Off The Record: Enda Gallery wants to create 'beautiful things'

AT THE age of six, Enda Gallery used a Mickey Mouse tape recorder to write songs. The singer-songwriter and music producer will soon release another song, as well as a production in collaboration with Strange Boy.

 “I started to try and write songs, or I would redo songs I heard on the radio. I had this little Mickey Mouse recorder and I would tape stuff from the radio or make tapes on the cassette. My first memory is hearing the song Live Forever and I remember I just felt so many emotions listening to that song. I was like this is so wild that music can do this,” he recalls.

Enda, who made his music debut in Limerick was  in Berlin for a special performance - a place where he started busking on the streets.

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Speaking of why he left the Treaty City for one of Europe's cultural capitals, Enda says: “The music scene didn’t feel very nurturing, not very positive, but very cliquey. And I didn't really feel like it was the place for me to start putting my music out.
“I had a couple of friends who were doing music full time playing music on the streets in Berlin, I visited and I was like, yeah, this place is amazing. So I just moved to Berlin and started my career playing music on the street.”

Even though it was difficult, Enda made a living from busking. “I didn't get another job, I didn't work in a café. I just went from never playing any shows to making a living playing on the street. It was really hard, but I just went straight for it and succeeded.”

At first, he thought being able to do music full-time was his dream. After all, what the songwriter wants is to share positive messages across the globe.

 That’s where the idea from his latest single, Take My Hand, originated from.

“With Take My Hand, I realised there weren’t really that many songs just about friendship. Like you turn on the radio, you'll basically hear nine songs out of 10 that are about teenage romantic love in a really simplistic way, which is obviously a really amazing thing to feel, but it's such a small aspect of the vastness of life,” he explains.

According to Enda, it seems like we’re stuck on a loop and feel the need to repeat the same message again and again.
He notes: “I've so rarely heard wholesome songs about friendship, a song where you can tell your friend you love them. And I wanted to put out a song like that. I’m really just about putting messages that I feel are good into the world. Whenever I sit down and do something intentionally, what I'm mainly trying to do is express something that I feel would be good to have in the world.”

The musician would describe his music as loving, kind and playful. “I’m either just trying to create beautiful things or enable other people to create beautiful things or evolve,” he says.

Not only a singer and a producer, Enda also plays the guitar, the piano and the flute - which he actually played on a song for Strange Boy.

Any other instruments? He could see himself playing drums or the cello.

“I've got so many things that I want to learn. I love learning and I love loads of things in this world. The one thing I love the most is basketball at the moment, basketball,” he confides.

Something that might surprise people about the producer is that he hasn’t “really been trying to make it in music”.
“Maybe I was at a certain point, but now my motivation is pretty much exclusively to do with making a positive impact and just creating beautiful things for myself,” he admits.

“And ironically, that's made me just way more free to be kind of messy because I love making loads of different styles of music. I'm more interested in connecting with what's deep inside of me and like expressing it.”

Perhaps songwriting teaches you a thing or two about yourself.

“I really think like writing is a great way of evolving yourself and cleansing your soul and also saying maybe the things that you think are some of the deepest parts of you,” Enda points out.

At the moment, he is putting the finishing touches to his next song.

“I've got my next song ready. I've actually already shot the music video. I'm just like getting the final bits of the mix ready and then I'll be mastering,” he says.

One he will release late September - but that won't be his only release. Over the years, the producer has worked with the likes of Strange Boy and Wilzee.

 “I also have a collaboration with Strange Boy,” Enda shares. “So I've produced this new one and I sing  the hook on it. But it's a new Strange Boy rap, so both of those songs are gonna be coming in September and both of them, I think, are absolute banger. So I'm really excited about those two things coming out.”

From Limerick to Germany to India, Enda has seen many gigs.

Which one was the most memorable? He takes us back to the band who wanted to live forever.

“I saw one of the last gigs that Oasis ever played. I think it was like one of their last five or 10 gigs. I saw them in Belgium. It was awesome, it was one of those ones where I definitely needed to be in the pit,” he remembers.

Speaking of their performance, he adds: “They were pretty much in peak form. It was one of the last times they ever played together, so it was extra special for that reason.”