Interview: Glen Hansard

OLOIZIA: That must be one of the most amazing things about having some success is getting to a place, especially as a musician and a songwriter, where you can sort of rub your hands together and realize that you have access to all these amazing musicians.

HANSARD: Well, that's exactly it. It's a classic thing of the, you know, the fisherman who catches the magic fish, and the magic fish says to him, "Let me go and I'll grant you whatever wish you want." And the fisherman says, "Well, I'd like you to fix the hole in my hut so the rain doesn't get on me, and I'd like my soup bowl to be filled." And the magic fish, of course, honors him the gift, and the fisherman goes home and his roof is fixed and his bowl is filled with the most fantastic soup, and then of course he goes off and he gets greedy and he decides he wants to have a fleet of boats and he wants to live in a proper house, and before you know it he wants to marry the king's daughter. And suddenly, the magic fish gets pissed off at him when he decides he wants to be king and sends him back to his hut with a hole in the roof and an empty bowl. And so, it's like, given access to the perfect scenario, you might just get it right and then you might just completely offend the magic fish, you know?

OLOIZIA: [laughs] Yeah.

HANSARD: So it's a toss-up. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you can give that perfect situation to a younger guy or girl songwriter, but they might miss the point. And for me, there's something about being 41 years old and finally finding myself in a situation where I was working with big, incredible musicians where I was truly able to appreciate it and actually make it work for me, rather than sort of go, "Oh, check me out, man." Know what I mean?

OLOIZIA: Absolutely. It always amazes me when young musicians come up through YouTube or whatever, and they end up playing with some of their musical idols within a year of being discovered.

HANSARD: That can give you great confidence, or it can kind of skew and pervert your perspective, and that's the only thing I'd worry about. Because youth is full of self-belief and full of desire, but success is stormy weather. No matter what way you look at it, success fucks with your foundations. And so, you might be blessed and you might be young and very grounded, but I kind of know from myself—was when I was 20, I was in a film called The Commitments, and it wasn't the biggest thing that ever happened, but it was pretty big. And I kind of rejected the experience because I wasn't grounded enough to deal with that at the time. So when success came to us when we won the Oscar, I was 37, and man, was I ready it for it. [laughs]

OLOIZIA: I take it you're someone who probably doesn't resent people who have quick success as much as you're just appreciative of the way it happened for you.

HANSARD: Oh, absolutely. I try to believe—maybe naively, maybe not, but I sort of believe it's there for us all. All you've gotta do is get right with your own path.

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