Apella have released their much-anticipated debut album ‘1963’. I had a chat with frontman Dara Quilty to discuss the details of creating the album, his love of producing and crafting songs as well as the lengths he went to in order to create the right atmosphere within one of the songs.
‘1963’ is an album Quilty has been working on for quite some time. The album kicks off with Apella’s debut track ‘We Met At A Party’ which was released in 2016 and ends with ‘Point Of View’ last year’s release (with singles ‘Graceful Dancer’ 2016, logic 2017, City Limits 2018 in between). It’s a passionate album depicting Quilty’s journey since Apella’s debut. During this time Quilty’s love for production blossomed allowing him to experiment, hone his craft, and become comfortable with his style in order to create the compelling and dynamic collection of tracks within ‘1963’
“It feels wonderful to have it out there. Obviously, the circumstances in which it has been released are different. Usually, you would release the album, with a good PR campaign, a tour straight off the back of the album with a radio station tour and a press tour, and none of that happened. I’ve been in studios, pretty much my entire, well not my entire life but I started recording professionally, probably with my first band Fox Avenue. I would have been maybe 20 years old. Even at that time I remember when we were in the studio I was glued to Joe Egan, he’s the engineer who I’ve continued to work with all the way up and through Apella. He owns The Nutshed in Clara County Offaly. Joe and I have become really close friends and he’s sort of been my mentor in the studio in many ways because his musical ear is just astonishing so when we were doing Fox Avenue I was glued to Joe’s shoulder, I never left the control room. I wasn’t the lead singer of Fox Avenue, so [ with Apella ] I knew I needed to be the lead singer, purely not to have to rely on another person, if that makes sense. So I did vocal coaching for four years. Sinéad Flynn is my vocal coach and she is astonishing. Actually doing vocal coaching is like therapy. Sinéad Flynn encouraged me to do these exams and now I have a distinction in musical theater and performance from the University of West London. I’m not a musical theater person. I didn’t grow up in musical theater, I have no background in it. But I was learning all these songs, and she helped me to sing and get better at singing because some people are naturally gifted singers like Gavin James. I’ve recorded Gavin James several times in radio stations. He is a beautiful singer. I’m not that.”
“The reason I went with Sinead’s plan to do these musical theater exams…. because…it was so far outside of my comfort zone. The exams are, you in a room with a man who is 110 years old wearing a jet black suit. He is pale as the sheet of paper in front of him on his table and he sits there at this desk with all these sheets, you’ve paid piano accompaniment 50 euro so he plays for you for the day. Then you have to perform, whatever six or eight pieces. There is nothing more uncomfortable in the world than being alone in this room. You’ve got to act out the scene of each piece and you’ve got to introduce the song, discuss the composer and discuss the meaning of the song, the characters, all this kind of stuff and he’s just looking at you. He doesn’t have any expression. Then after you’re finished describing, he goes. ‘Thank you’ and then the piano guy starts playing. One song I did was, “Oh, Why am I Moody and Sad?” from Ruddigore, which was Gilbert and Sullivan from like 1890 something. The point is, it’s so far out of my comfort zone….people have fears about public speaking, people have fears of flying. When I was younger, my biggest fear was singing publicly. I think the most vulnerable a person could be is to sing in front of people. I don’t know why. I just think it’s such a vulnerable thing and I was never a great singer, so I worked hard on my vocals.”
