Orla Gartland: 2024

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In 2021, Irish singer-songwriter and musician Orla Gartland released her debut LP, Woman on the Internet. And for North American fans, for years, she remained just that.

While she toured the record, which hit big on Irish and UK charts, Orla never made it over the Atlantic for a proper run of shows in the States. So when she announced her second album, Everybody Needs a Hero, and her first North American headline tour in 2024, fans were waiting — and they were ready.

Soon after tickets went on sale, every single date sold out, demonstrating the massive waves the artist and her music have been making from all the way across the pond. A lot of life can happen in three years. (Orla and her friends started a band called FIZZ, released a record and then bounced back to their solo projects in that span of time.)

But with her sophomore record, the artist seeks to document one specific area of her life in particular. Everybody Needs a Hero — which, like her debut, Gartland released through her own label, New Friends — is about “navigating the currents of a long-term relationship," she said in her newsletter. The highs and the lows, the magic and the mess… and everything in between.

On a trip to New York ahead of the album’s release — doing all the in-person press and promo that, due to the pandemic, she never had the chance to do for the last record — Gartland swung by FUV to perform a few songs in our studio.

Gartland told me about collaborating with Declan McKenna, the freedom of being an independent artist, and the experience of writing and releasing an entire album about her relationship — all while still very much in it. She also played a trio of songs from Everybody Needs a Hero, joined by cellist Jenna Pascale: "Mine," "Late to the Party," and "Little Chaos."

[Recorded: 9/9/24; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Matthew Ellersick and Julia Maling; produced by Meghan Offtermatt; videographers: Bella Lipayon, Sydney Marovitz, Olivia Wahlert, Sebastian Giugovaz, and Adithi Vimalanathan.]