Sonic ceremonies with Rona Mac
A Musical Lives conversation
Introduction
In late January, I met up with singer songwriter,
, over coffee at our local visitor centre in St Davids – Oriel y Parc – to begin a dialogue for this series, Musical Lives. As a reminder, Ziggy’s Lament is not just another music blog with reviews and band profiles. I set it up to track, map and otherwise engage with music in my life and that of my friends, as well as others in the wider musical communities. This publication reflects on how music is affected by relationships, passions and place; on how music emerges and helps us make sense of things - even sometimes to heal. Which is where this series – and Rona Mac – come in.Rona is the youngest daughter of three in a musical family. She’s been making great music of her own for some time now, has a big reputation in and around North Pembrokeshire (where I also live), and is now building her profile more widely. This on the back of her excellent new album, Honeymilk and Heavy Weather, released last year and which she toured through the Autumn of 2024. She produces her music ‘solo’ – working with guitar, samples and loop pedals. She is a talented musician and vocalist, and an increasingly accomplished songwriter.
I’d heard Rona’s music before, but at the 2024 Boia Festival - I got the chance to see her play her new album set – twice. It’s a wonderful record, and I was keen to talk to her about it, not least because I know that it’s an album that emerges from deep within her emotional life and relationships. In particular it deals with the loss of a close friend and the grief and confusion that resulted from this trauma.
Sipping coffee, we agreed that the usual kind of interview between artist and music journo was not going to happen, mainly because I’m not a journalist! Proof of that was that fifteen minutes in we’d been talking nineteen to the dozen without me taking any notes or recordings! Fortunately, in my other life – as editor of Unpsychology – I’ve found that a co-constructed, to-and-fro written dialogue can open up a different kind of conversation – one that is considered and reflective, and goes where other interviews might not be able to go.
So here we are, this is my dialogue with the bright and funny Rona Mac whose record, I forgot to mention until now, was my top album of 2024. And that in a year when Beth Gibbons released her first album in two decades to global acclaim (number 2 in my list!).1
As I write this introduction, I have no idea where this exchange will take us. However, I know that it will be intriguing and moving. I hope you’ll enjoy it, buy a copy of Rona’s album and get along to one of her shows in 2025 as she moves – as she puts it – into her ‘ALT FOLK ERA’. More on that below…
Our dialogue
Steve:
Hi Rona, it’s so good to be starting this conversation. There’s a lot that I’d like to cover and explore! Where to start? Well, when we were talking the other day at Oriel y Parc, we seemed to be heading right into context! That is, recognising all the layers in us that creativity emerges from: Family. Friendship. Culture. Sexuality – and so much more. In my other ‘job’ – as a psychotherapist – these things are always swirling around, and I’ve found that all kinds of art – music, poetry, visual work and so on – can say something about our lives that is difficult to articulate in other ways.
I guess I’d like to start with your contexts, and particularly where Honeymilk and Heavy Weather came from. As I said to you, the album felt particularly moving for me as a listener, and Darling, the song with all the sea sounds, reminded me of my Dad who died at the end of September last year, and who lived and worked on and near the sea all his life in different ways. That foghorn took me right back to South Shields, and the foggy, freezing North Sea.
That’s just me and my responses, but I know the album came out of the death of your friend, Emily – but probably lots of other things too. Could you say something about the contexts of how the album came to be, perhaps, and some of the waves and currents that have flowed around it?
Rona’s live performance of Darling at the Boia Festival, October 2024
Rona:
Hey Steve. Firstly, thank you so much for all your kind words about the album. It was lush to finally get round to meeting up for a coffee with you. I was so ready to do an interview with you, to then discover that we are doing it in written form. An introvert's dream!
So yes, the album. THE ALBUM. It’s been a complicated beast to shed, and as I said in our conversation – it’s nice to be having this conversation months after the release and tour, with the very beginnings of hindsight beginning to emerge.
The death of one of my best friends, Emily, was what sparked off the album. She’d been struggling for a very long time, and eventually succeeded in taking her own life in a river.
Emily and I would drive places. I’d go pick her up from her house in whatever state of need she was in, and we would drive out to the sea. We’d swap tunes on the way, and hold hands and sing and cry and stuff. I don’t really do that with anyone else, but something about the rawness of Emily and the weight and depth of her existence invited a beautiful state of creativity, and awe at the simple things. We’d sit and look at the sea and chat shit and let all the badness melt away for a while. Sometimes she was heavy, sometimes a babbling and bubbling brook of joy. She taught me to smoke. It’s a friendship I miss very much. It’s really hard to put into words the mess of feelings and events that encircled her death, which I suppose is why I put it into music. I will do my best.
