Jaime Nanci: ‘I think gender fluidity is the natural evolution of humanity’ – The Irish Times

In the video for melancholy pop banger Escalante Street, singer-songwriter Jaime Nanci moves through the eerily empty streets of the Cabanyal Barrio in high heels, a white smock and a wide-brimmed black hat. As both a song and a film its a beautiful explosion of bitter-sweet joy amid the loneliness and terror of the pandemic. Its the first in a series of releases from Nanci, who music fans might know as the soulfully voiced singer with Irish bands Cuckoo Savante and Jaime Nanci and the Blueboys.

Nanci and his husband, Michael Barron, moved to Valencia three years ago, largely for the good of his health. Nanci was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 15 years ago. A year after moving, the pandemic started. We moved here because it was so vibrant and full of noise and music and street markets ... And then it was just gone overnight. And since then, weve been trying to find it again.

Nanci remembers exactly when he knew he could sing. It was on a road trip to Donegal when I was seven or eight, he says. We were singing along in the back of the car to whatever tape my dad had Hed be listening to Ry Cooder or JJ Cale but then hed be listening to Bette Midler, which I thought was amazing. I remember one day in the car we were singing along and my dad let a roar and just said Shut up! I remember saying, I thought I could sing, and he said You can but your sister cant.

He never stopped. He cycled through punk and grunge bands until discovering jazz when he was at college in Galway. I fell in love with a trumpet player and he encouraged me quite a lot. He always had eclectic tastes. When I was a kid I went into a shop and got Bananarama and the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks at the same time. I wanted to be a punk but I was a disco queen as well.

Although he loves the people he played music with, he never felt he fitted in well in the Irish music scene. I was always made feel I was on the outskirts, he says. I think thats just because Im queer and the time that was in it, but I internalised it to the point that I just never let myself become a part of a scene. I did have a fairly significant jazz musician in Ireland tell me that I could be successful, but I should try and be less gay. That was only three years ago. You can see it in the pop scene in Ireland: we never had a Prince or a Madonna. We had a wealth of talent in Ireland but the things that kept getting platformed were really homogenous. This piece of music, and especially the video, was like, Im fuckin Irish. And this is what Ive always been. And this is who I am. I think younger, visible queer artists internationally and at home have opened doors, artists like Lil NAS X or Anhoni who are really amazing, unusual, unashamed and unapologetic.

After years of touring and gigging, and a year doing a masters in jazz vocal performance, Nanci fell out of love with performing for a while (though he performs now with an ensemble called QTF). Id given up on music as something that gave me any joy. And then I started therapy and rediscovered a lot of things and answered a lot of questions about what I did and how I did it.

He had been ground down by a certain notion of commercial success. Now, my level of successes is: Im healthy, I have a roof over my head, I have food on my table, I have love and I get to go out and perform sometimes and its fucking killer.

He also contended with the repressive homophobia he grew up with. I absolutely, definitely, internalised shit from my youth growing up, things Id heard. As a queer man in Dundalk whos told by part of your life that youre exceptional and by another part of your life that youre a freak and disgusting and you shouldnt exist and should hide everything about yourself that takes its toll. He sighs. I fell in love with Michael when he told me what he did for a living.

In the early noughties, Barron founded BeLonG To, the ground-breaking organisation for LGBT young people. I might have cried that night when he told me that. The kids that have come through there, how theyre excelling, how good they are for the world in general. Its such a shame that people were not allowed shine unobstructed. I do think, that if I hadnt been told to suppress those things, Id be a lot more free. I think the gender fluidity thats emerging now and coming to the fore, its the natural evolution of humanity.

The video for Escalante Street celebrates Nancis sexuality but also his physicality. In it, he strides and runs through the empty streets and then he eats and drinks ravenously. Before he was diagnosed with MS, he had been having health issues for years: periods of blindness and pain issues that meant he had to walk with crutches. Ive had hospitalisations where I had to be treated with a steroid transfusion for a week maybe, and then a month or two of recovery ... Each time you have something it leaves scars and you become more disabled as time goes on. At the minute I just have problems with my eyes and my levels of energy.

Does singing and performing allow him to have a different relationship with his body than the one he grapples with as someone with MS? No matter how shitty I feel, as soon as I step on stage its almost like Im not there. I dont ever remember a concert, really. Its all so instinctive or instinctual. I have gone onstage with an eyepatch and a crutch and its the same. Then I might come offstage and collapse and go to bed for two days. Its very strange. Its an unconscious thing that I dont fully understand. I dont particularly want to understand it. Its magical.

He sings without realising it, he says. Barron sometimes taps him on the shoulder when theyre shopping to say: Youre singing.

Theres nothing else at all when Im singing, he says. I feel my body is doing exactly what its supposed to do at that moment. I said this in the past and I always feel cringey about it, but I consider it kind of like praying. To me its a song to the universe.

He wanted to work with Tim Howarth, his co-writer and producer, when he saw his Instagram handle was 7.83 hertz. Thats the vibration of the universe, and Ive always been quietly obsessed about that and what that means. I feel like the purest way I can give back to that vibration is by singing.

The video for Escalante Street was directed by Jean-Marc Sanchez, a neighbour, who approached Nanci and Barron out of the blue one day because he wanted to photograph their dog. They became friends. I sent him a song and he said, Id love to make a video. I didnt know he was a film-maker. He came out of retirement and organised the shoot. He got a little crew together. We did a guerrilla shoot. He used an iPhone and a drone. Michael was doing lighting. I did the costumes. It was very guerrilla and very low budget.

Those high heels look hard to run in. He laughs. Theyre awful cheap shoes. Theyre so uncomfortable. I got them at the market for The Rocky Horror Show three years ago I definitely have female energy, I think. Again, that goes back to internalising things as a child. To me, Im undeniably feminine. So I was embracing that.

Whats Escalante Street about? I think everybody, at some point over the last two years, has found themselves on Escalante Street, he says. You could change the lines to Take me dancing on Clonliffe Avenue. Its that moment you have, where youre standing on a street that was where you got all your stimuli and all your joy and daily energy and you took it for granted and then you find yourself standing in the middle of the street at midnight looking at the sky going, What the fuck is going on? And you have to try to make your own joy however you can, dancing with your lover or by yourself or with your dog in a park at night. Just try and feel something other than terror. Id love if for four minutes, 40 seconds, somebody didnt feel any of those shitty feelings that weve had. That was really the point of it.

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Jaime Nanci: 'I think gender fluidity is the natural evolution of humanity' - The Irish Times