me, well, there's no shortcuts to a place worth going to. I'm going to give you the credit for that, because I'm going to write a song based around, you know, that whole sentiment. So like, things like that I guess happened, a song earlier on this year that I released a call written on my heart. Again, I came home from months of being on the road and I was so excited to get home to like that.
That Christmas. And, I met my dad and my sister in town and we were going for a pint. And we mentioned to this little pub in Dublin city and on the wall behind me was this quote from James Joyce, one of our great writers and playwrights up in Ireland. And it said, when I die, Dublin will be written on my heart.
And I just was like, oh, that was such a beautiful line. And so I came into a songwriter session with, with two friends of mine, a friend from Canada. And a friend from a different part of Ireland to me, I shared the sentiment to them and they totally got it. They went, oh, well, that's writing a song about wherever that place is.
That will always be written on your heart because anyone can relate to that. It doesn't matter where you move, where you travel with. Secondly in life, there will always be somewhere that will be written on your heart, so that's why we wrote that. So I guess the best songs, are pulling from things that are real and not mean to, to you.
I'm only just this last month I released a song. Somebody just like you with my, one of my best friends, but I'm a praying. We wrote it because we were both going through a really, really shitty breakup of just, feeling the same pain and sadness, but yet the, the comfort of, of knowing what the heart feels like when it feels real low, I'm not, when somebody really special in your life comes and shows you that kind of love you, hope you can find it. somebody just like them, you know, and I live, so we both pulled from, from that experience and, wrote this beautiful little song and I it's one of the songs that I'm most proud of. And so I guess it just depends for me, it's moments, it's real things that happen and things that you feel like.
I think there sometimes kind of the most rewarding experiences, but it's been really interesting in that sometimes actually biting for other people too has taught me a lot. Myself on what I will say in my own songs, because you, you're putting yourself in a, a more universal mindset things.
You're trying to think, okay. I'm writing for this person and their sound and their feeling their fan base, but how can I relate to that? How can I inject my own personal
Rae Leigh: Yeah. What experiences have you had that are similar to that? And what are what's what's the common theme between the two stories and that's, I think how you connect with more people on a universal scale.
Chloe Agnew: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: And like you said, heartbreak, they always say that's a songwriter's goal, don't they? And
Chloe Agnew: Yeah, well, cause geez, we all feel at some stage of our life in whatever shape or form it is, you know, and I think it is love is the most universal theme, that there is I there in, in whatever shape or form that that's written in, whether it's positive love or heartbreaking love with broken love, whatever it is, we can all relate to it in some way.
Rae Leigh: well, every emotion that's attached to love is relevant and it's very much a part of being human. And I think some of them are more accepted than others and some of them are ugly and some of them are beautiful. And.
Chloe Agnew: Sure.
Rae Leigh: all a part of just this amazing thing that we call life. So, yeah, and I love that we get to put that into our music.
What would you say has been one of your most proud moments, in this journey of songwriting where you just can look back and go? That was, massive for me because I had, at whatever expense.
Chloe Agnew: There's been a couple of times where. the faith to just put it out there into the world. And I'm getting over the fear of what people are going to think, whether they're going to like it or not. That's the scariest part, because I think for such a large part of my life, you know, cause I was so young doing my own RA albums, they were covers and we moved into Catholic home and it was always somebody else's music that I was singing.
So I never felt us. Yeah.
I never felt what it was like to, to hear somebody seeing your lyrics back to you in an audience or to, you know, come up to you and say, oh my God. Yes, completely. So I guess when I left Celtic woman and I was desperately trying to find walk my what that song writing thing book was and how I was going to put me into music.
I have two really great men who, who. Took a chance on me. And they helped produce jet Joshua's factor was my co-writer, for the album Monday and only made the whole project happen. And it was, it was called the thing about you. And it was a five track EAP for original songs. I won't cover, and they really gave me a chance to say, what is it that you, you want to do?
And I, at that time I was, you know, I've moved on to Celtic woman and I just wanted to try something different. So I want, I want to make music that makes me feel. Good. I want to make me, I want to hear songs that I can from my car or whatever, and just have an upbeat kind of more pop feel. And they gave me the freedom to do that on Joshua helped craft it into an actual EAP.
And it was the first time that I thought, my God, this isn't. EPA my songs, you know, and, and it was such a cool, crazy, scary feeling because it was different. It was so different to anything that I'd ever done before. That was a moment of just taking that leap of faith. And I think that taught me so much about not being afraid to just put it out there.
I'm not being afraid of what people think, because, you know, especially with the internet nowadays, somebody is going to love it. Somebody's always going to hate us, you know? So it's like,
Rae Leigh: You can't make everyone happy.
