Martin Hayes

Martin Hayes (55) is a fiddler. He performs in many musical groups including The Gloaming, and his latest, The Martin Hayes Quartet. Born in Feakle, Co Clare, he lives in Madrid, with his Spanish wife, Lina

Ilive in Madrid with my wife, Lina. She is Spanish. I met her by chance in Clare, and I liked her straightaway. An hour after talking to her, I said that I was going to marry this woman. And a year to the day, we did get married.

Lina is a wonderful lady. She has nothing to do with music, but she’s a fairly ardent fan of mine. I’d known her to see from my concerts in Clare. She asked me to play at the opening of her childcare facility, Brigit’s Hearth. I didn’t understand what she was talking about in an email, so she asked me to visit the place. That’s how we met.

I’ve lived here in Madrid for two years. Of course you’d have to count that in musician’s years, because I spend a lot of my time away from here. Lina didn’t have to twist my arm to move to Madrid. For years, I’d harboured this fantasy of living in Spain or Italy.

I’d always loved the Mediterranean culture and the lifestyle. Lunch is a big part of the day, and so is the merienda [the late-afternoon snack]. We, in our AngloIrish culture, focus on more abstract stuff. We don’t give as much attention to food, and small things, like the way we dress. But for the Spanish, these are big things. I tried to learn Spanish. I made a stab at it. I’m terrible, but I can survive.

We live in a fourth-floor apartment which has a view to the countryside — unusual in the city. On another side, we can see a cloistered convent. All we hear from them is the bells. The weather creates the lifestyle. It dictates the outdoor life.

In the mornings, I walk the dog. I’m right beside the Royal Palace. It’s very beautiful. There’s a nice coffee shop where I can bring the dog, so I have a cafe con

leche and a croissant, and then I go back to the house. I might check emails. In my business, I always have a couple of projects on the boil.

At the moment, I’m working on the Martin Hayes Quartet. We will play in the NCH on October 28 to launch our new album, The Blue Room.

I have a number of different musical lives. I have The Gloaming; there is my duet with Dennis Cahill, which has been going for many years; and I have an American quartet called The Brooklyn Rider.

With traditional-Irish music, I’m always striving to find new ways inside it. The Gloaming is a traditional-Irish band, but we all have different influences. We didn’t set out to be anything other than what would emerge from these five musicians getting together, without anybody telling the other person that you can’t play this or that. We gave everybody freedom to be their own musical selves.

The new quartet was similar in that respect. We allow things to emerge. Doing all these ensembles is a way of keeping my work fresh and exciting. I think it’s interesting for an audience, too. It’s part of a process, and I don’t ever expect to get to the end of it. Sometimes I could be playing a tune for 25 years, and then, one day, I suddenly get a new view on it.

The core part of me and music is feeling, and expression and allowing myself to be carried away with it; to experience it emotionally and physically and to lose oneself into a transcendental moment.

The music feels like it is coming out of you, coming through you, and you are not intellectually processing it. You are hyper-aware of what is going on, but you are not directing it with your brain. It’s such an internal experience.

I was always encouraged by my father, and lots of older musicians and mentors like Tony McMahon. They encouraged me to play from the heart; to play heartfelt music, with feeling and emotion. That has always been my goal.

I’ve been playing the fiddle my whole life. There were a few short episodes where I did other things. I have a degree in business, and I worked on a construction site in Chicago. That was very bad for my hands. I didn’t like that. Then I started playing in bands, just to live and get on.

Music has always been there. The first fiddle I got arrived from Santa Claus. I was seven, and I felt like the universe had destined me to be a fiddle player. I saw my father play the fiddle. I was drawn to it in the way that kids watching their fathers with a tractor are drawn to tractors. It looked like a very natural thing to do.

When my father sat me down to play, he’d play a couple of bars and he’d say, ‘Why don’t you try and just do what I did?’ So I would try and place my fingers where I saw him placing his, and move the bow on that string in the same way. It was a visual thing and an auditory thing. I mimicked him, and it evolved from there.

I spent all my teenage years dreaming about music, playing music, imagining music, and just being crazy for the damn thing. Now I do it for a living. It’s a blessing that I get to live my passion.

With a day on the road, there are a couple of events leading up to it that are part of a ritualistic preparation. There is nothing odd about them, except that now I know I am on the way to the stage.

I don’t get nervous, but I get a little anxious that I won’t get as deeply into it as I want to. Being out on stage is usually a fairly ecstatic experience. I can’t expect an audience to go into a deep experience unless I go there. I think it works because I’m authentic.

After a show, I’m a little wound up. I like to meet the audience afterwards and connect with them. One time Lina came back and she gave me a hug. She doesn’t quite remember this, but I remember that hug very well.

“I spent my teenage years dreaming about music, just being crazy for the damn thing”