Meet Rianne Downey, Scotland’s boldest new voice in country music

There’s every chance you may have seen Rianne Downey but not, as it happens, heard her actual music. That’s what tends to happen when you cover The Beautiful South online and the videos are discovered by Paul Heaton, who happens to be in need of a co-singer after his frequent collaborator Jacqui Abbott decided to knock touring on the head. Those dates across last year and this summer saw the 26-year-old prove that she has one hell of a voice to be reckoned with.

But it’s on Downey’s debut album, The Consequence of Love, where her voice really shines. After over a decade busking and posting covers on YouTube, it’s the first chance for Downey to truly prove what she’s all about. Recorded in Seattle with Ryan Hadlock, the album shows off the Scottish rising star’s love of country, while the stories focus on love, loss (both romantic and familial) and on the soaring title track – the importance of putting herself first.

“The most important relationship is the relationship with myself because I am my own worst enemy sometimes and I definitely have been in the past. I’m not gonna get life in the way of my dream anymore,” she defiantly explains.

Give the album and a single listen and you’ll soon realise that Rianne’s dream and its potential in seemingly limitless.

Read the interview and listen to her music via our Play Next playlist on Spotify below.

We’re speaking weeks before the album drops. Excited?

I’m dead excited but I’m nervous as well. It’s that feeling of when you were younger and it was Christmas Eve and you’re buzzing for Santa to come. It’s how I feel now, giddy but nervous because you never really know what’s going to happen. It’s a really special time.

What does the record say about you as an artist?

I think encapsulates me and my journey. The album is rooted in country and folk, but has these sort of classic Celtic touches which feel unorthodox. It’s quite a unique and quirky and almost wonky album in a way and there is a sort of beauty to the wonkiness and I think that sort of really encapsulates me and my journey, as a person and as a musician, I’ve had quite quite a unique journey.

Go on…

Well, I started off busking when I was 15 and then playing the pubs and my career started during lockdown when I was posting covers, but I went through a phase where I lost everything. I lost my job, my partner, my grandad and my mental health took a nosedive and it was rock bottom where I started to find myself and my career sort of grew through covers online and then it was through that I got the job with Paul Heaton. I’ve had immense highs so early in my career but I’m still building as a solo artist as well and I’m quite a messy person. Everything’s kind of chaotic, but then there’s order to that chaos as well, and the album reflects that.

So was it a case of embracing the chaos to be true to yourself?

Absolutely, I really like that idea of embracing it. It’s incredibly important to be as authentic to yourself as possible and it definitely took me a while to realise that. I’m definitely a people pleaser and I was raised as a Catholic so that comes with the territory.

And that was true with music too, for a while I was trying to put myself in the route I thought you had to do to be big in the UK. That’s what people want from me and that’s what I should be doing. But I could never escape my folk side and I eventually realised that being true to yourself creates that happiness and contentment and the success that you’re you’re searching for.

And this sound that you *did* land on. Was this your first musical love?

I think it’s always been sort of in me in some way. I don’t come from a musical family, but there was always music on in the house, so I grew up on a steady diet of my mum and dad’s music tastes and my gran and papa’s music tastes. I think a massive thing for me when I grew up was storytelling. I loved music that told a story that’s just something that was more deep rooted within country and folk music. I think being Scottish and that Celtic sense has that as well, it’s ingrained into you. I’d like the melodies of people like Patsy Cline as well, which just made me feel things that I’d never really felt before, it just woke something in me and I think that’s always been there, but as you grow up, obviously you find your own sort of music. My parents were into indie and Britpop as well, and I did want to incorporate the melody lines and the sort of instrumentation from things like that. It’s a culmination of everything I love, really.

And you got the proper country experience recording in the US, right?

Yeah I recorded with my producer Ryan Hadlock at a studio in Seattle called Bear Creek and it has that name because, well, there’s bears and there’s a creek surrounding it. It was amazing, I didn’t see a black bear but I did hear one at night one time when I was out in the garden and I was terrified.

It made the full thing feel like dead enchanted. I felt so at one with myself and it was a nice way to shut out the world. Being in that setting where you’re just in the trees, in a barn in the middle of nowhere, it’s just completely about the music and myself really.

Ryan was amazing for production as well. There’s a song on there called ‘Lost in Blue’ which was maybe more acoustic and he turned that into this dreamy Fleetwood Mac style song. What was lovely too is that he could sense what I needed without me having to articulate it and I think that’s the beautiful thing about having the right producer. If you can just feel what each other are thinking then it’s the perfect match.

We know you’ve performed with Paul Heaton at a string of his gigs. What’s he taught you about music?

It’s strange because I’m sort of learning as I’m watching and listening to him, so it’s never like we sat down and he’s said ‘this is what you need to do’. I’ve just learned in the most natural way possible and almost like in a very simple way because that’s who Paul is.

There’s no airs or graces and he’s very down to earth and, he does things in his own way. I think just being around him and watching him be such a lovely person and a good soul and the way that he treats people really brushed off. He knows it’s all about the music and the importance that it doesn’t get compromised, but it’s nice to just see someone doing that while being such a kind person, a gem of a person, but still having that strong will. It definitely helped with my album and allowed me to realise that this is about me and what I do. Everyone’s listening to the album because of me, everyone’s coming to the gigs because of me, so you have to sort of stay true to that.

While also not, as you mentioned earlier, being a people pleaser?

Yes! I’ve realised now that it’s a bit like what RuPaul says: ‘If you can’t love yourself, how can you love anybody else?’

This is my journey and I won’t be able to complete the journey unless I prioritise myself and I’ve sacrificed a lot to get here and I think I’m starting to realise that looking after yourself isn’t a selfish thing. It’s an amazing thing, this opportunity I’ve got. There’s a song on the album called ‘Consequence of Love’ and it explores all the different relationships that I’ve had and the most important one in my life is the relationship with myself because I am my own worst enemy sometimes and I definitely have been in the past. I’m not gonna get life in the way of my dream anymore.