London-based pop singer-songwriter AJ Wander has released his new single, ‘Take It All’, The track is a cinematic and emotional tune doused in refined musicianship, crisp production and evocative songwriting.
I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about the new single, his plans for live shows and writing the new single in a caravan in Wales.
“It came to me when I was in Wales with my friend Geth [Gethin Williams]. We were staying at his caravan, sort of at the foot of Snowdon, which is a nice little spot to write and I was definitely feeling the need to write in that moment of life. I was just in a toxic situation and it felt quite cathartic and something that I needed to get out. It was quite a positive turn for me in terms of reevaluating self-worth and realizing that I couldn’t let it continue.”
“It was last November. We had a heater. He actually lives in the caravan. I feel like caravan is definitely miss selling it. It’s definitely like a big caravan that doesn’t move. It was a glamping caravan. I mean it definitely did get cold at night, that’s for sure and when the heater was off, you definitely felt the bite of Welsh winter.”
The track was produced by co-writer Gethin Williams alongside Brad Mair (Dean Lewis, Jamie Cullum, Kygo). Wander’s songs are vividly emotional with a personal aspect rooted within the lyrics. This makes his songs heartfelt, passionate and relatable. We discussed how nerve-wracking it can be to express all these personal emotions to the people he co-wrote with.
“ I think it’s nice knowing that’s what these people do. It’s definitely a hurdle to get over that initial awkwardness but I think once you accept it for what it is and that there’s not really any judgment on their part, they’re literally there to help you get your thoughts out and into music, it doesn’t feel awkward”
Lyrically the song tackles pain as Wander explores personal emotions in the midst of a toxic relationship. However, with his signature beautiful piano at the helm, the music is uplifting while cinematic soundscapes urge the track forward. Wander found the music and production came naturally to him and Gethin Williams, as they worked on the track.
“As with the other songs it just happened naturally, I think I was sat writing the lyrics whilst Geth, was producing up the track. It just happened organically, it wasn’t over planned, it wasn’t overthought it’s just the way it happened.”
Wander began his solo career during the pandemic. Lockdowns etc made it difficult to promote music and yet his debut single, ‘Time Out’ has just under 4 million streams. Like other artists of this generation, Wander has the power and influence of streaming platforms which gives artists huge exposure however it doesn’t really make them money. We talked about this paradox and the fact you can reach more people but don’t reap the benefits as much as you would with album sales and touring as well as how streaming has helped him with his music.
“Yeah, definitely and it’s still sort of difficult to come by. It seems that everyone that was supposed to be gigging before and during lockdown is now playing catch up and they’re playing all of their shows so for new artists you know, gigs are hard to come by. But things have been booked in now, which is exciting for next year. So 2022 is pretty busy. Yeah, it’s been tough. I guess the only sort of meter I’ve had to gauge the tracks success and how people are enjoying the tracks and connecting with them is Spotify and streaming. So it’s not multifaceted. It’s very singular and I do miss that connection with people in the room. It’s easy to forget why you do it. So yeah, having that barrier there was definitely a struggle and it’s a barrier I’m looking forward to knocking down soon and getting out and seeing some faces as I sing.”
“ Obviously, I don’t do it for the money. I think it’s a dream to just be able to survive on music. It plays into the whole sort of social media thing. It is one thing to release a song and it’s another thing reaching people. It’s something I’m struggling with right now. I think being able to perform in front of people will be a great thing for me because I can actually see people connecting with it rather than just seeing the number go up on a screen. So yeah, very much excited to streaming not being my only way of gauging how people are connecting with my music.”
Wander has been creating great content with his videos and the lyric video for ‘Take It All’ is an impressive example of his creative genius.
“I wish I could take all of the credit. I mean, initially, it came from me. I was sat on the tube and as it left the station, I was watching the adverts pass behind the train window. I was like that’s kind of a cool way to present lyrics as if they were adverts on the wall behind the train. Then that turned out to be pretty hard to do, to make it look like adverts on a wall. So then my mate Skip and I walked around London, taking pictures all over the place and just capturing loads of footage trying to think of situations where lyrics could be made to look like they were there. It’s nice to be able to show off a bit of London too like my hometown and people to have that kind of connection with me.”
With the release of ‘Take It All’ I wondered if Wander was giving us a teaser for an EP or an album to come.
“ Yeah, definitely an EP coming next year and then I get to perform it to lots of people which I’m even more excited about. So yes, there’s lots more music coming. So between now and Christmas is getting that EP ready, getting my live show ready, getting in rehearsals, and just prepping for a big 2022 really.”.
So what can we expect from an upcoming AJ Wander show?
“That’s a very good question. Yes, there will be a band. I think it will depend on the show that I’m playing. I’ll have a piano. I know that I’ll have a piano and I will have a band on the bigger shows. Other than that anything is possible. There might be pyrotechnics, I imagine. Maybe I’ll like pop out with some smoke out of the bottom of the stage. In reality, I’ll probably be playing in a pub corner to about ten people, with the pyrotechnics obviously.”
AJ Wander is a compelling musician who showcases his effortless and ambitious talent through moving, rich and heartfelt tunes. His lyrical depth and remarkable songwriting is incomparable and ‘Take It All’ is a sublime example of this. Wander’s passion for music radiates from each release and his live shows are sure to have an audience captivated. Keep an eye out for his live show announcements.
Stream ‘Take It All’ below
Author: Danu
Cuan Dingle have announced three live-stream concerts from the Dingle Hub on the 30th – 31st of October. The series is an online celebration of artists based on the Dingle Peninsula and features Dréimire, Dairena Ní Chinnéide, Niamh Varian Barry, Gerry O’Beirne, Billy Mag Fhloinn, Maggie Breen, Pa Sheehy and Julie Jay over the two days. Tickets priced at €10 are on sale now from https://tvlive.ie/. Each concert will run for 1 hour, featuring one music act (45 minute live performance) and one non-music act (15 minute pre-recorded segment).
I caught up with singer-songwriter Pa Sheehy who will be performing on part three of the event on Sunday to talk about the livestream, his new EP ‘The Art Of Disappearing’, and his first solo tour.
At 9 pm on Sunday Pa Sheehy will perform followed by one of the most exciting new voices on the Irish comedy scene, comedian Julie Jay. The performances will take place in the Dingle Hub which overlooks the beautiful Dingle Marina. The Dingle Hub has a strong creative connection to the community on the Dingle Peninsula. The concerts will highlight the incredible views of the Dingle Marina with a multi-camera production, paired with the highest professional sound and lighting. Being part of the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht, Cuan Dingle will also incorporate the Irish language into the series with a number of performers fluent in Irish.
“Yeah, it’s all going to be live there on Sunday night. It looks like a great set up and it’s a good lineup so yeah it will be good craic”
After a decade fronting the Irish chart-conquering Walking On Cars, Sheehy decided last July that it was time to leave the group and has released his own music and EP called ‘The Art Of Disappearing’, which hit the Top 10 Irish Charts. We discussed how daunting it was for him to go solo and discover his sound outside of a band aesthetic
“ The first few months was all about taking a step back and re-evaluating everything. Then I spent an awful lot of time in the studio over the last 18 months trying to figure myself out a bit and just writing songs every day and sooner or later, it just kind of dropped. I was like okay, this is where we’re going. So what you are going to hear in the first EP is the end of my Walking On Cars, kind of vibe and a step into a new world. Then a second EP, that’s when you really get to know what I found when I sat on my own for a year, it’s more chilled out, a bit more acoustic. Yeah, it’s just a different step from Walking On Cars.”