It’s about a friendship group that was shattered by blow after blow of ungrievable griefs. It’s about the endless struggles of mental health all around and within me, and then relentless failings of society to help, and accepting that sometimes it just is what it is. It’s about a thousand moments of surrender - to love, to grief, to water, to opening your heart to pain because you need a certain depth of connection to feel alive. It’s about rivers leading to the sea, and the saving grace of waves washing the shore clean. It’s about other people’s stories, mothers and brothers. It’s about the healing power of kindness and simplistic love. About realising that we were all queer all along, and how lucky I am to have been surrounded by people that made me feel such belonging. It’s about places - Goodwick, Haverfordwest, Porthgain, my bed, the wide open ocean.
So much had happened so unceremoniously. And the long, ritualistic and often painful process of writing and recording this album was to somehow right that within myself. To have one fucking massive ceremony in sonic form for four years. It was such a medicine to work on it, and I don’t think I’d be all that ok if I hadn’t been able to process it all in that way. I feel so lucky that I have music in life to do that for me.
Steve:
I love that idea of a massive sonic ceremony – and finding the right creative medicine. Mine has been poetry, and sometimes poetic prose, but it’s also been dancing and running in the past. Rhythmic, private and – as you point out – introverted!
Your reply was truly amazing in its honesty, and I had a real sense of your place in all this. Not just the music, but the friendship and the discovery; but also what you and Emily gave to each other. No wonder the album is so deep and raw in places, I can only imagine the intensity of your conversations and, then, of loss for you all. Grief really does really rip things apart, and yet - and yet - there is something about love and friendship and the simple things that are always available to us…
I’m really interested in the queerness of your life, music and community too. I have a real sense that much of the best music comes from queer culture. I find myself drawn to queer artists whose courage takes them deep. Like you, I suppose! It sounds like the whole process of creating this album and remembering its source was a massive transition, not just for you, but for your friendship group too…
If you’re comfortable with it, I’d be interested in that aspect of your life and work to date. I know you’re also going in other directions – and I’ll pick up on these further down, because I also love your recent description of your work as “Alt-folk human music”... Such a neat way of summing it up!
Rona:
Queerness is an interesting one. Personally, I see it as something that others perceive in me, rather than something I am distinctly aware of (until I am in a super straight setting and then I feel like an alien, which surprisingly doesn’t happen very often). Growing up in Fishguard, West Wales, I thought I was straight. I had a long-term boyfriend and queerness wasn’t even in my vocabulary, let alone something to explore. But I surfed, skated, grew up hanging out with boys and doing weights and wearing boyish clothes. I had a big group of queer, neurodiverse friends and so none of us knew any of us were different because we were normal together, and everyone else was boring.
The fact that I have had non-male partners for the past 10 years is the only thing that has changed since ‘coming out’, and yet suddenly everything I do, everything I wear, everything I am is about me being queer. Friends look back at photos of me as a kid and say ‘god you were so clearly a lesbian’. And yes, I am and have always been queer. My friends are all queer, I look queer, I am queer. But that queerness is only perceived by straight people. To me, I am just me and you are straight. If I asked, how does your straightness influence your writing? I’m sure you would enjoy thinking about how it has influenced you, but it’s not something you’re usually asked.
But of course it has influenced my music, just as my parenting, friendships, surroundings and passions have. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how, but maybe that is for you to perceive :)
Steve:
I agree – I think it’s really hard to tease out what one aspect of our life experience or make-up affects or influences our creativity!
Your question back is a fair one, Rona, and you’re right I’m not often asked how being ‘straight’ affects my writing. Having said that, I would probably say that, yes, it influences my writing, but not in a ‘straight’ line sort of way! My sense of my ‘self’ and my own work over the years is that many factors are complex and interlinked. This means that, sometimes in my life, I haven’t always felt particularly ‘straight’, and I certainly haven’t felt ‘neurotypical’!
But these are cultural labels to an extent and maybe they apply both from the outside in and the inside out? When I was a kid, being gay or seeming gay was a very different thing to how it seems now, and nobody was talking about neurodiversity at all.
I guess my perception of your music was obviously going to be partly down to being aware that you identified yourself as a ‘queer’ artist. Having said that, my reaction to Honeymilk and Heavy Weather was much deeper and more complicated than that! Seeing you perform it, hearing the album and reading the sleeve notes all added up to a more visceral, emotional experience; one that took me back to my own growing up in a very different place and time.
I have this question – a thought experiment, perhaps – about ‘queerness’ and ‘neurodiversity’ too, drawn partly from my own life and relationships, and in part from my work counselling young people. It’s this:
What would it be like if schools and communities and cultures were set up on the basis that diversity was the norm, rather than the assumption that the norm somehow revolved around some kind of normy ‘centre’? I reckon everyone would benefit – queer and straight, neurodivergent and neurotypical – from a more inclusive framing, with more care and attention for the needs of individuals and groups with perceived ‘difference’.
