Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BIG INTERVIEW Record deal talks are result of hard Graft for Dublin busker Allie..
Talented Cork teen has earned her shot at stardom
There’s a good chance Allie Sherlock is going to look back one day on 2021 as being one of the most memorable years of her entire life. Firstly, the 16-year-old, who has skipped ahead at school thanks to being home-schooled, is hitting the books hard at the moment for her upcoming Leaving Cert exams in the summer.
And secondly, the Internet sensation – with a phenomenal 4.5million subscribers on Youtube, 2.5million followers on Facebook, and 1.5million on Instagram – could be about to sign a record deal with a major UK label, I can reveal.
The Cork teen has had “a lot of labels and managers wanting to sign” her up ever since she famously appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show in 2018.
The American chat show host had invited the then 12-year-old over to La-la Land after her cover of Ed Sheeran’s Supermaket Flowers went viral with almost 13million views on Youtube.
On the back of it, Allie – whose dad had been bringing her almost every weekend for the past four years from their home in Cork to Dublin, so she can busk on Grafton St – signed a song-writing deal with US producer Ryan Tedder of Onerepublic fame, who has collaborated with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Adele, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Paul Mccartney and Ariana Grande.
SENSIBLY
But the Irish teen had sensibly decided not to sign on the dotted line with an actual record label – until now.
She told me: “We’re in talks at the moment. It’s with a Uk-based label. I’m not sure when it will be, but I think pretty soon.
“I’m doing some writing sessions pretty soon. So hopefully, maybe after that, these songs will be released.
“I’m still trying to figure out what kind of artist I want to be. I have a few ideas.”
Whatever the music style, one thing’s for sure – Allie now has a great shot at becoming the biggest success story to come out of Grafton St since Glen Hansard won an Oscar for Once.
“I’ve never seen it. I actually haven’t,” Allie confessed.
Picking up her own story, she said: “I started playing guitar and singing when I was eight or nine.
“My dad and I are always thinking, ‘Why did we start busking? Who got the idea?’ You know what? Everybody asks me this question, but I literally cannot remember.
“I think I just saw a busker in town and I was like, ‘Why don’t I do that?’
“I loved performing for my family and I just liked busking. I started busking when I was 11 in Cork.
“And then my dad Googled, ‘Where the best places are in the world to busk’. And what came up was LA and Dublin. We chose Dublin because we didn’t want to go all the way over to LA.
“It’s been four years. We absolutely love it. I’ve got tons of friends up there, my dad has friends. Those friends are also buskers. It’s a lovely little community.”
Allie admitted that she was “very nervous” the first time she busked, but she can strut one’s stuff with the ease of a consummate professional these days.
She credits her father on that score. “When I was younger I was very shy and my dad always taught me to build up my confidence,” she explained.
“When we’d go into a restaurant or to a shop and I wanted to bring something back, my dad (with Allie above) was like, ‘You go up and do it’ – just to make me stronger in myself.
“It built up my confidence and I rarely get nervous anymore.
“I’m used to performing, but even when I first started I wasn’t even that nervous – I was just more, like, aware of my mistakes.”
But she had a bad case of the jitters when singing Adele’s A Million Years Ago for Ellen Degeneres in front of millions of American TV viewers.
“As I said, I rarely get nervous but The Ellen Show – I literally almost threw up!” she confessed.
“I was so nervous my leg and my hands were shaking. You know when you’re nervous and you’re just bouncing your leg? Like, that was constant. I couldn’t stop, I was so nervous.
“But it was incredible. It was surreal. Like, this is Ellen next to me!
“She was nice. There was a break and I was like, ‘I’m so nervous’. And she was like, ‘Oh, it’s okay’. And she gave me a hug. She was lovely.”
She added: “Obviously it felt real as I was there, but the other part was just like a dream, being next to Ellen.
“I was singing over at the side and I was away in my own world and I didn’t realise for a second that I was on Ellen. And then I looked over and I seen Ellen (inset) walking along and I was like, ‘Oh, wow!’
“I got quite nervous at that moment. It was just crazy, to be honest.”