“ I guess, every decision I had to make was just trust my gut, and sometimes I got it wrong sometimes I got it right. A prime example of that was the single, Róisín. That took me so long to finish because I was so undecided on what parts to put where. There was so much that I muted on the record in the last maybe month of making I just kind of threw everything that burst out of me onto the song and it became apparent that I had too many ideas in there. It was one of those things where I needed an outside head and I remember one day I showed the song to my sister, and she listened to it, she loved it. Then the following week, I changed a little bit and I took out the post-chorus because I felt there were way too many melodies on it, and I played it to her and she was like, man, that’s the best part of the tune, what are you doing. I was like, Okay, I needed to hear that and so I put it back in and obviously, that was a good move to actually talk to someone outside of me and get their two cents on it.”
“ It was a case that I knew it was a good song, but I didn’t know where I wanted it to end up for a long time in the process of making it. So it took me three times of recording it to finally say okay, this is the one. I went to London around this time last year, and I met up with a few producer buddies of mine. We recorded it and it just felt really flat and not what I had envisioned at all. I came home and I was gonna delete everything and start again and slowly but surely it started falling into place. Day after day I’d come back to it or I’d hear something else that was a little bit wrong. I just tweak it and eventually, it all just fell into place.”
‘The Art Of Disappearing’, is an utterly time stopping EP filled with heartfelt emotion and moving songwriting. It’s lyrically deep and personal and Sheehy explained how difficult it was to express these raw emotions.
“ To be honest, I avoided a lot of these songs for a long time. But every time I sat down with a guitar, the same themes would come up for me and that means that I need to write about this and get it off my chest and move on to something else. So yeah, the themes in the EP are pretty grim, pretty sad, pretty close to home. But I feel now that they’re written, I can move on to some more lighter subjects.”
Sheehy cements himself as a powerful and vivid songwriter in the Irish music scene with this EP. He uses expressive, eloquent lyrics that perfectly place you in the setting of the songs or depict the gripping emotions within, “Oh you know I still remember the day you chose to go. Mom was in the kitchen, saying, “now we’re on our own”.- ‘I Saw You At A Funeral’
“I don’t think that’s something you can look at while you’re writing. I just do my own thing and if people like it then great. If people acknowledged the skill in it along the way, sure, isn’t that kind of a bonus.”
“I’m not sure. I feel I’ve so much yet to prove because, obviously I left the band and it’s just only my first outing. I feel I’ve got so much work to do and so much more to prove to myself, to be honest.”
“ And that’s so exciting. I can’t wait for the next round of songs. I have a tour planned for next March. A couple of dates in Ireland, a couple of dates around Europe. So yeah, like you say, I get to do my own thing and there’s a magic and a freedom that I really enjoy.”
There is a cinematic quality to the EP. A fine example of this is within ‘Drop Me In The Ocean’. Sheehy creates a beautiful and mesmerising backdrop through the use of soft piano and echoed backing vocals that contrasts the tracks powerful and evocative melody. It’s quite the remarkable tune.
“ I love that song. I wrote it with a guy called Jamie Norton. He’s a UK based songwriter and he is an amazing piano player. So basically in the last year, the whole writing scene, when I got bored of myself, I was like, Okay, I need to write with some new people. Basically, everything was on Zoom. So I had a Zoom call with Jamie Norton, who I had written with before so I knew we vibed and I had this vision in my head. I’d been listening to a lot of Radiohead at the time, so I was really into, loose acoustic guitar sounds, lazy drums, really organic sounding.”
“We wrote a song and I sang it and I recorded it. I recorded the drums, the bass, the electric guitars. I had this vision for it and I was like, this is great, this is exactly what I’m going for. I sent the song to Jamie and I was like, what do you think of this?, add a few bits if you want but I think we’re on the right track. What he sent me – he took the drums out, he took the bass out, took the guitars out and he just laid down this piano for the chords that we were playing and it just gave everything the song was about a deeper meaning and a deeper feeling.”
“I was just knocked out when he sent it back, a part of me was sickened because my vision of the song was destroyed but what he had created, what he turned the song into was incredible. When he sent the piano track to me, I just started putting subtle kick drums and subtle strings on it just to move it along but it didn’t need a whole lot once the vocal and the piano were sat nicely. Then from the piano, the ‘ooh’s’ jumped out at me and I sent them back to him and he was like, ‘Yes, man, we’ve done it!’. So it was just one of those things that grew and grew and took a few turns on the way.”
A track that stands out in the EP is the nostalgic ‘The Years Never Waited’. The harmonies and sweet arrangement create a perfect hazy atmosphere. Sheehy aptly captures feelings of the sweet memories we all have that make you smile through pulsing beats and sun-speckled guitar causing the listener to reminisce on their own youth while enjoying the refined musicianship and captivating soundscapes within the track.
“I suppose it defines where I was at that time. I’m in my early 30s and as you grow up, you just lose touch with friends and you don’t hang out as much. People go off and do their own things, people move away and have families, people have busy jobs and you just don’t keep in touch as much as you’d like. This song captures that in a nostalgic way rather than a super sad way. I didn’t want the vocal to be too harsh. So what you’re hearing on the record is three different vocal styles blended into one. The harmony is very prevalent in it so yeah, I wanted it to be a smooth soft vocal and I didn’t want to go to chesty on it. I was just looking for a new style to use my voice in.”
The EP is penned in a very emotive indie, singer-songwriter style yet Sheehy slips into a soft country rock-esque tone for closing track ‘Through The Fields’. It’s a beautiful end to the EP.
“To be honest, that song was in my pocket for about five years. It was never a Walking On Cars song. So when I left, I looked at the batch of tunes that I did have that weren’t in Walking On Cars world and that was one of them and I really wanted to bring it to life. The last lyric in the song is “goodbye from me”. That’s just to say thanks for listening to EP, I’ll see you on the next one kind of thing. It just felt nice as the last tune”
Sheehy has embarked on his first tour as a solo artist playing to a sold-out Whelan’s, Dublin on the 27th October and sold out Roisin Dubh, Galway on the 28th October 2021 as well as a sold-out show at St. James Church, Dingle on the 30th October.
“Yeah, I’m loving it. We did Cork, Cyprus Avenue on Monday, and that was incredible. That was a full room it was a really nice moment. People were singing along with the EP tracks and people were really enjoying the new music. I played an hour set and all new music so I think people are just interested to see what I’ve been up to for the last 18 months. ”
‘The Art Of Disappearing’ is a heartfelt collection of tracks filled with themes of loss, nostalgia and love. The EP is a sublime and passionate display from Sheehy and boasts the artist’s melodic mastery and meaningful songwriting. His performance on the Cuan Dingle live-stream is sure to be a timeless display. Cuan Dingle have selected a diverse and entertaining lineup for this live stream event and it is one not to miss.
Tickets for the livestream are priced at €10 and are on sale now from https://tvlive.ie/.
Stream ‘The Art Of Disappearing’ below
Author: Danu
Stephen Kelly, frontman and songwriter for Dublin rock band Raglans, is set to release his new single ‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ on Friday, October 22nd along with news of the release of his upcoming solo album ‘Bad News Best Forgotten’. I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about his blistering new single, what we can expect from the album and what sparked his decision to release solo material.
‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ is a big sing-along indie-rock anthem filled with scorching guitars and vibrant rhythms. Kelly’s signature hearty melodies and rich musicianship are on full display within the track while his deft songwriting hints at deeper, more serious subject matters.
“With a lot of my songs subconsciously but also consciously, I try to mix a catchy melody with more serious subject matter. The lyrics aren’t always about the best things but the melody makes you feel good so there’s a bittersweet dichotomy going on. With this one, it’s just a case of self-reflection of my journey so far in being an artist and having the belief and faith of many people in your life, and how that can sometimes feel like you’re taking advantage of their belief in you when you’re trying to get things going as an artist. It’s a song about self-doubt, the verses are about doubting yourself and the choruses are about believing in yourself.”