I wonder, would it change the way that music – your music – emerges? Or does some of the best art emerge from edge-dwelling and sometimes even adversity… or at least the creative discomfort that people experience at these edges…? What do you think?
Rona:
That’s the powerful thing about music, isn’t it? No matter when it was written, who by, or whether your lived experiences match up or not—it has this way of cutting through all the literal stuff. It transgresses language, time, identity. I always feel like both writing and performing is this reaching beyond… beyond the boxed-in ways we’ve been taught to live, communicate, and define ourselves. It’s an attempt to connect at the raw, human level—at the root of simply being alive.
And that ties right into what you said about school systems teaching us there’s a “norm” and then an “other.” It’s those ‘Western’ boxes—so rigid and limiting. We’re deeply conditioned to live by them, and it’s heartbreaking. Especially seeing music and arts being stripped from education by the government. Because music is the place where those boxes fall away. It’s this beautiful, open space where young people can create, imagine, and exist beyond the narrow, rational framework we’re so often stuck in. It’s one of the few realms where I feel diversity is actually celebrated—the more unique your expression, the more exciting and vital it feels.
Sure, straight white artists have historically had the upper hand in the music world—but the potential for everyone to explore and express their own uniqueness through music is magic. Truly. It’s limitless. It’s sound, texture, colour, smell. It’s ancient.
And you know what—suffering does make good art, doesn’t it? Haha. Any time I’ve been heartbroken, there’s always this voice in the back of my mind going, “well, at least I’ll get some good songs out of this!” But those heavier kinds of suffering—the shame-filled, complex stuff that a lot of edge-dwellers carry—can be much harder to write into music. And maybe that’s exactly why it’s so important that we do.
And money plays such a huge role in all of it, doesn’t it? I’ve relied heavily on funding for every project I’ve done so far—and I’ve been lucky to be successful with a lot of applications. I seem to have a knack for them, which is a privilege in itself. But without that financial support, I genuinely wouldn’t be where I am with music.
When I was working on Honeymilk and Heavy Weather, I was completely weighed down—grief, family stuff, and my health. I was really unwell. At the start of 2023, I finally got a diagnosis after about 18 months of feeling horrendous—like, spending 3 or 4 days a week mostly in bed, barely able to cope with life. I managed to secure funding that gave me space to write the album, and honestly, if I’d had to squeeze that in around work shifts… there’s just no way I could have done it. I was far too ill.
That funding didn’t just give me time to write—it covered PR for the big releases, radio campaigns, mastering, music videos, photoshoots… everything. Without that support, none of it would’ve been possible. And that’s the reality for so many artists—without access to funding or financial backing, our work just doesn’t get made.
But yeah, in answer to your question—yes, I think adversity, in all its shapes and shades, plays a massive role in feeding creativity. For me, it’s always been the inner struggles that spark the most writing. I’ve tried writing a few upbeat songs here and there, but honestly? They were crap. Songwriting’s just how I process things – how I feel stuff and move through it.
It’s mad how much it teaches me, too. It’s like my subconscious comes out, lays it all on the table, and hands me bits of perspective I didn’t know I had. I don’t really believe in God, but it definitely feels like something beyond me. Some kind of channel. And loads of songwriters say the same, don’t they? That it doesn’t feel like it’s just coming from them. I feel incredibly lucky to have songwriting as that tool.
Steve
It feels like you’ve summed up the musician’s struggle, passion and joy there, all in a few short paragraphs! That idea of creativity ‘coming through’ is something I’ve heard from lots of artists of all kinds. I’ve experienced it myself in my writing. Sometimes I look at a line or a poem and think, “blimey, did I just write that?”. It’s a mysterious thing that says something about the amazing imaginative power of the mind!
Just a final response and question to finish this piece – though I will certainly come back for more, Rona, it’s been such a rich dialogue! I’ve just been listening to the album again this morning while typing this response, and that foghorn at the end of Darling gets me every time. It’s a recorded sound – a really ordinary one for those of us who grew up by the sea – but somehow the way you’ve used that and the other ‘field recordings’ on the album is really emotive.
As we’ve both alluded to, it feels almost intuitive, the way you compose your stuff. Not just the words and song parts, but the whole thing. It’s pretty special. Could you say a little about that, and maybe there might be something that pops into your head that you haven’t said yet, that you’d like to finish with?
