Sinéad Harnett Sets Her 'Boundaries' On New Album And Speaks On Her Career Thus Far [Interview]

A singer, a songwriter and a truly angelic vocalist, Sinéad Harnett unveils her most personal project yet with the release of ‘Boundaries’, a 16-track album that sees the songstress bare all on this euphoric record. Gliding between tracks, interludes and meaningful lyrics, the running themes of this album are growth, releasing and boundaries, as Sinéad sets out to heal her inner child through her exquisite pen and intricate self-expression.

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Now a household name in LA where she resides, but still a proud North London girl, Sinéad Harnett has come a long way since her 2016 breakout hit single “If You Let Me”, which has now surpassed 200M streams across music platforms. Following on from her initial success, Sinéad has now performed on the infamous COLORS platform twice, the first time was for her sensual single “Body”, which has accumulated 25M views since its release, along with Sinead’s recent performance for soul-searching single “Burn”. Miss Harnett has already conquered so much throughout her career, she’s toured the world with endless sold-out shows, collaborated with the likes of Masego, Lucky Daye, SHY FX, Earthgang and so many more and touched the souls of many with her endless back catalogue of thought-provoking records, but above all Sinéad Harnett has done nothing but stay true to herself throughout of her of evolution.

Boundaries is a solid body of work, which presents itself as a brand new chapter and debut in Sinéad Harnett’s career, all while redefining the concept of setting boundaries with a wholesome, but heartfelt delivery.

It’s such an honour to be sitting here with you Sinéad, as one of the UK’s most talented exports with a career that spans over 10 years, did you always want to pursue a career as a musician?

Music was something I always had a deep attachment to from a young age, but I never knew it was something that I could become or even pursue, I just thought it would always be my hobby, up until my time at college where I performed at my first talent show, my friends were shocked and just kept asking me when I was going to tell them that I could sing. Singing for me was always a secret, as I’ve always been quite shy, weirdly for me I’ve always seen myself as a class clown with all the dumb dad jokes and typically that kind of person is the one who is always deflecting on themself, I think I would always deflect my talent with jokes, so I just never ending up telling anyone. When I went to university I created a YouTube account and everything pretty much began from there.

It’s been a bit of a historically long mountain in terms of the journey, but I’m very grateful to be standing on it because I’ve been very tempted to fall off a couple of times.

What was the moment in your career when you realised you made it?

I’m very self-critical and a lot of people tell me I’m quite hard on myself, so I don’t even know whether I could say that that’s happened, but I know that the first time I performed ‘If You Let Me’ the reception alone made me believe that I could perform in places other than the UK. As we know the support for R’n’B artists within the UK can be quite weak at times, it’s improving slowly, so It's always a big moment for artists like myself to receive love from the US. I feel very blessed to make it out in a space where there’s such an appetite for R’n’B.

In America there’s a huge wave of R’n’B artists who are killing it and getting the support they deserve. I'm super grateful for how far I’ve come but I feel like there’s more room to get recognition in both places. Home means a lot to me because that's where I'm from, I wouldn’t be me without it.

When I released If You Just Let Me, that was the start of my solo career.

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Throughout your album ‘Boundaries’ you’ve spoken about healing your inner child, at this particular point in your life what made you want to start your healing process?

Well, the first year of writing this project I had writer's block, I know a lot of people say it's a myth, but personally, nothing is written unless I am going through something. Around this time I had yet again another extremely unhealthy relationship come and leave my life and on a whim I said to myself, despite thinking I didn't deserve it, let me see what this therapy and inner work stuff is all about.

So I emailed loads of different therapists and the one I liked the most, with the best energy got back to me, we went back to the early years and to the things you're taught as a child and how specific things dictate into your adulthood, from this experience, I suddenly had loads to write about, (I thought thank God, for a moment I thought I dried up).

For this project I wrote around 200 songs, I started to see these stories come together as I was learning from all of the things I had suppressed over the years, which finally pushed me to set some boundaries for the first time to heal, without that, you carry on being a yes girl, where you continue in the same cycle, I still have a long way to go, but that journey is what instigated this album.

My favourite track so far is ‘Shoulder’, what is the story behind it?

Aww that was a positive one and that’s rare for me to have a happy record because I’m a bit of a deep feeler and I feel like a lot of my music is written from my pain with that song I met the first healthy character (love wise) in my life and it was just about embarking on that and that bliss of getting to know each other in the early days and just having a shoulder to lean on.

What’s your favourite track off ‘Boundaries’ and why?

When it comes to choosing a favourite track, as a typical Libra I change my mind a lot, but today the track I am feeling the most is 'I Will' just because I played it to my fans recently and it touched them quite a lot to the point some of them were crying. It's another positive track of mine that shares the message to my listeners that no matter what life throws at you I’m always going to be here for you, there’s a line that goes ‘None of your scars will stay but I Will’.

In a world that makes us feel so separate from one another because we’re staring blankly into our phones, I want my fans to feel as if I’m always there with them through my music. I think everyone needs that and I’m learning that I need to be that for myself.

Music connects us all and shows that we are all the same.

This feels like your most personal project yet, to the point it feels like a debut album, have your real-life situations inspired ‘Boundaries’

I think before I had gone through therapy I never really knew who I was and I felt as if I did not deserve to heal, I saw it as I had a roof over my head, there was no reason to complain, but at this point in my life I'm a lot more self-aware.

My past relationships were quite bad to the point I would often put myself down, whereas this time round I have been like f*ck this, I’m not going to put up with this rubbish anymore, I’m not the problem, it's them! This time around there is a bit more accountability, which has been more empowering for me as a person and an artist.

Owning my trauma for the first time so I can let it go is what has driven this project, without real-life experiences I don’t have anything to say and I just wouldn’t have any music. to make. I’m just not the type of artist to pick a topic and start writing about it, it's not authentic, music for me needs to come from the heart. However, I do love genres like amapiano, soulful house and artists like Black Coffee. I'd love to make more music like that but if the chords don’t resonate with me, nothing will work.

You’ve collaborated with Disclosure, Shy FX, Wretch 32, Snakehips, Rudimental and the list goes on, who are the other artists you’d love to work with?

I love Jazmine Sullivan to pieces, she’s the queen of my world, all of the artists I want to work with are so individual and probably aren’t collaborators but what Solange did with ‘A Seat at The Table’ completely changed my life, obviously Frank Ocean, who wouldn’t want to work with him? I love James Blake, he’s such a nice guy and so talented.

Healing seems like a running theme throughout your music, to anyone reading this what advice would you give them during a healing process?

I’m no expert but I would just say take one day at a time and finding the comedy in anything helps, laughter is key too.

What advice would you give on setting boundaries?

No is a full sentence and I think one thing that has helped me in my life is journaling. When you write out the things you want, then you see it and you repeat it becomes a habit, so one thing I would tell people is, figure out what your boundaries are and then never go against them.

What’s next for Sinéad Harnett?

Next is touring this album because it’s not a pandemic baby, I would like to work on taking a break too, but I don’t know how to stop. I would also like to put some energy into sharing in another way, like using my music to help the world. It was World Earth Day recently and I don’t think enough people are talking about it, so something cool like a beach clean up, with this album being about healing your inner child, the idea of a workshop relating to that topic would be cool, especially with the fans.