Damien Rice wants to inspire you

SINGAPORE — He may have only three studio albums to his name since 2002, but Irishman Damien Rice is considered one of the most influential singer-songwriters of his generation — even folk-pop darling Ed Sheeran has got a tattoo of Rice’s name on his arm.

But the 41-year-old downplayed his impact on younger musicians. “Every individual is more influential in the world than one might realise,” he explained. “A five-second conversation on a street corner is enough to change the world. That may sound exaggerated but, if you think about it, every tiny action of every single individual has a knock-on effect on the people they meet and so on, and it flows across the world in ways that would baffle the imagination.”

He added: “We all affect this world in different ways. You could treat a child a certain way that inspires that child to become a future leader who changes the world. We simply cannot know the level of hidden impact we have on the world.”

More than the idea of influence, what Rice is interested in is that his music and performance inspires someone. And we might get a glimpse of that at next month’s inaugural Neon Lights festival here, where he will be performing. Take it from us: You would have to be a dead fish not to be moved even a bit by Rice’s emotive delivery.

That said, he certainly took his time getting to where he is, although not by design. After initially having his dreams dashed by record company politics — leaving his then-band Juniper unable to release its debut album after fairly successful singles in the late 1990s — he would subsequently set the world alight with his solo effort, the self-released 2001 single The Blower’s Daughter. The next five years would result in commercial success and critical acclaim before he dropped off the map, only to resurface last year with My Favourite Faded Fantasy, his first album since 2006.

It’s quite obvious Rice does not follow the standard path that rock stars usually take. But for him, the musical journey is not about fame and fortune, but self-awareness and self-development.

“My ideal for both recording and playing ‘live’ is that I become lost in what I am doing. If I can lose myself, or at least the ego or the intellect, then this other world starts to appear where I am no longer in the driver’s seat of a limited vehicle, but instead part of a limitless flow,” he said. “That’s when the magic happens. But it’s often terrifying to let go so much because I’m often so wrapped up in my head. However, this is my work. Playing music is not really my job, it’s what comes out as a result of my real work — getting past my fears.”

Statements like these fit the “sensitive singer-songwriter” label, but Rice offers a shrug.

“Humans seem to love labelling and naming things, yet nothing and no one really fits into one specific box,” he countered. “To me, no one is really special, and no one is un-special. No one is really sensitive and no one is really insensitive. These are just words slapped onto something or someone in order for the human mind to attempt to categorise things into boxes. But we all contain elements of everything and we all change all the time. One morning one might wake up feeling sensitive then by evening one feels much better. So, you could say anything about me and I could find some truth in it, as long as my mind is open.”

For Rice, it really all boils down to one thing: He’s on an ultimate quest for truth.

“There is nothing to achieve. That’s an illusion of the mind, the ego or whatever you wish to call it,” he said. “The little insecure part of ourselves that thinks we need to do great things in order to be recognised as existing. But if one focuses on achievements, one misses being here and actually existing. So, I prefer to exist inside first, and whatever happens on the outside is secondary to that.”

The Neon Lights Festival is on Nov 28 and 29. Tickets available from http://www.neonlights.sg/tickets.