Building My Little Caravan Studio

When we first arrived in Burgundy, it took months for my nervous system to understand that life no longer demanded the pace I’d lived at in Dublin. I didn’t have to rush out the door to a pub gig. I didn’t have to fight the constant noise of Temple Bar or drown out chaos with more sound.

For the first time in years, there was silence.

But silence can be uncomfortable when you’ve spent 27 years being loud for a living.
Even though we were staying at Nathalie’s parents’ house, surrounded by space and nature, I felt uneasy making noise. After so long playing in crowded pubs, the simple act of singing felt exposed, like I was interrupting the peace of the place, or worse, disturbing people who had welcomed me into their home.

So instead of stepping toward music, I stepped away from it.

And then came the caravan.

It was a tired-looking 1970s white box, drafty, a little sad, sitting there as if it needed saving as much as I did. We bought it for next to nothing. Nathalie’s father helped me tear it down panel by panel until nothing remained but a wooden skeleton and a sense of possibility.

We rebuilt it slowly. A new floor. Extra insulation to keep noise out and warmth in.
Wooden cladding on the walls to give it the feel of a tiny cabin.
Leftover laminate flooring from Nath’s dad.
Clean electrics, a small radiator for the winter, and light enough to make it feel like a space that held me instead of judging me.

When the caravan was finally ready, I stepped inside, closed the door, and for the first time in years, I could hear my heart singing again.

It wasn’t a studio you’d see on YouTube, nothing fancy or high-tech.
But it was mine.
A small room where I could experiment, fail, whisper, shout, try again.
A room where nobody expected anything from me.

That’s where the music returned.

Slowly at first: scraps of melodies, half-finished lines, the kind of ideas I would have ignored back in Dublin because I was too busy preparing for the next gig. But here, in this little wooden box in the garden, I let the songs arrive at their own pace.

Every track I’ve released since moving to France began in that caravan.
Some recordedusing the floor beneath my feet as a stomp box, some with rain tapping on the roof, some with birds outside joining in as if they were collaborators.

The caravan reminded me of something I didn’t realise I had lost: that music wasn’t supposed to be a job first. It was supposed to be a place to breathe.

And every time I sit in that tiny studio, guitar on my lap, I’m reminded of the quiet truth that changed everything for me:

I didn’t just rebuild a caravan.
I rebuilt the part of me that still believes in music.

 – J.P.