Orla Gartland shares new album Everybody Needs A Hero, listen to new single ‘Backseat Driver’
PRAISE FOR Orla Gartland
“Conquering the internet might have been enough for a less ambitious artist, but for Gartland it was just the start”
“It was impossible not to immediately fall in love with Orla Gartland’s music”
“There's a refreshing frankness to the way she describes dating an emotionally-repressed man, becoming obsessed with a friend of a friend and finding solace in the sobering reality that her problems aren't unique”
“What sets Gartland apart is her honest songwriting and her contagious energy on a live stage”
“A varied and emotionally direct collection of alt-pop that mirrors the ups and downs of her journey, alluding to personal events without dissecting them to the point where they lose their wider resonance”
“Her writing captures the hard-won perspective of a life sandwiched between the online extremes of hatred and hero worship with an ironic awareness that she – like all of us – nonetheless still falls for all the snares of self-comparison”
“A headlong dive into twentysomething life”
“Joyously defiant”
TRACKLIST
1. Both Can Be True
2. SOUND OF LETTING GO
3. Little Chaos
4. Backseat Driver
5. The Hit
6. Simple
7. Late To The Party feat. Declan McKenna
8. Three Words Away
9. Kiss UR Face Forever
10. Who Am I?
11. Mine
12. Everybody Needs A Hero
Everybody Needs A Hero LP is out now, buy/stream it here.
Orla Gartland today releases her eagerly anticipated second studio album Everybody Needs A Hero via her label New Friends. LISTEN HERE.
The album contains 12 new tracks, including the previously released ‘Little Chaos, ‘The Hit’, ‘Mine’, ‘Kiss UR Face Forever’, and ‘Late To The Party feat. Declan McKenna’ – currently riding high on the BBC Radio 1 playlist – as well as anthemic new single ‘Backseat Driver,’ co-written with close friend and songwriter Lauren Aquilina. “This record is about one relationship and detailing the multitude of feelings I had about that person all at once,” Orla shares. “One feeling doesn’t cancel another out but instead they co-exist; that has been my experience.”
The Dublin-born, London-based artist and producer is bold, brash and increasingly self-assured on Everybody Needs A Hero. Fixated on the idea of a ‘hero’ as someone to look up to or someone to rescue us from ourselves, we meet Orla as her most confident self in this record and time in her life. Her angular alternative sound expands through a series of collaborations and is indebted to her own fastidious sense of independence; she is sonically and lyrically louder than ever before.
Everybody Needs A Hero tracks the journey of self-discovery you go through as you establish who you are within the confines of a long-term relationship. Often a struggle, and one that may remain internalised, Gartland voices all these intimate intricacies and more detailing the inescapable collective and individual compromises. Underpinned by brutal honesty, there’s a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour to her storytelling on the record, sometimes acting as a defence mechanism for when things start to get a little too real. Poignant, sometimes pointed lyrics are what fans love and expect from Gartland and they are abundant here, “I think this music juts out at the edges more than what I’ve done before,” she notes, it commits the to bit – an exaggerated version of herself.
Taking a considered, hands-on approach, Gartland made a concerted effort to be across every aspect of building the world of Everybody Needs A Hero. Co-producing the album, making intentional choices throughout the mixing and mastering processes and working collaboratively on the project’s creative direction, Gartland signs off every decision. While creative independence is nothing new, in 2024 it’s a choice; a power she notes may have been relinquished had she opted to release the album via a traditional record label rather than her own independent imprint New Friends.
The album came to life between her London studio and the creative sanctuary of Middle Farm Studios in Devon. With Gartland on a constant quest to push herself as a writer and producer, she captained the ship during the writing and recording processes, with strong direction right through to the mixing and mastering. She worked with longtime collaborators Tom Stafford and Peter Miles in co-producing the album, inspired by each producers’ digital and analog approaches.
Orla Gartland began writing songs at 14 years old, sharing them online while developing her skills and building a dedicated audience of die-hard fans through her huge YouTube channel, many of which are still with her today via her ‘Secret Demo Club’.
Orla’s artistic growth and trust in her own taste can be heard listening to her discography in chronological order. From the softer pop-leaning songwriter moments on her first EPs to the more alternative-influences which permeated later projects Why Am I Like This? and Freckle Season, it’s her critically acclaimed debut album Woman On The Internet, the culmination of over a decade of hard work, which saw Gartland really hit her stride. Cementing her self-deprecating lyricism with a wider palette of influences, Woman On The Internet hit the Top 10 on the UK Albums Chart; landed at #3 in the Irish Album Charts; was nominated for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Irish Album of the Year 2021; and has amassed millions of streams and helped Gartland forge an even deeper connection with her fans.
With multiple sold-out headline tours in the UK, Ireland and beyond, festival appearances at Glastonbury and Latitude marking career milestones and nods of approval from some of her biggest inspirations along the way (Regina Spektor, Imogen Heap), the last few years have seen Orla go from strength to strength. Following a notable chapter with her band FIZZ, the group she formed alongside friends dodie, Martin Luke Brown and Greta Isaac, the return to her solo project and the release of Everybody Needs A Hero via her own label New Friends marks another exciting milestone for this proudly independent artist.
Keep in touch