Rona
The field recordings were an important part of creating the tapestry of sound and place, although I will admit that the fog horn was a sample bought online - there’s no way I could ever have timed that! I guess I really wanted it to feel like a journey through grief, through landscapes and people, and from the river where she took her life, to the sea where she belonged.
As for intuitive writing, it definitely is – haha! I have very little actual knowledge about how to do music, or anything to be honest. I just like to put my head elsewhere and get stuck in, get lost, find stuff. I guess it’s like painting - some people plan the painting with a specific outcome in mind, some people get everything out and just go with it.
This conversation has been equally rich for me, too, and actually brought lots of questions up within me about queerness that I hadn’t considered before. It’s a tense time in the queer community isn’t it? And it’s so important to talk about all the many ways of framing and understanding each other as humans
As for a parting comment. Ha, well, I’d say I’m looking forward to my next project feeling a lot less heavy! It’s strange going into my next album and feeling totally aimless in contrast to Honeymilk and Heavy Weather, but it is also extremely freeing. I have been working a lot lately (not music-related work) and it’s re-lit the desperation to create and somehow, someday make that my sole income.
I have a Patreon where I release a monthly demo as well as livestreams and other stuff. I’ve called it the ‘C-side Demo Club’ and we have 13 tracks on there so far, so if you wanna check out some of the stuff I’ve been working on and help me to self-fund, you know where to go :)
It’s been an absolute pleasure exploring it and re-living aspects of the writing with you Steve, and I look forward to reading more of your stuff! Fancy a de-brief coffee?
Steve
Definitely Rona – see you in St Davids sometime very soon… And more to come, hopefully in a future conversation…
The end (for now)…
Rona Mac’s contact places and Patroen
A note from Steve:
As Rona mentioned in her responses, being a working musician is definitely a hand-to-mouth existence – albeit one which gives little choice about whether to do it or not! Rona’s work has been supported by arts grants, but she also has a Patreon account and a home on Bandcamp where you can buy her stuff. You can buy a vinyl copy of her wonderful album at the equally wonderful Deadsea Records in St Davids. Get it HERE.
Here’s the places to find her:
Rona’s Website: including links to Bandcamp, information and biographies and tour information: https://www.ronamacmusic.com
Rona’s C-side Demo Club: - her home on Patreon: where you can support her work, get up to date info and demo tracks: https://www.patreon.com/c/RonaMac/home
Rona’s Bandcamp: where you can find all her released music in digital, cd and vinyl form (where available!). If you know Bandcamp, then you’ll know that a good chunk of cash goes to the artists, so its a good place to buy online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronamac_music/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ronamac
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonaMacMusic
Notes
Here’s my review of Rona’s excellent album, Honeymilk and Heavy Weather, which was my record of the year for 2024.
You can find the full top ten albums of the year list in my post from January 10th 2025 above.
Honeymilk and Heavy Weather by Rona Mac
My album of the year for 2024 is a beautiful record from a local artist to me, with a growing profile and, now, this gorgeous, heartbreaking set of songs. In some way, Rona Mac’s Honeymilk and Heavy Weather shares qualities with Beth Gibbons’ album. Listen to Oceans from Gibbons’ record, and then to a song like Rona’s Darling, and you might hear what I mean. There’s questions of grief and meaning in both, deeply and quietly addressed though, not shouted out from revelatory rooftops, and beautifully played and produced.
Back in the Autumn when I saw Rona play a couple of time at the Boia Festival, it was at the end of her UK tour to launch this album. Her gig in a packed Tabernacl felt like a coming home triumph (or relief!), and she was rapturously received. Soon after that she was in Belgium back playing more small room gigs and appearing on a radio session. It’s this commitment to her craft, and playing live over the past few years that has led, in my view, to her delivering an album of this quality. The songwriting is exceptional and mature; her live sets relaxed and accomplished.
The second set I saw her play at Boia, in the Grain pizza cafe in St David, she’d almost lost her voice, but the affectionate connection with her audience was clear, and she carried on playing, keeping up the humour, and impressing with the quality of her guitar playing and mastery of the sample and loop pedals that make her solo work so distinctive.
The record itself is dedicated to the memory of Rona’s friend, Emily, who died in 2020. It’s heartbreaking in places, but never loses sight of the love at the heart of it. Grief is faced head on, and Rona’s lyrics read like a grizzled wise old country singer at times, with a deep knowledge of what life and death can mean:
Oh life and death's a funny old thing We gamble like we know we're gunna win Even though the table's on the spin
There’s more to Rona and her music to explore and write about. Meanwhile, like me, she lives in a beautiful place. And beneath beauty there’s always something darker. That’s just life, and it takes a proper poet, and a brilliant musician, to capture this contradiction. Rona’s done it with this album. It is, I believe, a great record. It deserves to be massive…
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