During the lockdowns due to Covid-19, we have all had time to look inward and reflect on our lives. Kelly was no exception to this, and he explained to me the impact this had on his career and decision to release solo material.
“Absolutely, with Raglans I wrote all the songs but we worked on them all together and it was a real team effort once we were in the band. So after Coronavirus and losing all of that because of what happened, you just have to draw on your own, and develop skills better than I had by having great musicians and stuff around me. I like writing songs but I often deferred to musicians to help me to arrange them etc and now doing it all completely by myself has been a very eye-opening experience. It’s been incredibly gratifying, developing my skills to the point where now I can really just look to myself to express my own vision.”
Producing and writing one’s own material can give an artist a sense of freedom; however, it can be daunting as you don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off. For Kelly developing the skills to produce his own singles was an invaluable and enjoyable experience.
“That’s the terrifying thing of it. But at the end of the day when you sit back and you play the track to yourself, and you’re happy the first time you hear it. I kind of follow that instinct rather than listen to it a million times and go ‘oh this is what’s wrong’ or ‘I could change this’ or ‘if I spent more money doing this it could be better’. I find doing that is just a pathway to complacency, so I get a song finished, I get it mixed and mastered to the best of my abilities. I play it to myself really layered and if I’m happy with it, I cross it over and move on to the next song. I feel I’ve got my second album, nearly finished aswell. I’m being very productive… it is nice to have developed the skills to do it myself now and be the king of my own creation.”
“ I’ve loved being in Raglans with Rhos [Horan] and Conn [O’Ruanaidh] because we didn’t know each other when we started really. They knew each other but they were strangers to me, and strangers who meet in a room and share music and that music starts at nothing and then takes you to Australia, all over America, everywhere. There’s something beyond the music to that relationship that we built. That’s why we never announced in my opinion, that we’re breaking up or we’re finished because we never had intentions of being a band that breaks up when we started because we didn’t have any intentions at all. I like the idea of it being an open-ended project and if people ever want to see us in a room together playing our music together we’ll be there to do it but at the moment because of the way the world is and because of how hard it is to be an artist financially. It just makes sense for us to do our own things for the moment and I found that something I wasn’t expecting to find as gratifying but I’m loving it, you know.”
The intro to ‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ is incredibly catchy and sets the song up well, creating a dynamic and full-bodied sound that makes the listener eager to hear more. ‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ is the perfect appetizer for the upcoming album, and Kelly explained to me how his mother influenced which track was going to be released first.
“Yeah, it was actually the intro that sparked the song. What I often do is I’ll hear a drum beat or find a drum beat and I have hundreds of songs in my head that I’ve written over the years, and I listen to this new drum beat and sometimes I go, well if I play this song over this drumbeat, it will completely change the complexion of that song with this beat, and ‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’, was like that.”
“The reason I released that song first, is more of a personal decision. My mom passed away two years ago and before she passed away, I’d just started writing that song on an acoustic guitar, and one of my memories is her walking by going ‘ah that’s a good one Stevie, that’s a good one’. She always had a good ear for music. So, part of me felt like doing my own thing, not answering to anybody no compromise. I’m going to put out the song my mom would have liked to hear. That’s why I chose it. Even though I feel some of the upcoming singles that I’m working on may appeal to a wider audience or whatever, or be rockier blah blah blah. This one was very important to me because of what it meant to me and my mom’s relationship.”
“She’d be proud of me getting my shit together, getting my songs out, especially the one she likes. So I’m excited to put it out in her memory, her honour because I don’t like to post about those things on social media, put up pictures and say all this and that, it’s just not my way, but this is my way, to make this song for her, put it out and hopefully if she is around, or if she can hear…she’d be proud, you know.”
The new song follows the melodically rich tunes we experienced from Kelly’s ‘Home Brew Volume 1’ EP last year. We discussed how Kelly created his upcoming album ‘Bad News Best Forgotten’ differently from the EP and what we can expect from the new album.
“Well, the difference with Home Brew was it’s kind of like a brain fart, you know. We were all locked down, we weren’t practicing the same levels of scrutiny etc on our lives that maybe we were before. I look back at Home Brew now and I see it as a necessary evil, it’s not exactly how I want my songs to be produced and sound but I had nothing at the time and no means of getting anything. But luckily, in the last few months, I’ve been able to invest in my own proper equipment in the studio and I’m working with some great musicians when I need. There’s some brass parts on the new songs, and I’ve got great musicians who come over to my studio and put the brass parts down. It’s personal diary entries that are masquerading as absolutely banging anthems. But there’s more shades to it than just rock and roll, indie rock anthems. We’ve got a few different styles in there. I’m using some violins and brass, and I just want the album to showcase a dynamic songwriter who doesn’t just write for one genre – can write across a few types of songs and tell some stories as well, and hopefully people will go ‘okay shit this is going to be good live let me go see this live and we’ll have a party!’.”
I got a sneaky listen to ‘Leandro’, another blistering track on the upcoming album. This fiery indie-rock tune is brisk, catchy and full of energy and boasts clever lyrics that narrate a love triangle.
“That’s a perfect example of what I want to display – a dynamic songwriter, for example, that song is like Raglans Christmas song [Christmas Number One (On My Own)], it’s tongue in cheek, you know. Somebody told me I couldn’t write a Christmas song so I wrote a Christmas song. I wasn’t actually alone at Christmas feeling sad and writing a song. I wrote a song about being alone at Christmas because somebody told me I couldn’t.”
“With Leandro, I was listening to a song by The Cars called ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’ a lot of the time, and I found there was something hilarious about that sub-genre of music about the jealous boyfriend, who loses his girlfriend to a friend. There’s a few songs like that, there’s also the Joe Jackson song [Is She Really Going Out With Him?]. I just wanted to write a song in that genre.”
“So with Leandro, I had a girlfriend at the time who, received a job offer from a lovely, lovely guy called Leandro. The Leandro in the song is not actually based on the real Leandro, because he was a lovely guy, but I envisioned as a joke that he was a suave lecherous guy who was stealing my girl but ultimately they just fell in love and I was the third part, the third wheel without knowing until the end of the song. It’s actually one of my proudest songs even though, it’s a simple indie rocker. My songs, the ones that aren’t personal diary entries sometimes are easier for me to listen to because I haven’t attached as much of my traumatic experience to the lyrics.”
There is a shredding guitar solo in ‘Leandro’ that scorches through the vibrant indie-rock backdrop. It oozes swagger and vigour.
“Well actually, that is an interesting one because that was supposed to be on Raglan’s second album. Before the Coronavirus came I’d shown the guys in Raglans that song…I actually remember singing the solo to Rhos [Horan] when we were playing because like I said, I would often refer to better musicians, so I’d sing the lines sometimes and the guys would play them. But yeah, there’s definitely some Raglans DNA in that song, but I just thought I had to get it out. I really want to hear it on the radio before the summer sometime when I’m driving somewhere, you know.”
‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ and ‘Leandro’ evoke images of live crowds dancing and bellowing the track’s lyrics back at the top of their lungs. Kelly told me he is buzzing to play his songs live.
“Oh absolutely, it’s all getting planned at the moment. I put together my own solo band called Steve Kelly and The Natives, which is a nice nod to the Raglan song. So yeah, we’re putting that together we’re going to be ready to gig by January 2022. The album is intended to be coming out in March 2022. It’s called ‘Bad News Best Forgotten’ and we’re rehearsing at the moment, getting ready.”
