One of Nina's earliest memories of music was at three years of age listening to Gary Numan's "It's cold outside " over and over and over again with her teenage cousin. The house was full of all kinds of music , Nina being the youngest of ten children. The family business was a Dublin pub called "O'Donoghues" run by her publican father Dessie Hynes. The bar was famous for Traditional music and the sessions of "The Dubliners".
Her childhood was spent hanging upside down from trees, rollerskating, handstanding and cartwheeling. When not in these positions, collecting glasses in the pub, or being a flower or an alien in the local play, she was to be found at the piano working out songs or singing ballads while her mother Celine played tin whistle.
Her sister Gerry went to America forever but sent back some cotton to grow and a red tape recorder that looked like a space ship. This was her prize possession and a key moment in her life.
Her auntie Veronica worked in the hospital and used to bring her the tapes that were used for recording the heart machines. On these tapes were the beginning of her obsession with music and sound. When she wasn't listening to the bleeps for hours or recording the plays that her mother used to write and stage in the kitchen with all the siblings, she was recording herself singing along to the many records.
These included The Doors, Simon and Garfunkle, Gilbert O' Sullivan, Madonna, David Bowie, Prince, Cyndi Lauper,The Beatles , Purple Rain, Led Zepplin, Edith Piaf, How to strip for your husband and The Muppet Movie and Doctor Zhivago soundtracks among others.
She wrote her first proper song at 8 years old on the piano about a man who used to like to dress up as a woman. It was called " Big woman".
Her teenage years were mostly spent taking photographs, theatre, , singing and dancing along to records, learning about sex and alcohol, rehearsing in Dublin's Apple studios twice a week with a band she joined after answering an ad in Hotpress magazine.
She finished school and dropped out of Trinity college to go travelling in France for six months . Here she developed a taste for busking but was sick of relying on other musicians to accompany her voice. Pianos are hard to carry around. She bought a guitar and moved to a remote part of Donegal in the north west of Ireland for a year where she focused on writing songs.
On moving back to Dublin, she began her busking stint on Grafton St. This led to her first degree in music which was taken at The International bar sonwriting night run by Dave Murphy. Here she met many contemporary musicians including Glen Hansard, Mundy, Paddy Casey,Brian Brannigan from Lazarus Soul, Katell Keinig and Jesse and Layla..and so many others. This was like a local university/workshop/support system for songwriters.
From there , she was offered support slots with bands such as Juniper(consisting of Damien Rice, and Bell X 1 members) and The Frames. From very early on, she wanted to have a band and had clear feeling for a strong atmosphere. The first oppurtunity came when the writer Collete Colfer asked her to play at one of The Dublin Event Guide nights in Whelans. For this , Nina enrolled extremely innovative and talented guitarist Joe Chester, the brilliant cello player from Interference , Kevin Murphy, the bass player from Kila Brian Hogan , the violin player from The Frames, Colm Mac an Iomaire and a vibey drummer called Eoghan Behan. There was no going back from here. The obsession had taken hold.
Things developed, she continued to do solo support slots around Dublin and to go to The International. Hector Zazou came to one of these. Introduced to Nina's music by Irish singer Barbara Gogan. (singer/writer of the hit single "German Film Star" in a band called "The Passions").Zazou invited Nina to write two songs on an album he was producing by German Cellist "Wolfram Huschke"on BMG records. This led to a tour around Europe with Zazou, Harold Budd, Christian Le Chevretel, and Alexis and to many unreleased recordings/co/writes with Zazou. Three of these co/write songs were released in 2003 on an album called "Strong Currents". On the album, Nina performs "Under my wing" and Jane Birkin (je t'aime) covers one of the songs called "Beauty".
On returning to Dublin, it was time to really get a band together and this happenend very naturally with Joe Chester on guitar, Dave Hingerty on drums (who would later join The Frames and now plays with Josh Ritter among others)and Shane Fitzsimons (who now plays with Damien rice) on bass. They released a mini album in 1999 called "Creation" and toured the east coast of America. When Dave joined The Frames, he was replaced by Robin Ball, then Joe left for NYC for good, the band split.
Nina met a french spacer called Nicolas Liebing who played keyboards and a new band was born. Wayne Sheehy joined on drums, and Ger Kiely came in on guitar.This lasted a while. Shane stayed through it all . Joe came back, Finn O'Leary came in on drums. They toured The east coast of America with an Irish band called Ten Speed Racer in a little van playing to almost nobody...12 boys and 1 girl in a van for long hours was not amazing. The band split on return to Dublin.. .
Nico fell in love and moved to Iceland, Joe joined Ten Speed Racer, Shane joined Damien Rice's band , Nina decided to develop her guitar playing skills so she wouldn't have to rely on others so much.
At the same time ,she joined another band that she absolutely loved called Reno V ,later called KDEK.They played a good few gigs in Dublin and a couple in London. In this band , she met the inventive keyboard player Ivan Birthistle who is currently in The Husbands. During this time(2000/2001), she also did three solo tours in The USA east and west. they were successful due to college radio play, namely two very influential djs called John richards in KEXP Seattle and Nic Harcourt in KCRW LA. Nic was the first dj in America to play and champion Nina's music.
A lot of living and soul searching since "Creation",the critically acclaimed "Staros " was born in 2002. Recorded and co-produced with Dave Odlum in Black Box France. It was the end and beginning of an era for Nina. It was the soundtrack to her life . Many of her friends , including all of The Frames, were a part of the project. Electronica/modern composers Jimmy Behan and Dave Donohue remixed the song "Monoprix" for the single. Due to lack of finance , there was no tour support so the album entered the world (Ireland)with a gentle awakening rather than an explosive bolt.
She is on quite a few compilations.
She loves little and big sounds, films and all kinds of music.
In the last year Nina has played in Mexico, Czech Republic and Austria as well as around Ireland. She is currently not with any record label.She has two albums ready to record. One is spacey and nocturnal with a lot of piano songs and the other has loud guitars and punchy songs. As of now they, will both be called 20. Together , they will be 20:20. They will not be released at the same time. Her band is called "The Husbands".
