A born storyteller, Irish singer/songwriter Janet Devlin was made to write your story! Unafraid to tap into the realities of life’s struggles, Devlin has created a masterpiece with her current album Not My First Emotional Rodeo which takes listeners on a journey through relatable pain and then the joys of laughter.

Bursting onto the scene in X Factor UK 2011, Devlin’s distinctive vocals and ability to write meaningful lyrics has captivated audiences for years. Janet Devlin has made her mark on the UK country music scene this year with notable appearances at C2C Festival, The Long Road and headlining The British Country Music festival in Blackpool in August.

After having the album on repeat, we caught up with Janet to discuss it. Janet was an absolute delight to talk with. A strong, impressionable woman, Janet is also hilarious and it’s like chatting to someone you have known for years.

Hi, How has your week been?

It’s been intense, we have been finishing off four news songs that we are getting mastered for the new album. It has been nice to plough through this next record and hopefully getting it all done for next year.

What can we know about it?

I spent the whole of February writing. The label was like “how do you feel about going back out to Nashville to record an album?” I was like “absolutely” and they were like “have you got enough songs?” and I was like “absolutely!” No I didn’t haha and they said “Is March ok?” and I said “Of course” and I hung up the phone and was like “I need to write an album in a month, let’s go!” so I just booked out my entire February, wrote and we did about another 22 songs out there! The last album we had 24 songs out in Nashville so we missed our target haha!

What kind of direction will this album go?

There’s quite a few up tempo, quite a few rock country and wordplay, I like to have fun and be a bit silly with my lyrics. I am a big emotional baby too so I still won’t be getting rid of that part of me, so there are ballads on it, sentimental songs, even one I wrote for my dad. Highs, Lows and in-betweens but a lot more grit in the uptempo tracks.

Tell me about covering ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers for your current album ‘Not My First Emotional Rodeo’. It’s a beautiful cover and I know you have been a fan of the song for a while.

I must have been four or five when I heard that song for the first time. At that age you are getting story books read to you and watching kids cartoons but I remember listening to it and it was just better than any storybook, any nursery rhyme as it paints such a vivid picture. Because I listened to it so young, I still have all the imagery that I put to that song in my head now even as an adult listening to it. It’s a beautiful song and my Grandad used to sing it when he was washing the dishes. I used to sing it to my Pony when I was ten years old and I was riding around the roads. It’s always stuck with me and I have always sung it in private, I had never sung it publically and I think it’s because I respect the song so much. I just had this fear of ruining it. When I got asked to do the breakfast show with Scott Mills at C2C festival, they asked me to do an original and a cover. I thought, well if there is any time to whip out your favourite country song and potentially get away with it, I thought, now is the time on national breakfast radio. It went down so well. My song ‘Back to My Senses’ was on The B list on Radio 2 but after that they ended up playing the live version of ‘The Gambler’ loads. More so than my song and I wasn’t mad about it as was always lovely feedback. I just wanted to record it, so I went to George Ezra’s studio, me and my guitar player the same guitar player who did it in Belfast. We went and did a live version of it and polished it up a bit and put it on the deluxe.

Do you play it at shows now?

I took it to the festivals over the summer. It was amazing! I know at festivals they don’t want to hear covers, they want to hear originals and I get that but the warm fuzzy feeling of hundreds of people singing that song is beautiful and I am going to continue to do it.

Did you ever get to see him live?

I did not unfortunately, I remember the day he died, I cried.

How was C2C, Long Road and all the festivals?

Mind blowing, absolutely mind blowing. I hadn’t done festivals in like ten years really. I didn’t expect to get C2C because the non-deluxe version of the album only came out in November. Getting that was unbelievable and I just got he most amazing audience. The room was packed out and they were just unbelievable. The thing I love about a country audience is they will sing along when you ask them to but they will also just listen when you tell them a story. That started my year off amazingly and that was just after I got back from Nashville so that was insane.

Then I did Long Road and that was magical, filled the tent out to the back bar and that was dope. An amazing crowd.

The British Country Music Festival was a really special moment for me because I have never headlined a festival before. It was really really special and the feedback from that was unbelievable and it gave me a bit more wind in my sails to keep trucking and get this album finished. It has been surreal having audiences sing along to my songs and it not be my show. Because when you put on your own show people know your songs. At a festival it is so surreal.

You have always been a country fan, who else has influenced you?

I started in country when I was doing open mics as a teen.

It’s very big in Ireland isn’t it?

Oh it’s the biggest genre in Ireland. It’s a real thing amongst farmers, country people and even small town folks. It makes sense. I was an equestrian, my parents weren’t but my family were farmers. We are surrounded by agriculture. All you look for in music is to hear your story said by someone. They talk about things that are present in your life and that’s why it’s the biggest genre because people gravitate to where they hear themselves. It has always been a part of my life. As a kid Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, I remember the first time I heard Coat of Many Colours. Hal Ketchum, Garth Brooks, Reba. Shania Twain, loved her energy and sass. As I have got older, I started listening to more modern country , which I got to like through Bluegrass. The soundtrack to O’ Brother Where Art Thou, that has had a massive impact on my life. Alison Krauss, The Steel Drivers I fell in love with. I once dated a guy who was like “oh have you ever heard of this guy Chris Stapleton?” and I was like “No” and then he sent me it over and I thought “this is unbelievable” and then I was like “oh if you like this then you might like The Steel Drivers” and he said “nah I don’t like them” the joke is obviously Chris Stapleton was the lead singer of The Steel Drivers. I didn’t know that until I started listening to him. The reason I sent him The Steel Drivers was because it sounded like the same man haha! Chris really got me back into the modern world of it all. I love The Cadillac Three, BlackJack Billy, I have always loved Brooks and Dunn. I am quite a silly person so I love that in country you can sing a ballad that is heart wrenching and then the next minute you can have a joke song produced to the nines. I love making people giggle so it’s nice to have those two worlds meet.