‘Bad News Best Forgotten’ is a great title for an album. I wondered how Kelly came up with it.
“Picking titles is hard that’s why Raglans first album is called Raglans. But this one, it was a lyric in one of my songs. Often I subconsciously write my lyrics and have a built-in meter of what I think is good and bad, and I look back on the lyrics I’d written for one song that might not even get on the album and I just saw that one of the lyrics was “bad news best forgotten swore an oath in blood”. I just liked the idea of Bad News Best Forgotten and we’ve been through a lot of shit, every human being in the world for last few years. We’ve received a lot of bad news on a daily basis. But dwelling on it is not the case and that’s what this album is for me.I don’t want to dwell on Raglans broken up by COVID. I want to just put good music out.”
‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ is a bright, anthemic and perfectly executed song that will put a spring in your step while the meaningful lyrics showcase the artist’s eloquent songwriting. This is exciting times for Stephen Kelly and fans alike. ‘All The Trouble I’ve Caused’ is out this Friday. Check it out, it’s an absolute gem.
You can follow Stephen Kelly on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/StephenKellyTheFirst
Author: Danu
Meath band N.O.A.H have released their highly anticipated debut EP ‘Echoes of The Night’. ‘Echoes of The Night’ is a summation of the past 16 months for this new band, both in metaphor and in sound.
The EP sees N.O.A.H teaming up with Grammy-Winning Ruadhri Cushnan who produced the record in Camden Studios, as well as John Davis who mastered the record in Metropolis Studios, London
I caught up with lead vocalist and guitarist Ryan Hill to talk about the EP, the significance of the lyric ‘Echoes of The Night’ from the band’s debut single ‘Shine’ and why it was chosen for the EP’s title.
“ ‘Shine’ had such a big impact on the band and the actual line itself resonated with us. It summed up the meaning of the EP altogether, and the sound as well and how much it meant to have our first single out. ‘Shine’ explains this journey that we went on to get to the point where we are at and it just made sense to have it for the EP”
‘Echoes of The Night’ is a diverse collection of tracks that displays different facets of the bands sound. The trio pack in hefty indie anthems like ‘Shine’ and ‘Darkest Hour’ but they show a knack for navigating through pop, soul with some electronic and funk in the mix as well. Ryan explained to me that these songs were specifically chosen to showcase their versatility as a band as well as an overspill of their different tastes and styles.
“To be honest, it’s probably a mix of both. Last year, over the lockdown we wrote, I’d say, around 30 to 40 songs. When it came to picking an EP, as you can see, six songs, it’s a big EP and the reason behind that was because when it came to narrowing down to the set amount of songs for EP itself we wanted to pick something [ that ] gave the listeners something different every time they went on to a track. As you said yourself you do have those, indie kind of anthems like ‘Shine’ and ‘Darkest Hour’ but as you go on through the EP you have songs like ‘I’m Not Scared’, [ it ] was to show how versatile we can be as a band. It’s our influence as well, you know, Ronan [Hynes] our drummer would listen to a lot of Hip Hop, EDM and Dance music, [ these ] influences are in there as well. So it was probably a bit of both and that’s why we went for those six songs out of like 40 other tracks to go on the EP”
“It was a nightmare because we had ourselves picking songs and then we had other members of our team that were [ saying ] ‘Oh, you have to go with this one’. So yeah it was a difficult choice to narrow it down.”
‘I’m Not Scared’ features Hare Squead who bring a hip hop style to the band’s cinematic sound. The duo perfectly matches the anthemic, eerie and expressive instrumentation with their fluid raps.
“Well, we recorded with Ruadhri Cushnan in Camden Studios, and Hare Squead were in there most of the time in the other room. Our main goal for that track, the last track on the EP was to experiment with something different, and when we were in with Ruadhri, it was a case of, we’d like to have someone in doing freestyle rap over this verse and that was always the main goal. It just made sense because the lads from Hare Squead were popping in and out while we were recording, and we just thought it’d be a cool collaboration. It’s kind of always been like that it was the same when we did ‘Darkest Hour’, we wanted to get Booka Brass on because it’s great to work with other Irish artists, so yeah, it just made sense”
Not only have N.O.A.H become known for their powerful and evocative musicianship, but their lyrics also capture the listener’s attention through meaningful and clever turns of phrase. Especially within ‘I’m Not Scared’ they are particularly moving,“ these silver bullets cut me open now everyone can see right through me”. Ryan explained to me what inspired these lyrical moments.
“Yeah, all these tracks were written over the lockdown. I believe that when you’re writing lyrics it comes from life experience but I found over the lockdown, you’re constantly writing, you get to the stage [ where ] you’re not seeing new things. You’re kind of locked away at home and stuff like that. So I think that it got to the stage for myself [ where ] writing was like almost creating your own story. Even for ‘I’m Not Scared’ the idea I got from that was a man that was losing hope which I suppose the meaning resonates with the listener because during that time of lockdown a lot of people were losing hope.I tried to stick to that theme but, as you said make it more creative. I think even for me from a writing side it was different, it’s just to pinpoint on that theme of isolation, loss of hope, you know”
“Yeah, and some people would ask me, ‘oh, what’s the song about’ and it was in the moment you know, it’s a story that you’re telling and it can be difficult to explain [ that ] sometimes.”
Ryan shows a lot of diversity and range in his vocals throughout the EP. From falsetto in ‘I’m Not Scared’, tenderness in ‘Turn Your Heart Around’ and powerfully emotive in ‘Hands Up’. It’s a confident vocal display that matches the band’s masterful musicianship and marks him as a vocalist to keep an eye on.
“You know, I think it was only in the past year when we were doing demos at home. Sometimes you’d get in a rut where songs sound the same, and no matter how much you change them up instrumentally you have to look further and say let’s look at the vocals themselves. I think I’d be more confident now when it comes to the vocals, and that has a lot to do with people we’ve worked with as well in the studio like when we were working with Ruadhri he’d guide me in a way that we can do things differently, that I wouldn’t have even thought of. I’m not vocally trained, and never had any vocal coach or anything like that so for me it’s taking advice from people who’ve worked with other artists that probably are vocally trained to do things in a certain way. Yeah, I think after doing this EP I’d have more confidence in my vocals.”
“Hands Up was one of the main tracks that when we were in the studio, a lot of emphasis was on how that [ vocals ] was going to be done, and Ruadhri guided me in a way to not [ do ] the usual sort of belted out vocal, to do more intimate and you know, closer to me kind of stuff. It definitely was different for me as well, it’s a lower register, a bit quieter”
‘Darkest Hour’ is my favourite song on the EP. The sing-along hook, dark atmosphere, and vibrant brass combination are simply magnificent. However, there is something special about ‘I’m Not Scared’ the emotion it evokes is on another level to the rest of the tracks on the EP. It’s a great track to end the EP and teases a different sound from N.O.A.H. Ryan told me why he is most proud of ‘I’m Not Scared’.
“‘I’m Not Scared’, the reason is that we’ve been sitting on that song for over a year, and it was always that one track that sounded a bit different to the rest. When we recorded the EP itself that was the last one we worked on. There was a stage where, ‘we know what the song is but can we actually make this a track on the EP’. It was just one big idea and we had to get the song done in two recording sessions. It was a bit of a rush to do it, but then when we heard that finished product, I think it resonated with me the most even though it is the last one out of the bunch. I’m just delighted to hear it in its full, complete stage”
But it has to be said ‘Turn Your Heart Around’ is a beautiful song. The band strip all the lush production back allowing Ryan’s voice to express the tender emotion before slowly building to a cinematic crescendo. The track is an utterly time stopping listening experience.