As a result, Allie gained one new fan from New Mexico who flew all the way over to Dublin just to watch her perform on Grafton St.
“You have one hour in one spot and then you have to move – so usually I do about two, maybe three hours, three different sets,” she explained.
“And this guy kept throwing multiple
50s all day long, after every set I did. I’d say he gave about €900 by the end of the day.”
What’s the most anybody else has dropped into her guitar case?
“I’ve gotten a lot of people just throwing in a €50. One person was very drunk and he threw in like €300!” she said.
“A lot of things happen on like, say, St Patrick’s Day – a lot of drunk people just throw in a lot of money, which is great. Hopefully they don’t remember the next day! ‘Oh God! Where’s
‘‘ I met Ed Sheernan before his concert in Cork and he was just so sweet. He was giving me advice and everything.
my money gone?!’”
She can laugh at it now, but the worst experience was when a drunk guy, who was “falling around the place”, went flying into her guitar case.
“My dad tried to pull him up out of the case so I could continue singing. There was a big crowd around,” she recalled.
“He got very angry and then he smashed his bottle of liquor on the floor.”
Luckily her father Mark is always on hand to keep an eye on proceedings.
“He watches every single set, or records the videos. He’s just amazing. To be honest, I don’t give him enough credit for everything that he’s done,” she said proudly.
“Almost every single weekend for the past four years he’s drove me up to Dublin. I’m just so thankful because I wouldn’t be where I was today without him.
“He’s the dad-ager. I do have a manager as well.”
She half-joked: “I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend until I’m like 45. Strict rule.”
Like all fathers, Mark also has one other big no-no.
“No revealing clothes,” she said, laughing again.
“Obviously I’m not going to go out wearing very revealing clothes – that’s also a very strict rule by dad.
“No, I don’t want that. I like to go for the clothes that are in style, but I wear what I want really.
“It’s not really a conscious thing, I just go with the flow. I’m not really set on one style of clothes that I wear. It’s whatever I want to wear really. It’s my choice.”
Allie said one of the best stand-out moments so far was meeting her idol, who just so happens to be the very same singer-songwriter behind the song that made her an internet sensation.
“I met Ed Sheernan before his concert in Cork and he was just so sweet. He was giving me advice and everything,” she said.
“He’s such a humble guy. He is literally just so down to earth. He’s just so normal.
IMPORTANT
“He was telling me just to always song-write, how important it is, and just, like, practicing, and just loads of musical advice.”
But it has not been all sweetness and light for the vivacious youngster, who really seems to have a good head on her shoulders.
Allie’s mother Michelle sadly died at aged 28. She has a half-sister on her mother’s side who is now 13-yearsold.
“She passed away when I was nine, I was very young. She had me very young: she was 18 when she had me,”
Allie explained.
“I’ve written songs directly about her. But a lot of my songs might come across as romantic kind of love songs but they’re about my mum and everything.”
It has all made Allie think, from time-to-time, about how she’d love to have a family one day herself.
“I’d just love to have that moviestyle family. You know, that perfect family. Obviously I want kids, a husband,” she said.
“My best friend and I, we want our families to be like super close to each other, have Christmases together. I just have it in my head.”
If losing a parent wasn’t hard enough to be dealing with, Allie ended up being bullied when she switched schools in sixth class.
“I guess I was the new girl. Even just being the new girl is hard enough and they were all just being really rude,” she recalled.
“And then there was this singing competition in school, like a talent show, and it just got way worse from there. Jealousy, yeah.
“It was pretty bad. My dad was like, ‘Don’t say something rude back’.
“He told me if they said something nasty to smile at them and say, ‘Thank you’.
“It was great advice. I kinda thought it was stupid at first when my dad told me, but it worked – they walked away and left me alone for that day.
“And I guess just smiling and saying thank you in a sarcastic tone is better than hitting back – obviously not physically, but with words.”
Allie is now having the proverbial last laugh because she absolutely loves being home schooled.
There’s also the small matter of her promising solo music career.
Living Well – as the title of the REM song from the Accelerate album goes – is the Best Revenge.