That is why your album is titled so well as we need those emotional rollercoasters where we are crying, laughing…

Tell us a bit about the deluxe version Not My First Emotional Rodeo

I did three Nashville trips as a road test to see if I liked the Nashville way as it is very different to the way I had worked the previous ten years. So I went out and did three songs and then I did twenty four songs. I was choosing the fourteen tracks for the album and you have to go with the journey from top to tail, what sounds good and it meant cutting out a few of my favourites. I was like “we’ll definitely do a deluxe won’t we?” and they said “absolutely” so I was like “good I don’t have to beg”. Naturally then, I released an extra 8 songs on to that, so I got to let them have their moment. Also, for the fans, there were a few songs that they remember from me touring years ago and they wanted to know what happened to them so they finally got to hear the songs that they loved.

How did you decide on the bookends of the album? Were the opener and closer a difficult task?

I already knew what the closer was because I wrote it to be a closer. It was ‘The Problem is Me’ because I thought it was funny. The most depressing ballad haha! I thought it was funny because there are a few songs where I am like pointing fingers at someone I was in a relationship with and I thought it would be funny to end the album on “hey, maybe I’m the problem” ha, even though I wasn’t the problem! Even when you leave a toxic relationship you question whether it was your fault, so I wrote it from that perspective. For people that do have regret, maybe they can hear themselves in it but also for people who weren’t the problem, they can still hear that song and feel seen in it too.

For the deluxe album it made sense to finish off with the two live versions of two of my favourite songs that have shaped me as an artist with ‘The Gambler’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away’ which is from the ‘O’ Brother Where Art Thou’ soundtrack. It was a special moment because we did that last song in the studio when we had about 20 minutes left of studio time. So I said why don’t we just do ‘I’ll fly away’ and they were all like “Ok!”. We all stood around a microphone and I filmed it. We did it around two mics and that was it. It was one take and everyone went home.

One of my favourite songs so far is ‘Burden’. I wanted to talk about that!

Normally in a writing session I do two songs in the day. I normally start with an uptempo and finish on a ballad. Because I have too many feelings, I find it easy to write a ballad because I find it easy to get into that head space of an event. I have feelings I can just tap into, it’s like an over flowing well of emotions so it’s a nice cathartic thing for me to do. Sometimes I don’t even know what’s bothering me until I sit down and play some sad chords and the lyrics sort of just fall out of my mouth and I am like “I didn’t realise I was upset about that but I clearly am”. ‘Burden’ is about having borderline . I am medicated now and in remission so it’s a nice place to be, I am not living in the story of ‘Burden’ anymore. I can still have an episode and it can lead me to be in that place. It was about not answering my phone and pushing someone out of my life even if they were a good person. I put the walls up and I kick them out and it’s that fear of being yourself in a relationship and for me, I would be normal for so much if it and then this mentally ill part would raise its head from time to time and that scares people because they may have never seen that side of you, the emotionally distraught , the toddler that exists in all of us having that absolute tantrum. It’s a sad thing and I think the sadder part is when I do this song live and people tell me they relate to it so much. It’s pushing someone away, not because you don’t love them but because it’s a form of self harm.

I agree, and thank you for sharing that with me. I do relate to the song and that’s why music is so important to have that relatability and knowing you aren’t alone on what you go though. Sometimes you need to be selfish and cut people off to look after your own mental health. It’s hard!

It’s hard because you’re hurting and your past comes up to the surface as well. Sometimes, the safest thing that you can do for yourself and it is awful when you’re pushing someone great out but sometimes the safest thing you can do is be on your own and process and almost grieve. You don’t get to choose, if those feelings come up they come up.

Is there a song that seems to be peoples favourite?

I think I can answer that by the song that I tend to play people most and that’s ‘Cigarette Sweets’. It’s because it’s one that takes people somewhere mentally, I played it to my Grandmother, she is 90 and she wasn’t in the best form that day and I played it to her and the life and colour came back into her eyes. It takes people somewhere, to their childhood, to their youth. It’s a safe bet! It seems to be the one that comes up a bit.

It’s a great opener for the album too as really captures your attention.

Yeah it made sense to me to open with a story, a bit of reflection and then work it up to the big boys.

Off the album, what song is a family favourite?

That’s a good question, It has to be ‘I’ll Fly Away’. We, as a family, have seen ‘O’ Brother Where Art Thou’ so many times. When I played ‘I’ll Fly Away’ to my Dad in the car a couple of weeks ago, I played him that and ‘The Gambler’ and at the end he turned it down and was like “now, what’s happening with these? Where are these going?” very sternly and I said they were going on the deluxe and he said “that’s great, thank god” he really loved them, my Dad is a music nerd and the concept of them not gojng somewhere was almost enraging him. We all share the same taste in country.

Listen to Not My First Emotional Rodeo here