“We started this off on an acoustic guitar with the chords. Adam actually wrote the lyrics for that track as well so I think I had the chords on the acoustic guitar and then he just came in and said we’ll try out these lyrics. That was a demo that we wrote I think around seven, eight months ago. I think one morning we were sitting there, and it didn’t take much time at all, we sat there and Adam handed me the lyrics and it happened naturally. Obviously, there was improvements made to it. But it really just happened naturally. Even in that track it’s sort of a belt out vocal but it’s a comfortable song to sing you know, and it still has that emotional thread throughout the whole track as well.”
Each member’s musical prowess is what makes N.O.A.H’s sound so special. All three members Ryan along with bassist Adam Rooney, and drummer Ronan Hynes have talent in abundance which they bring to the band to create tight, cohesive and arena-worthy tunes that are irresistible to the ears.
“Yeah, definitely. I think especially over the past few months we’ve all improved on our instruments and stuff like that. We can bring more to the table now than before. We’re more comfortable playing because we’ve been together nearly every day for the past few months. We’ve gone more in-depth in certain things we can do, whether it be on synths, keyboards, guitar sounds, drums a whole lot you know. I think it makes a big difference, it’s kinda opened our eyes to the stuff we can do.”
‘I’ll Be There’ is a wonderful tune. It changes the pace of the EP allowing the band to present a glorious gem through refined and beautifully arranged instrumentation. It’s that sunshine in a tune earworm that brightens every day. The rhythm and bass in particular in the song is fun and bouncy. ‘I’ll Be There’ is going to be one sing-along moment at gigs that will ooze feel-good vibes.
“That was one of the last tracks that we picked to go on the EP. I suppose you could say that the actual tempo of the track is a lot quicker than the others, it’s a 60 BPM of a track even though it sounds quite chill, it’s a very quick song but it was one of the first that we recorded when we were in Camden Studios, it was sort of a pick me up track and I suppose almost going back to our roots of playing or where we got our main influences from Kings Of Leon, The Killers and stuff like that. We all love rock music and indie rock music and we wanted to emphasize that in the song and even working with Ruadhri he said I want people on this EP to hear that it is a band, it’s a full band playing in a room. So, yeah, I think it’s just to give that more natural band vibe to the song, once again having the first sing along when it comes to playing live as well”
N.O.A.H will take to the main stage in Whelan’s on the 10th of December. These songs are destined for the live setting and the band are buzzing to play for their fans.
“Well, we played a few months ago the first indoor gig in Navan in the Solstice Theatre, it was a big place and it was only holding 50 people. It was our first time playing these tracks, and it’s weird because you’re so used to hearing the songs through headphones, and then when you go to play them live with real instruments it’s a loud show but it packs a punch you know. People can expect it will be a great show. We’ve had nothing but time to rehearse and we’ll always put on a great show. We can’t wait to be honest, we can’t wait to play.”
It’s an exciting time for N.O.A.H. The band has achieved a tremendous amount already. From signing with Mother Artists, supporting Bell X1 to performing live on BBC Radio. The lead single from ‘Echoes of the Nights’, ‘Hands Up’ was released in late July and has received amazing support from Irish radio and the wider media. Highlights include being playlisted on RTÉ 2FM as well as being chosen as one of the iLove Tracks for September on iRadio. Ryan told me what we can look forward to from the band in the future.
“What we’re looking at now is short term goals, we’re supposed to be doing an Irish tour in February and to be honest I think it’s going to be almost like a repeat of, we go back and write new tracks, start touring next year around Europe and maybe get over to America, hopefully. It’s just gonna be a case of writing and gigging when everything opens back up and yeah, hopefully, take over the world of music”
‘Echoes of The Night’ is a spectacular debut EP from N.O.A.H. The band showcase their boundless talent through this vibrant, musically dense and hook-filled collection of tracks. Within the EP there are immaculate moments of heightened emotion relayed through irresistible melodies, driving rhythms and majestic guitar work that takes your breath away. N.O.A.H are a band to treasure and if ‘Echoes of The Night’ is anything to go by this band have a bright future ahead.
Stream ‘Echoes of The Night’ below
Author: Danu
Dublin rapper JyellowL aka Jean-Luc Uddoh has returned with his new single ‘See Me Finish’, produced by Nigeria’s Tee-Y mix. This follows his critically acclaimed debut album ‘2020 D|vision’, which was nominated for Irish album of the year 2020 at the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Awards and debuted at number 2 on the official iTunes album charts as well as number 1 in the hip hop category.
I caught up with the artist to discuss the new single, his upcoming EP’s and tour, his suave fashion sense, and how his collaboration with Tee-Y mix came about.
“I was in Lagos, and I met a couple of people who introduced me to a couple of people. One of them was Tee-Y mix. He asked me to come down to the studio for a couple of sessions so we did two sessions probably, two days back to back and we just got along really well. He’s Tee-Y mix, obviously he’s a legend. He’s produced some of my favourite songs from like Davido,Tiwa Savage and M.I. I told him that I wanted to fuse what I was doing with what he does, and the best way to do that, and make it a new musical direction and he just instantly inspired me. So, yeah, that’s where ‘See Me Finish’ came from.”
‘See Me Finish’ sounds so effortless and chill as JyellowL and Tee-Y mix blend their musical talents to create a vibrant backdrop filled with summer beats and lush melodies.
“It sounds effortless yeah, but I actually wrote the whole thing in that session, in the first session. I think between writing and recording we must have spent about four hours or so. Tee-Y is a beast though so he mixes as well in that same session. I’m pretty sure he mastered in that session as well so yeah we did everything in the four hours so it was pretty cool.”
“I hate demos, I can’t stand making demos. So, I was just happy he had the same mindset of, like, anything we did today let’s just make it the final product, or at least get everything you need to do and I’ll do the rest on the mixing front. So yeah, we’re on the same page in that respect so I was happy about that.”
JyellowL has become known for his witty lyrics and smooth melodies. He once again matches clever lyrics with irresistible melodies within ‘See Me Finish’ to create an enjoyable listening experience filled with vivid storytelling that keeps you hanging on to every word.
“Yeah, I definitely do. I guess it’s something that I’ve trained myself to do I’ve trained myself on my delivery, so it may not take as much time now to say something in that lyrical manner, as it would have before. So yeah I do that purposefully.”
‘See Me Finish’ is a taste of the sound he is creating for his upcoming series of EP’s ‘shades of yellow’ and JyellowL explained what we can expect from these EP’s
“You can expect a new musical direction. ‘See Me Finish’ was a taster for what’s to come but the real thing with ‘shades of yellow’ is that it’s not just one project. It’s a series of EP’s, that will be different shades of yellow. I thought it was a really nice way for me to express my versatility. I want people to get accustomed to me sounding different ways, but still be comfortable knowing that ‘oh that’s still JyellowL, just in a different musical direction or sound’ but it’s still JyellowL. I want people to be accustomed to that, because I make so many different types of music, and it’s always an issue of I want to release this today but then I want to release this tomorrow and it’s completely different. And everyone’s like, yeah, but, where’s the coherence. I just want to throw everything out – I don’t make one type of music, the same way I don’t listen to one type of music.”
JyellowL is an ambitious artist who is constantly evolving and we discussed how he approaches keeping his sound fresh. I wondered if he is always thinking ahead and moving towards future goals or if he lives in the moment and lets his sound ebb and flow with his emotions.