“Over the course of this record I could have used autotune and just sound like Kanye West, but I was doing the voice training and I was learning how to produce properly and use ProTools and the more I learned the more everything made sense. Ronan Nolan my drummer is perfect. He is the best at his instrument, and I have realized the importance of that now with my knowledge of production, ProTools, and creating a song, whereas when I was 21, I had no idea. When you go to record a song there’s an assigned tempo. Then there’s the loudest beeping noise out of the speaker and you have to play perfectly in time. You think you’re doing a good job and then the engineer says ‘no timing, go back to the start again’ and you’re like what!. I didn’t realize until I learned how to do it where you can literally see on the screen, Oh god that’s way out of time. So, I guess it was, probably a four-year journey. ‘We Met at a Party’ came out in 2016. The album was done by 2018, for sure, then it sat on my phone for two years and did nothing because I had this fear because I put all my own money into it, I paid for everything, independently. I won’t disclose the amount of money that I paid, but I could have put a deposit on a house…”
“I’ve had the great generosity of the Irish artists and community like Andrew Holohan, who has directed ‘We Met at a Party’, ‘City Limits’ and ‘Point of View’, even though we did it on a collaborative basis, but even still, you gotta rent cameras, lights, spaces… it was just so much time and investment. When it was finished, ‘We Met at a Party’ came out and that did well ‘Graceful Dancer’ came out that did better on radio. Then I was like, if I release this album, and I don’t become Brandon Flowers of The Killers overnight, I’ve failed, which is absolutely delusional. I think it’s just because I knew how much work I put into it but I didn’t do anything with it. We released another single, we did all the festivals, we toured Ireland, the UK, and all this stuff.”
“Obviously, now I’ve come forward. I had all this personal stuff going on in the background of my life. My perspective has just changed. I was in New York and my friend Aidan Cunningham runs a studio at there called Empire Underground and we reopened the album, and basically remastered the entire thing. Everything just sounded better and I made a decision… to put this out. All I want is this to exist. What is the point, If it doesn’t exist. There was a comedian I spoke to Mark Normand, he was a guest on my podcast and he said hey life is a catalog just keep adding to the catalog. Make a big interesting catalog and then die at the end. I thought God, he’s right, so I just wanted the album to exist. We completed the post-production in Brooklyn, and then I decided, with things going on with my mom, that maybe I can use this to help, or I don’t know maybe there’s something I can do or give it a meaning, or something like that. “
The album is named after the birth year of Quilty’s mother, who lives with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer. Apella have decided to give 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the album to The Marie Keating Foundation specifically to help fund the outstanding support services they provide to women affected by Breast Cancer. It’s a really moving gesture as Quilty funded the making and recording of the album himself
“It’s the money of the sales and it’s important to be very specific with this because Spotify pay 0.00437 cents per stream. So I think you need to listen to ‘Point of View’ 250 times for me to make $1.00. I wouldn’t have got CDs or vinyls made if I didn’t partner with the Marie Keating foundation.”
“It’s my art. I was doing the album before my mom got diagnosed with cancer. This is all happening anyway. So, the reason that I’ve decided to go for 100% of the sales is because there would be no sales if it wasn’t for the Marie Keating foundation so it’s only right to do it this way. And it’s also, you know, it’s not a cancer album.”
‘1963’ is an exhilarating pop-punk album filled with wonderful indie nuggets and electronic blends especially in tracks such as ‘Buried You’. Quilty has a knack for creating catchy hook-filled melodies that ooze pop sensibilities and easy on the ear charm while packing in oodles of emotion. With Ronan Nolan laying down the deft drumming foundation notably in ‘New Things Get Old’ the album is jam-packed with rich vibrant tunes. This album is by no means a soppy, sad collection of tracks; instead, it is a refined display of instrumental prowess and meticulous musicianship.
“Yeah, it’s not written about sadness. All I wanted was it to exist in the world, and I guess if you can do something with it, why not and if this flops on its ass that’s okay. I’m comfortable with that now. Whereas three years ago, I would have had so much anxiety. But if this flops on its ass then it flops on its ass because nobody can take it off Spotify and Apple Music nobody can take the body of work away from me because it exists. But on Friday when it came, just seeing Apella ‘1963’ on Spotify and Apple Music I was so excited. When it was published to Apple Music and you could see it but all the songs are grayed out and it said coming January 29th, I thought that was the coolest thing. I get excited by the nerdiest stuff. I mean I posted today, a behind the scenes video, like the recording of ‘New Things Get Old’ and it’s just Ronan and I in the studio. I love the creation of a song. My entire childhood, even now, I just love watching the creation of music when you produce a mix or you know how production works, you don’t listen to music the same way as a person who doesn’t. Much like a classically trained musician experiences music differently to someone like me who would be a contemporary musician…which is fascinating. So I put up this video because, technically you go into the studio, a Pro Tools session starts empty. Silence, and then layer by layer you fill that silence with instruments and you can do whatever you want. There are no rules, yes there are rules in music but technically you can do whatever you want.”
