I caught up with Dublin singer-songwriter Isaac Butler to chat about his recently released new single ‘Paranoid’ and how he’s keeping busy during lockdown.
‘Paranoid’ is a great track filled with summer vibes, rich instrumentation and Butler’s sweet musicianship however the lyrics have a melancholic tone that candidly details the breakdown of a romantic relationship. Hindsight gave Butler an easier perspective on the tracks theme providing him with the ability to take an upbeat stance musically on the topic
“It wasn’t a difficult song to write, no. I think it’s because it is brutally honest. I wrote it in like half an hour. I wrote it on an acoustic guitar.It’s a really simple song structurally.It’s brutally honest so I mean I wasn’t really looking for places to take the lyrics from and Its probably the most personal song I’ve released so far. Definitely the most honest. I wrote it about something that was so far back in my past so I wasn’t still personally affected by it. It was a nice song to write because it was so autobiographical.
I’ve listened to so many interviews of great songwriters and artists that I love. Brandon Flowers of The Killers is one of them and he says that something happens to him and then he has to take time to almost process it. Like say something happens the day before and you write a song, maybe sometimes that happens for some people but it doesn’t for me. An event might happen in my life or to a friend or to me and I would come back to that like six months later and that’s when the song seems to come because you write it from a place of hindsight. It’s not like you’re really happy about something that happened yesterday or you’re really sad and you write a super happy song or a super sad song, you have that time to reflect and get every angle into it. It’s funny because you listen to the song first and you think ‘oh ! It’s a happy summer song‘ but if you put it under the microscope and listen to the words and take away the production and stuff it’s actually really cynical which I love about it.
My favourite songs are the songs that are angry or sad songs that sound happy. You know the Shawn Mendes song ‘My Blood’, it’s super upbeat and even production wise there’s big guitar parts and it’s quite rocky with a festival feel but it’s a song about anxiety you know, it’s a dark song and it sounds great. The 1975 are so good at it.A lot of their songs sound really happy but their lyrics are actually almost shocking at times which I think is really interesting.That’s kind of what I try to do.I think it went well.”
‘Paranoid’ has an insanely catchy, electronic vocal hook that just sticks in your head all day. Butler told me how he came up with the hook and the process of making the features the track pivots around
“The day I wrote the song I demoed it up with Robert Grace, he produced the song.He also helped me write it. From the get go we had that hook, the do do do do and that’s actually just me talking into a mic and he kinda messed with it on the computer and we built the entire song around that. I like to call it catchy but I think it’s getting quite annoying for people.I think it’s one of these songs that doesn’t leave your head so people are loving it at the moment but I’m gonna fear for my email and my messages in like 10 months when people are sick of it and want me to shut up.Its funny but I love it. The electronic production was definitely a decision we made early on “
This isn’t Butler’s first time writing a vocal hook or melody that sticks firmly in your head. His knack with earworm melodies feature in nearly all his releases in some shape or form and he clearly has a talent for writing tracks that appeal to his listeners considering his previous releases ‘Moon Song’, ‘Rescue Me’ and ‘Young Forever’ have together racked up over 1 million streams on Spotify so far.
“ I really love having a hook. As of late I tend to write songs around a melodic hook or a chant. When we spoke last, when I released ‘Young Forever’ we talked about the ‘oh oh oh’ and I started with that for that song and I have another song coming out called We Were Alone and I wrote it around a line that said and ‘we were alone oh oh oh oh’, you know I love writing around a chant. For me the whole thing about doing this is doing it for the live show. Which is a bit bleak because there are no live shows now but I love creating that atmosphere in a room or at a festival or wherever, so people can hear something and by the time the second chorus comes around they know it.For me going to gigs, that’s what I love. Just being able to sing along. I don’t always do it and I don’t feel like I have to put in something like that but if I can I do like to do it.”
Even with the covid-19 lockdown Butler has still managed to record a music video for ‘Paranoid’. It hasn’t been easy for artists trying to create content and learning new IT skills while dealing with cancelled shows and festivals this summer. Butler’s headline show at The Sound House is now rescheduled to 9th October 2020, with all original tickets valid for the new date. It’s a difficult time to navigate through but Butler has taken it in his stride.
“ Well normally I would have my good friend Peter Barnes who has done every video so far, but I can’t meet him now unfortunately. So I shot it yesterday in my room. I won’t give too much away but it’s me in my room and there’s gonna be three of me in the video. It’s like three little Isaac’s interactions with each other. It could be dangerous but no it’s good. It’s fun and I shot it on my iphone and I did it myself with help from my family.It’s funny the Covid thing has forced me to learn how to do some of the stuff on my own. I would have alway gone to Peter, let’s say and he’s still editing the video for me but I shot it myself. Even all the graphics for ‘Paranoid’ and the promo graphics for before the song came out I did myself and that was just because I was forced to learn how to do it, which is great!