“I just mostly live in the moment. It’s a hard thing to explain because honestly, I make some random music and I get randomly inspired. So for me it’s not even an evolution. It may seem like an evolution because of the timeframes in which those songs get released, but, I’ll be making them in the background anyway. So for me, I’m just being my whole artistic self when I’m allowed to be in studios, when I’m writing, that kind of thing”
JyellowL has recently become the face of Virgin Media’s ‘Up Your Speed Game’ 1Gig broadband campaign, a deal which saw the multinational company commission him to pen a track, ’Pick Up the Pace’ specially for the campaign and boy! did JyellowL take the task in his stride. His lyrics and rap are fluid and fast as he swiftly spits out puns with ease, mirroring the theme of their fastest broadband campaign.
“Yeah they pretty much gave me creative freedom within certain parameters. I had to come up with a lot of broadband puns and metaphors and euphemisms. It was really cool for me though, but the thing that I really enjoyed about that campaign was the fact that everyone was aware that it had to sound like something I’d release anyway… it has to sound like JyellowL, and it has to be in a way that feels natural to me and they were completely supportive of that. So yeah that was a lot of fun. It was definitely a lot of fun because it felt like a writing drill for me. I think I wrote the track, as soon as we confirmed everything, say, in the afternoon we signed off on everything or whatever, I think I wrote the track, that evening, sent it off to them in the morning like one am or two am in the morning and then, they signed off on the lyrics and that was that, recorded it and everything”
Packing in such brisk lyrics for recording is an achievement in itself but what about performing it live where you can’t make any mistakes or stumble. We discussed the possibility and fear of forgetting such rapid and dense lyrical content while performing live.
“It’s muscle memory. The more I do it, the more my tongue gets used to keeping up with the lyrics in my mind, so yes muscle memory.”
JyellowL has some shows coming up in October. This is such an exciting prospect for both JyellowL and his fans as he never got to tour his acclaimed debut album ‘2020 D|vision’ due to the pandemic, so these shows will be an extra special celebration for everyone involved.
“I can’t wait. I really can’t wait, I think the tour has been rescheduled multiple times. I think it’s looking like its definitely going ahead now, so I’m excited for that. I’m very very happy, because, it was meant to be the album tour. But then the album’s nearly a year old now, and we still haven’t toured it so yeah I’m excited for that. Now it’s just going to be a JyellowL tour I can’t even say it’s an album tour anymore, because there’s new music to perform.”
“I’m just looking forward to celebrating this freedom with real people…it’s just gonna be such an emotional experience and I’m looking forward to it”
JyellowL has worked hard to establish himself as a musical force to be reckoned with. He is a talented artist who alongside others is making huge strides to put Irish hip hop on the map. He told me what advice he would give a budding artist.
“The best advice I ever got, was to be patient and persistent not persistent and patient and know the difference. That’s something that I still live and abide by, you know, I just work by myself, regardless of what it looks like right now, when the weather’s fair when it’s not. I just stay working, stay improving, put my time in regardless and I’m aware that there’s delay gratification, with whatever work that I put in. That’s the advice that I live by, so I guess that’s the advice I give someone else.”
JyellowL’s style and how he presents himself is very suave and sharp. He explained to me the importance of branding and being true to your style.
“I want to say yes because branding is always important in business in general, branding and packaging yes, however, when it comes to a personal brand I’m of the opinion, and I mean, my opinion is not gospel but I’m of the opinion that you should represent yourself because otherwise, eventually, it will be just too hard to keep up an appearance that’s not yours. For instance when I do my shoots or whatever, I wear what I would wear normally, and I’m pretty big on my fashion. Most of the time, I’m casual and I think that comes across in my shoots and stuff and therefore it allows me to stay on brand and it’s easy for me to stay on brand because that’s my personal appearance.”
‘See Me Finish’ is a vibrant, well-crafted tune that provides an exciting glimpse into the many facets of JyellowL’s sound. His ambition, eloquent songwriting and diverse musicianship makes him an artist to get excited about. I’m looking forward to the ‘shades of yellow’ releases. If ‘See Me Finish’ is anything to go by they will be richly textured, musically lush and a joy to listen to again and again.
Stream ‘See Me Finish’ below
Author: Danu
N.O.A.H have returned with their new summer anthem, ‘Hands Up’. The track presents a very different sound from the band as they venture into a more summer pop style rather than the raw indie rock we experienced in their previous single ‘Darkest Hour’. I caught up with Adam Rooney to chat about the new single, N.O.A.H’s return to live shows and what we can expect from their upcoming debut EP.
“Well, we were always big fans of pop music in general and dance music to an extent. So, it was fairly natural. It wasn’t a conscious decision to change sound. We started working with a producer called Ruadhri Cushnan and he’s won a Grammy he’s worked with Ed Sheeran, Mumford and Sons, The Maccabees, and so many other amazing artists. His influence on our sound obviously is coming through too. He knows how to balance a song, and he brings the best out of all of us. We’re so lucky to work with him. We’re working on our EP at the moment with him, we have a few more tracks to finish up, and we’re ready to go.”
‘Hands Up’ is a sonically rich and well-balanced tune that boasts sweet pop sensibilities, refreshing instrumentation and a driving bassline.
“That song itself, started with a chord progression and a sample that we made. Basically, I was just messing around with Ableton on a sampler, and I had a vocal chop that Ryan did. So then I just heavily effected it, that became the lead melody line. Then it was a case of figuring out nice chord groups on top of that, figuring out a baseline, and once we had them three elements, the chord progression the baseline and the top melody, the rest of it was fairly fine. Lyrically, we all write our own lyrics, so we just put our general ideas together, and that came together in about a day as well, so fairly a quick process”
When N.O.A.H released their debut single ‘Shine’, they told me they had to record everything remotely due to the pandemic. Adam explained how the band have been working on the track since then.
“We had the demo for ‘Hands Up’ over a year ago. So we’ve been working on that. When we brought it to the studio with Ruadhri we probably had like four or five days on that track, just finding the balance, bringing what needs to be up up, what needs to be down down, and slight tempo changes and that sort of thing.”
‘Hands Up’ marks a brighter and more upbeat shift in the bands sound. Even vocally, Ryan Hill takes a softer approach rather than his usual powerful delivery.
“Yeah, I think it was more to suit the song. It’s not really like a ballad-y song so we’re taking inspiration from bands like MGMT and even Irish bands at the moment like Wild Youth or even The Weeknd. So, singing in that nearly falsetto range for a period of the song I suppose that helps create suspense. It’s also not getting in the way of what’s going on musically either, I suppose yeah, it helps build the idea of suspense and release or tension and release. So the chorus is a bit more full-bodied and full-voiced vocally, and then the verses are a bit more restrained and pulled back.”
N.O.A.H are very much a modern band. They fuse elements of indie rock, pop, electronic and whatever else they feel to create their own incomparable style. With each release, fans eagerly wait to see what the band will do next as they are constantly evolving their sound.
“Yeah, thanks so much. We talk about this a lot you know are we a guitar band? I don’t know, we like electronics and synths and pop music as you’re saying as well so it’s a bit of a blend between a lot of things.”
The band have released a lyric video for ‘Hands Up’. The animation for the video was constructed from individual elements of artwork made by Rionagh McNamara, and it’s an impressive visual for sure.
“The artist who created the artwork for ‘Hands Up’, she’s doing the artwork for the EP, which is amazing. Her name is Rionagh McNamara. What she does is create art but the way she does it is she hand detailed the pieces, and she’ll work in a layer type fashion. So, when you look at the art for ‘Hands Up’ in minute detail, they’re all individual hand-cut little pieces that she then goes and layers on top. So once we had the digital render of each individual layer, we were able to get it animated. It brings a bit of continuity across from the artwork to the lyric video. It turned out really well.I was delighted with it. Even her description of the actual meaning within each individual part of the artwork is, it’s amazing. She brought her own unique perspective to that piece of work, you know”
To mark the release of ‘Hands Up’, N.O.A.H performed one of Ireland’s first indoor shows on July 24th at Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, which was also streamed live. Seen as the band’s debut was released during the pandemic, they hadn’t been able to perform these songs to a live in-person audience. Adam explained how exciting it is to finally be able to do gigs as N.O.A.H.