“For Apella, I started with music. There are some new songs that I’ve written. I’ve started with an idea or a concept, or an emotion and I’ve taken that to the instrument. So I’m going to the instrument with the emotion. I’ve never done that before. It’s a new way of writing like let’s say you’ve been through a breakup. I know it’s the cliche hit song. But you go to the song with the idea of the broken heart. This is what I’m writing about and that will have a different result. But with Apella, I would compose everything. There are co-writes and stuff on the album not that many two or three songs I co-wrote with other people. But yeah I would do it all in my home studio, there’d be MIDI drums on there and I’d record all the vocals and guitars and come to the studio with a session. Then, Joe Egan, who co-produced this record with me, his musical ear is unbelievable and because it was mostly Joe and I in the studio and Ronan there was never any arguments, tension or ego. It was like, if you can imagine a whiteboard and everybody’s trying to solve a puzzle and it’s whatever’s best for the whiteboard. Doesn’t matter who said it or who came up with it but if it’s the best thing for the board. It goes on the board. That’s what we applied to this record. I might have a part in and Joe would say, that’s not right, I think you can do something better. That happened for ‘Little Bit Less’, track 11. The middle section of that song was totally different then Joe said, This just isn’t right. I think you have something better, and he sent me home for the weekend. He gave me a U87, and I went home and rewrote the middle section and recorded the vocals, with the U87 in my closet. I came back to him with that idea… Actually, we never ended up re-recording. The whole middle section of ‘Little Bit Less’ wasn’t done in the studio… the vocals and everything were recorded in my bedroom.”
“There are ideas or something I didn’t like on a track like an idea Joe would come up with and I was like I don’t know if I like that. We’d all listen and Ronan would say I think, that adds a lot to the song and whatever was best for the song went on the song. Ronan is the most positive person to be around. He’s so funny and he lights up every room he goes into. There were days where Joe and I were doing vocal mixes or recording guitars, but you know they can be 12 hour days, some days, we would literally call Ronan, because he gets all his drums done in one take and a second take for alternative parts, he’s so good. But he would come down and just be funny and kick chairs over and tell us we’re pricks. Ronan actually sings an awful lot on this record. All the high stuff, all the falsetto. There’s a song ‘Deja You’ and if you really listen closely in the chorus, you’ll hear Ronan, way up in the octaves or the intro of ‘New Things Get Old’. All the high stuff is Ronan he’s a great singer. He’s an angel. He’s a choirboy, but then he provides a contrast because I do all the other harmony so it’s good to have contrast and vocal because the texture is different. My voice layered five times, it’s gonna have a similar texture, no matter how you treat it so Ronan singing adds something different.”
There’s a lot of heartfelt emotion within ‘1963’. ‘Graceful Dancer’,’Buried You’, and ‘Point Of View’ exude heart-stopping melodies and meaningful lyrics. However, for me, it’s ‘Shadows Of My Personality’ that is the standout tune. This snappy glistening 80’s-hued track shimmers like a radiant glitter ball with sparkling electronics and zesty guitar flirtations providing an uplifting bounce through jazz-esque keys and hearty production. Quilty discussed with me the influences behind these songs and the interpretation of lyrics.