Chloe Agnew: You can't make everyone happy.
And I think that, you know, realizing that early on in, in my song writing process has allowed me to continually turn our different projects over the last couple of years, knowing that it's okay.
Like my diehard penalty found based off woman fan base, aren't always going to love it because it's different, but somebody else is going to love it. I'm fascinated by the world. Oh, Spotify that I have, people who've never knew my music from my Catholic woman days that they've discovered myself and stuff and they like that for what it is, you know?
So then joining a group, I just started working with an incredible collaborative community, a home in Ireland called the X collective and, , a community of creatives of all different. World's basically, we've got song writers, artists, producers, videographers, social media, people, everyone, but it's basically a community. Yeah.
For creatives, it's like a, a support group. I help retrain V8 ZNO and that we can kind of pull from each other's skillsets. But we also have, we all come from such different musical backgrounds that, the girls who, who put us together and formed this group. The whole idea is that people whose musical worlds technically on paper should never work or, or would never cross paths do something unique at totally different is born out of this.
So earlier on this year, Yeah, it's been the greatest part of my, my songwriting and musical world. It really has. And, so I we released it, one of the singles already around this year and it's, it's called W2. Which is short for wrong bitch. And it's this really sassy soulful, R and B kind of track and on myself and Al we wrote it on a song writers comp of years ago, and we initially wrote it and we joked that are the two of us, you know, again on paper are from six different musical worlds and you think this is never going to work, but when we actually put us together and we worked on a single idea and it grew legs, we were initially going to pitch it to them.
A girl bond because we just thought this is not going to fit in our wheelhouse, in either of our musical worlds at all. And then lo and behold COVID happens. And, the girls came up with this idea of why don't we just put this creative, collaborative community together. If people who we can create music onto the banner of the X collective.
And it allows us to release music that is different to what we do in our own lanes.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Chloe Agnew: You know, H
Rae Leigh: Avoid the branding
issue.
Chloe Agnew: Yeah. exactly. So we did, we put this side there and again, going back to that initial thing that. years ago was of, of just realizing don't be afraid of something that's different. Outside of your comfort zone or outside of what you think you can do, because it's going to find a home somewhere.
Somebody will hopefully enjoy it and you'll feel more rewarded at the end of it because you did something different. You eat, you have the faith to do, so I think
Rae Leigh: I love
Chloe Agnew: the biggest lesson for me. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: I love seeing people come together and that the, the magic that happens, I mean, nothing really ever happens when I write and does it, we all need help from other people.
Chloe Agnew: Yeah.
I do think that, I mean, I think, look, there are some insane songwriters out there who, have the, the power to, to lock themselves in a, in a room and write a song for, from the heart. And it is what it is. But I do think, Yeah. I know, just from my own experience, the best things I think coming from.
Putting a, a whole load of different creative minds together and seeing what you can all cook up. You know? That for me is I think There's nothing else. Like it it's magic.
Rae Leigh: There's space for both of them. What about collaborating and co-writing with all your experience, what would you say your best advice would be for someone when preparing for a co-write.
Chloe Agnew: Wow. Well, I guess go, as I said earlier on is that I might be the first to put my hand up and say, I, as I said, I've left sessions feeling like I'm really good at other sessions going home, you know? So I think not trapping yourself in your own head. Not letting you know there's good days and there's bad days.
I think that's the thing. And I think I've been, so the more I, I miss into great songwriters, the more I hear about their work and their process is that, some often is the case that, Yeah.
you've kind of, most of the time, maybe you've got more crap songs than you do have good songs, but you gotta, somebody told me once that I think it's so true that songwriting is like a dirty tap.
You gotta turn it on. You gotta have that all. Brown Pratt, molar flow first until the clear good stuff starts coming. And I do think it is like that, that if you can constantly keep your hand in it, just even little love itself, melodic ideas, there are ideas of beautiful words that you hear that you think, oh my God, that might find a home in a song some day,
Rae Leigh: okay. That's kind of the end of my official questions. I'm going to put blog with all your links and everything, to your music and social, so people can follow your journey if they're just getting to know you now. Thank you so much for jumping on and share. So much wisdom and experience, and I'm actually just inspired by obviously how much of a hard worker you are, but how much you've just pushed through, you know, that imposter syndrome that everyone deals with.
And you've been so open and honest about it because it is something that not anyone is immune to everyone has that feeling. And you've just got to push past that and do it anyway. And you learn from it and you, yeah, you've, you've spoken really well.
Be humble and just be honest, I love that all right. That was fantastic. Thank you.