“Yeah, we had a gig in Navan in The Solstice Theatre. Since that’s a theatre we were allowed a reduced capacity of 50 people. So to be fair that felt like our first gig back. You could see people slightly, we had feedback, we heard people clap or cheer or sing along and things like that, so that was lovely and yeah we played in Mike The Pies, which was an outdoor gig, it was on the rooftop of Mike The Pies, which is such an iconic venue. It was amazing to play. We were supporting Josh McClorey, and he used to be in The Strypes, and that was an amazing night it was 25 people, but it was nice and intimate. It was great to actually get to see people and share experiences of live music.“
It’s an exciting time for N.O.A.H. The band have signed with Natasha Bents’ newly founded Mother Artists Live Agency (Foster The People, Idles, CMAT) and made their first TV appearance on RTÉ Six One News to talk about their story and quick rise within the industry.
“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. We’re very lucky to have all them experiences over the past year. It doesn’t fit the narrative of a lot of other musicians. We know we are quite lucky. Mother Artists, when we got that sort of lined up, that was a shock to all of us. We’re just happy that they saw something in us. We have a few announcements coming at the end of the summer too in line with them for 2022. But it’s pretty amazing even to be on television, it was great.”
N.O.A.H’s debut EP is set for release this October, and Adam told me what we could expect from the eagerly anticipated EP.
“There’s gonna be a few collaborations on it. Few more than what people have heard. It’s gonna be a long enough EP it’s not a short one. You can get it on vinyl. We’re delighted with it. We’re just in the last few finishing stages of it now. So it should be ready to go in the next week.”
N.O.A.H are an extremely talented band that strive to create diverse, richly textured and energetic tunes. They are crafting their sound superbly, providing a new and tantalizing listening experience with each release, ‘Hands Up’ is the perfect example of this. The song’s soundscape is filled with intricate guitar embellishments and lush electronics while the drum grooves and pulsing bass lines create a heart-fluttering sun-kissed element throughout. ‘Hands Up’ is an exciting teaser for the band’s upcoming EP.
Stream ‘Hands Up’ below
Author: Danu
The Academic have released the video for their new single, ‘Not Your Summer’. The track is lifted from the band’s new ‘Community Spirit’ EP, which was released in July. I caught up with Craig Fitzgerald and Stephen Murtagh to talk about the new EP, the inspiration behind their new video, and fun facts about their song ‘Smart Mouth’ as well as how ageing can make you less fearless and more self-critical.
‘Community Spirit’ marks the band’s debut as a producer. The pandemic and lockdown gave the band the opportunity to try their hand at producing. Stephen and Craig told me how they found the process.
Stephen: “So the first thing to say I guess is that it wasn’t planned. It was brought about by the times that we live in and the lack of opportunity to travel and collaborate with producers and invite outside people into our bubble. Basically, in order to stay safe and follow the rules we ended up stepping into, and Craig especially stepped into the producer role. “
Craig: “It was daunting enough having to do it. We spend a lot of time demoing and we all have knowledge of trying to get music together but we were lucky we’ve worked with really great producers like Tim Pagnotta and Nick Hodgson along the way, and I’ve always had an interest in it so I picked up a lot of tips and tricks on what some of the pros do and I think that’s a privileged situation to be in which was great. But in terms of it [Self-producing], it was very DIY. We weren’t following any rules”
Stephen: “We were just trusting our ears and going, “oh that’s starting to sound like us, that’s good”, not necessarily that it was the correct way. I’m sure, if you gave our homemade EP ‘Community Spirit’ to a pro of forty years they’d probably laugh and throw it back at us, but it sounds good to us so it’s fine.”
The Academic released ‘Acting My Age’ EP and ‘Community Spirit’ EP in a time of chaos surrounding the pandemic. Releasing music has been a difficult decision for artists, especially because they cannot tour, and for the band, these releases were a way of keeping themselves sane during this time by creating something for them and their fans.
Stephen: “Yeah, it’s so funny, the first EP ‘Acting My Age’ was, I guess, we’ll just continue to do what we’ve always done and released music. Then there was a gap of nearly a year between the EP’s, and yeah the second one ‘Community Spirit’ was very much for our sanity, for our mental health just to kind of reclaim that lifestyle that we knew before the pandemic of what it’s like to write, record, release. Usually, the next step is tour but obviously, we couldn’t do that step of the cycle.“
Craig: “We were more aware of it on ‘Community Spirit’. ‘Acting My Age’ we had prepared to tour and we had big plans for live shows, and that got ripped from underneath us. There’s nothing anybody could have done about it but this time we were fully aware we weren’t going to be touring it – it was very much for our fans but also for our mental health so we didn’t go crazy in the meantime.”
‘Community Spirit’ is a five-track EP of vibrant hook-filled tunes. Each song is superbly crafted and flows into the next with ease. The pair told me choosing the songs for the EP wasn’t easy.
Stephen: “Yeah there was big playlists, and these five just seem to work together”
Craig: “ Yeah we have album two very much in our sights but, these five tracks didn’t feel in any way where we’ll go with the album. This felt like another experimentation “
Stephen: “Yeah like a bridge between. We did think that ‘Acting My Age’ would be the bridge between the two albums but then the pandemic happened and we were like okay maybe there should be another step in between the last album and our next album. So that’s where these five tracks came from. It just seemed to suit the vibe of ‘Community Spirit’, and what we’re doing, and the idea of like homecoming and self-production. These seem to be the five songs for us to bring our band in that direction.”
‘Not Your Summer’ kicks off the Community Spirit EP. It’s the perfect opening track. With a twangy guitar hook and nostalgic chorus, it’s a proper anthem that captures the tone of the EP and the band’s sound spectacularly.
Stephen: “ If we had to pick one song that sums up the sound and the spirit of the EP it probably would be ‘Not Your Summer’. I think it might be a little bit more mature maybe than anything we’ve released in the past, and a bit more self-reflective and melancholic. If you have to pick one song to be like the true representation of where the band’s at now and what we were trying to say with ‘Community Spirit’ – yeah that’s the reason ‘Not Your Summer’ found itself at the top. Hopefully, if fans sat down to listen to the EP when it came out and they heard that song first, I’d like to think that they would see what we were getting at”
The Academic have released a video for ‘Not Your Summer’. The video was directed by Hope Kemp and Ronan Corrigan from Tearjerker Films, who have worked with The Academic on previous singles Kids (Don’t End Up Like Me), Acting My Age, and Anything Could Happen. It was shot at the derelict Waterworld in Portrush, Northern Ireland. The video depicts the band in various parts of Waterworld which was once bursting with life and energy and now is deserted and empty, capturing a lot of peoples feelings at the moment as holidays and summer plans are limited.
Stephen: “It definitely wasn’t always the idea for the video but we collaborate with two incredible directors called Hope Kemp and Ronan Corrigan, and we shot our last two music videos with them. We wanted to capture how cinematic we felt the songs were and we were talking about influences – we were basically trying to get like a Richard Linklater meets David Lynch kind of style. We wanted it to be weird and kind of off-kilter and stuff but we also wanted to have that, coming of age angsty feel to it as well, and then in the ‘Not Your Summer’ video with all the stock footage of Irish holidays, all the old school stuff that plays into the whole ‘Community Spirit’ and the idea of all these small villages that we grew up in and kind of the old Ireland and stuff”
Craig: “And obviously the metaphor of being in what was once a fun place for families to go, and we’re in it and it’s completely derelict and rundown and you know people are sleeping in there in sleeping bags, it was pretty dark. That suited the darkness of the song even though there’s darkness masked with very summery bright sounding music I think.”