“They are personal songs for me and everything is authentic. The thing about music and I’m not the first person to say this, but lyrics are open to interpretation and you find solace in them. I’m sure you have your go-to songs for when you have a sad day or when you’re going out or before a date because that song means something to you and you sort of applied the lyrics to your life.‘Shadows of My Personality’ was a big one for me. I didn’t realize I was writing that song about anxiety, until after it was finished. That song was actually called 80‘s song. That was the name of the session. Each song on the record I hadn’t had an idea of how I wanted to approach it from a production point of view. ‘Point of View’ and ‘Graceful Dancer’ are clearly balanced. There is room in the songs, the songs can breathe. ‘We Met at a Party’ and ‘New Things Get Old’, they are clearly, punk sounding, from my influences from Blink-182, Green Day, and ‘Deja You’ is indie ‘Buried You’ was quite The Killers, so there’s a lot of influence on the record and for ‘Shadows of My Personality’, I was like I want to write an 80’s song. I love The Cure and The Police so it’s literally a juxtaposition of those two artists. My favorite bit of the whole record at the moment is the pre-chorus of ‘Shadows of My Personality’ because of the guitar riff because it sounds so Andy Summers and I really liked it. I was writing about anxiety, and that was when we decided to put the breathing in. That song opens with breaths, that are to represent the panic and the panic attack. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to breathe in time to a metronome. It’s a lot harder than you think it is. It’s very strange but that was fun to do. You can hear it in the track now and that’s kind of an acknowledgment to ‘Close To Me’ by The Cure, because Robert Smith does a similar thing in ‘Close To Me’. I think it’s nice to pay homage to your musical influences, and it just made sense with the song. So no I’m not afraid. I think it’s important that the songs are real. If somebody interprets, a song completely incorrectly that’s their interpretation of it and that’s okay. “
After touring all over the country – opening for Twenty One Pilots, appearing at all major Irish music festivals including Electric Picnic, Indiependence, Castlepalooza and Sea Sessions, accompanied by UK tours with Keywest and Don Broco, Quilty moved to New York City to work further on his career.
“I needed to get out of my comfort zone. You know, 13 years on air, very grateful, loved my whole career, Ireland, I love this country. It’s small, and the fact that it’s small, it’s amazing. You can get to know so many people you can gain experience. I have pretty much done every stage from the Three Arena to the Olympia, to the Academy to upstairs in Whelan’s, to the big outdoor stage at Oxygen. But I was always the guy from the radio. People always start out saying you’re on the radio, must be easy for you to get your songs on the radio. It’s actually the complete opposite, because I was on the radio people go we’re not playing him he’s on another station. Then personally I wanted to expand and actually see was I good. I’ve had success in radio sure I got awards but that’s in Ireland am I actually good. So, let’s go to New York where there’s 8.5 million people. New York’s unfortunately been hit so hard by COVID that every venue is closed and everything has stopped but I was lucky that I had a studio that I built that I was able to work out of and Aiden Cunningham, and his studio in Brooklyn, that we were able to continue our work together over there, which is great. It took a lot of consideration. There was obviously a huge amount of work for the visa and everything, but it was right.”
With ‘1963’ released Quilty tells me he has other exciting projects in the pipeline this year.
“ I’m back in Ireland for a while, we’ll head back to New York soon. I’ve still got so much to do over there. I have a new show with MTV, that’s out now called Stan vs. Stan, which is pretty cool. They’ve made it the header of the MTV YouTube channel over in the US, and that was all done in the pandemic. Eight episodes of that show and thanks to my ProTools and production knowledge, I was able to do the voiceover, do the comedy and stuff and provide them with broadcast standard audio from my studio. I’m pretty proud of that. Stan vs. Stan you can watch right now on youtube.com/MTV. It’s their main push at the moment which is just pretty cool. They all exist together – music, radio and production it’s all in the one sphere.”
Apella have created a sublime, engaging and energetic album filled with fantastic anthemic pop punk bangers.The effort and love Quilty has for music oozes from each song and his crisp production, passionate songwriting and melody wizardry makes ‘1963’ a satisfying listening experience.
100% of the proceeds from this album bought on apellamusic.com will go directly to The Marie Keating Foundation’s Positive Living support group.
Check out the Apella behind the scenes video for ‘New Things Get Old’ here https://twitter.com/i/status/1356197080704950274
Author : Danu
