Causecast

Singer-songwriter Lucy Walsh has been a reality TV star, Ashlee Simpson backing vocalist, and is the daughter of The Eagle’s Joe Walsh. Causecast was first introduced to Lucy when she donated her song “Another Chance” to be given away for free in support of Invisible Children’s Rescue event.

Causecast music impresario Brandon Deroche sat Lucy Walsh down for a quick conversation on volunteering, Invisible Children, and why she is such a fan of music.

Full interview:

Causecast: Do you think that music can be used as a vehicle for social change?

Lucy Walsh: I feel that music is an essential vehicle for creating social change. If you think about it, the important times in your life you remember with music, whether it’s an album that changed your life, or a concert you were at, or a song you had with a lover. A song that was special. Those moments that concern music, I think are what shape our lives. Definitely has shaped my life. And I have seen people come together (laughs) who wouldn’t have, otherwise, in a musical setting – say, a concert. I grew up on tour with my dad, in the Eagles, and I’ve been in those crowds and watched it from the side of the stage. And you see people who are so opposite, just, totally united in this music. Everybody knows, it goes without saying, music is so powerful.

“It’s our responsibility to give that back wherever we can, and as soon as we can. That’s the pleasure of being a songwriter.”
- Lucy Walsh

CC: What particular causes are you passionate about?

Lucy: I definitely want to give back as much as I can regarding charity work and humanitarian type stuff. Invisible Children is a group that’s spreading awareness about these children soldiers in Uganda. I think that’s a really important thing. I’m really into work with children. Mentally handicapped. That’s something that’s important to me. I grew up in school being a ‘special friend.’

Father’s Day, I was at the homeless shelter downtown and we had a big meal for the people there. We did the same thing at Thanksgiving. The important thing is just helping in your community wherever you can. I’ll go set up at the meal, and I’ll just provide the entertainment. It is so incredible to see these people without homes who come to the shelter, and they just sit at the piano, just watching you and talking about music and what it’s meant to them and their lives. These are people that love music so much but they can’t ever get around an instrument. It’s very humbling to see. I watch this man in the park by my house all the time, and he lays on the grass and he’s got earphones in and he’s listening to his Walkman and he’s just playing on the ground, he’s playing piano, and he’s amazing, I can tell, I watch his fingers. And it’s just like, wow, I have the luxury of sitting at my piano everyday, but not everybody has that. I wish everybody in the world had an outlet for music, because it’s very important.

Recently I spoke at the new Grammy museum in downtown LA to like, over two-hundred eighth-grade kids – eighth-grade young adults, excuse me – about song writing. And it was a really important thing, I felt, to do, because when you are a young teenager, music is super important because you are really figuring out who you are, and you’re uncovering so much about being social and being a person in the world. I shared how I started writing and I played them the first song I ever wrote, and to see their reactions was really neat. Because you know that it might steer them on a path to music where they didn’t ever consider it before. That’s a powerful thing to be able to do for somebody’s life. And that is us older people – I’m only in my twenties, but it’s our responsibility to give that back wherever we can, and as soon as we can. That’s the pleasure of being a songwriter.

For more on Lucy Walsh, visit www.LucyWalsh.blogspot.com

Read more Causecast musician interviews at www.causecast.org/music.

Transcription by NICHOLAS CHUNG, Causecast Writer

Photo 1 from Lucy Walsh Myspace Page