I felt kind of terrible about things at the start of this because I had to postpone a headline show and had all my festivals cancelled, I had a Kodaline support slot lined up for June for one of their Olympia shows. It would have been amazing, it would have been my first time in the Olympia in front of a sold out crowd. You know it’s a similar kind of music, I think the crowd would have enjoyed it, I would have loved it obviously. So that was a bit of a kick in the teeth but listen everyones in the same boat and I’m in no way complaining but it was definitely a bit of a blow because I’ve spent the last two years building and then when things finally started to happen I’m swept under my feet a bit and that was tough to take but I’ve been productive in other areas. The live shows are gone but I’ve been writing loads, creating content and figuring things out. I’ve got a new logo made , I did my first brand collaboration with River Island and that was really cool. I did some live streams with you guys. I did one with Hot Press. I’m keeping busy you know but I’m buzzing to get back out playing live. I’m excited because all of these new songs I just want to test them out.”
So here we all are in a crazy lockdown pandemic and Butler is whacking out wonderful live and acoustic versions of his tracks on his social media with a sublime Ukulele version of Paranoid most recently. He is becoming quite the tech savvy pro at it at this stage. His content is to a very high standard with wonderful background settings.
“Oh I’m not tech savvy at all. I should be but really I’m not. I’m living at home and I’m the eldest of five so I have two sisters and two brothers and I’ve got my mum and dad here so they are all keen to help.It gets them off the couch.We’ve got a little stone sort out-house thing at the back and it’s really lovely for the live streams. It’s nice for me and keeps the content fresh so I’m not just in my room or whatever. It’s nice especially in the long evenings when the sun goes in a bit and I put up fairy lights and candles and it creates a nice little atmosphere.”
One perk to being able to do the live streams is that fans still get to hear some exclusive unreleased songs. There are a lot of comments from fans during Butler’s live streams asking what songs he will release next. At the moment Butler is focusing on Paranoid but is thinking of which of his many unreleased tunes is next to be released.
“ It’s tricky. I mean ‘Paranoid’ came out about three weeks ago.I’m still going to let that one breathe. It’s funny because you put in so much effort for the pre-promotion for a song and then you put it out and it’s out and you have to then keep going after it. As in let’s say for my first release ‘Moon Song’ nothing really happened for 3 or 4 months and then it got picked up by a TV show so there is all that kind of stuff, especially because in the initial push on ‘Paranoid’, people seem to like it and radio really like it which is great. It got 2fm track of the week with Eoghan McDermott and Doireann which was amazing and it also got selected for FM104 Select Irish for the whole month of June so that also kicks in next week.So I’m just going to see how that goes and ride that little wave for a little while.The video is going to be out hopefully next Friday, if not the Friday after, so that will be an extra little push.
I’m going to let Paranoid breathe a bit. Yeah I have songs ready, it’s just about picking which one. People seem to like ‘Good Enough’. See this is where it’s tricky for someone trying to establish themself..do I put out another song that’s like Paranoid or do I put out another song that I love, it’s tricky to know. There’s loads of new people liking Paranoid so do I stick to that style for the next one? To be honest, I think no. I think I’ll put out the music that I love and that I think is great. It’s quite difficult now to really establish yourself with the whole streaming world. You know the way people are releasing singles instead of albums and EP’s. I think that is great because you can play around with different sounds like what I have done with Paranoid.
Paranoid is a really different song to Young Forever. It’s nice though it leaves doors open.It means I can mess around with things. I was always thinking do I have to be confined to one particular sound or genre and I just don’t think you do anymore. With the singles I think you can bring out two completely different songs and it not be weird. I write lots of different types of songs and I don’t think I should suppress that. If I write a pop song I shouldn’t be afraid to put synths behind that or if I write a band song like Young Forever I’m not afraid to put out a song like that.You can do it all live so why not? You do run the risk of confusing people but I don’t really think it’s an issue. If I think about it too much I will freak myself out. But it’s going really well and I’m going to just keep going.
So what has Isaac Butler got planned for the rest of lockdown?
“Well the rest of the never ending lockdown, I dont know. I’m going to keep going with the Paranoid stuff. I’m doing a couple of writing sessions a week whether its myself or with other people just to keep building my live reel of songs so when I need them they are there.I don’t think I’ll ever be scrambling for songs because I have spent the last three years writing and I do have a lot of songs that I believe in and I think will see the light of day eventually but yeah I think my plans for now are just keep going as I am and look towards maybe doing some sort of gig like a social distance kind of Covid gig in September/October. Have you seen the Gavin James Drive In thing he is doing? Obviously Gavin has that massive audience and he is like super established and I’m a huge Gavin fan so I’ll probably go to that but I think I’m definitely toying with the idea of that but to a smaller scale.There are people who want to come to a show so I want to do one. Even if it’s like 20 cars in a car park. Something like that could be cool.So I’m putting my attention to that.So basically, keep the Paranoid dream alive,then the follow up song figure that out and sort the campaign for that and then maybe look towards doing an outdoor gig somewhere”
Isaac Butler is a singer songwriter who writes catchy, heartfelt tracks and it’s great to see his live streams present his wonderful tunes through the perfect medium that is his voice and guitar (or Ukulele at times). I’m sure when everything is back to normal his live shows are going to be hot topics of discussion. If he pulls off that drive in show I will be there for sure!
Stream Isaac Butler’s new single ‘Paranoid’ below
Author : Danu