The Academic are known for creating catchy earworm melodies. But their ability to pen sharp, thought-provoking lyrics is perhaps one reason the band relate so well with their audience. Within ‘Community Spirit’ The Academic capture life as a twenty-something perfectly. The lyrics seem as if they are an overspill of spontaneous thought or an honest attempt to digest personal emotions.
Craig: “Completely what I was going through at the time. I was really struggling for any new songs, and it was January just gone, and Ireland had slipped back into complete lockdown and we couldn’t go anywhere. That was the first song and I started feeling down, and bad for everybody – everybody was meant to be doing things, people were finishing college and not getting to experience that type of stuff. Especially my little sister, that’s what kind of birthed the song like the title, ‘Not Your Summer’. It was just very much in my head that it was like we’re being forced to live with ourselves and when you want to get away from that and you can’t, it’s quite difficult. It was actually an easy song lyrically to write.”
Stephen: “A big thing for us, we never try and force a subject matter if it’s not coming naturally to us, we won’t sit down and be like, let’s write a political anarchist masterpiece. A saying that I always come back to is ‘write what you know’. I think you won’t go wrong if you just write what you know.”
Interesting turn of phrases are commonplace within the bands’ songs and this has become more prominent as they have progressed. The synth-laced nostalgic gem ‘Smart Mouth’ has an intriguing comparison between relationships and tennis with the use of a quirky lyrical reference “It’s love fifteen to you”.
Craig: “Yeah fun fact about that song there was a different song and it had the love fifteen thing. But I listened to it and I probably showed people and it actually was just a song about tennis, basically, with a slight relationship metaphor inside it and I always liked the idea but, every time I listened to it I was like, this just sounds like I’m trying to get on Wimbledon “
Stephen: “Yeah too tennis heavy”
Craig: “Way too tennis heavy”
Stephen: “You need to get the balance right. They are very comparable [relationships and tennis] you get a lot of back and forth.”
Craig: “But if it’s too on the nose you sound like an idiot, you know, “
Stephen: “I think we got it right.”
‘I Don’t See Good’ is a darker song compared to the rest on the EP. It’s probably my favourite tune on ‘Community Spirit’. The band perfectly balances dark sultry moments of pulsing bass and smoky synths with a sense of confusion and turmoil – these musical elements, teamed with a shredding guitar solo, make the track a delight on the ears.
Craig: “ It’s a really old song. It’s one of the first. We were a band way back and I wasn’t the singer and then we kind of took a little break, and I started demoing songs on a laptop, and we got back together as what would be The Academics for the first time and we used to play that. I always liked the idea of the song, and it just took years and years to get it into that place and it actually just took demoing it with just an acoustic guitar and a little drum machine doing a kick and snare”
Stephen: “ Yeah, kind of bringing it back to basics “
Craig: “Literally the very basics and it then became completely bass-heavy, and in a much darker way. I think that was the one where we didn’t record that first, that was kind of in the middle of it all. We got around to it and we were in our comfort zones and we started just really serving the song rather than trying to fill it up with too much stuff and keep the tenderness of the lyrics and that kind of forbidden romance that you can have at a younger age. Again it was quite reflective because we look back on it as older guys now, and the lyrics didn’t change too much, it still had that naivety to it and the guitar solo wasn’t written in total, we played a bunch of solos and chopped it all up “
Stephen: “And then put it together to create, like a Frankenstein’s monster. “
Craig: “ But Matt’s [Murtagh] physically able to play it live so fair play to him”
The Academic aren’t afraid to revisit old songs. In fact, they have proven that reimagining a song written years ago can result in a refined and more mature tune. Some artists cringe at their older lyrics and find the thought of approaching old scribbles on a paper or notebook from their youth embarrassing, but the pair told me it’s an important part of songwriting.
Craig: “ I think it’s important because when you’re younger, like we were fearless as kids. I think the older you get – I get more paranoid about stuff now and I second-guess lyrics way longer and notebooks become longer and scribbles become larger, and it’s just like, I don’t know what that is, is that anxiety I don’t know”
Stephen: “You can look back at lyrics that we have from when we were teenagers and weirdly they make more sense now than they did back then. Yeah, it’s more of a stream of consciousness when you’re younger. “
Craig: “Yeah, and there’s something great about it and I think because we’ve been a band for so long, anytime we put up anything online and go oh what song should we play? There are fans that would say songs that we used to play that have never been released and they are like oh play this song from when we played one gig in like a truck in the middle of nowhere. Then one random day you might find that file on your phone or something, and you listen to it and you kinda go, oh we weren’t bad back then you know, there might be something in that“
Stephen: “We did a thing on our Instagram yesterday. We were trying to get fans to suggest what songs they think should go on the setlist and someone said a song called ‘Werewolf’, which was a YouTube video we did I want to say sometime in 2014 maybe, no, it was 2013 and an interesting thing is, that song Werewolf we have nicked a line from that and put it in our single ‘Different’”
Craig: “yeah it’s like the last bit of ‘Different’ so we’ve been doing it all the time. It’s just the pandemic’s made us do it a little bit more this time round.”
The Academic are set to return to the stage later this summer. The return of shows is an exciting prospect for all artists and The Academic have jumped right into the deep end with their first show, a spot on the main stage at this year’s Reading & Leads Festival ahead of their own full tour in Spring 2022.
Stephen: “Yeah it’s weird. Our first gig back in front of a crowd will be Reading and Leeds. We’ll be really nervous for that one. We’re opening the mainstage as well both days…. nervous, excited, live music is what we missed the most and not just the performance, the whole lifestyle that goes along with it. The whole spirit of jumping in the back of a van with your pals and the crew that we love so much.“
Craig: “ Seeing other bands we know and everything.”
Stephen: “The whole backstage atmosphere, the pre-show nerves, the post-show breakdowns, all of it, we miss every single bit of it. Can’t wait to get it back.”
Before we finished our interview Stephen and Craig gave some wise words of advice for anyone who is starting a band or a career in music.
Craig: “Well, hang in there at the minute.”
Stephen: “I would say trust your gut, no one knows the type of artist that you want to be more than you do, and there’s no point in fighting for someone else’s vision, I’d say trust your gut, follow your instincts.”
‘Community Spirit’ is bursting from the seams with melodious musical gems. The Academic have an awe-inspiring ability to create hook-filled melodies that ooze charm and beckon repeat plays. However, when you dig a little deeper, you will find their lyrics speak of angst, conflicting emotions and deeper, sometimes darker subject matters than their bight indie sound displays. These guys are growing their sound and deft songwriting superbly, and ‘Community Spirit’ is a first-rate example of this. For the band’s debut at producing, it’s a triumph, and as a body of work, it’s an absolute joy to the ears.
Stream ‘Community Spirit’ EP below
Author: Danu
Four in the Morning have released their new single ‘Keep It Together’. Irish singer-songwriter Kevin Dolan leads the band with Kiran Srinivasan, Dan Walwyn and Alex Lees completing the eclectic genre-defying line-up.
I caught up with Kevin, who is living in Australia, to chat about the new single, how the band craft their dreamy, musically dense tunes, and how he hasn’t been able to return to Ireland due to the pandemic.
‘Keep It Together’ is an atmospheric tune that ebbs and flows with brooding and evocative instrumentation. Kevin explained to me how the pandemic influenced the song.
“ I guess the first line of the song is – ” I haven’t been sleeping again. It’s been a while since that’s been a thing ” – and that was just a truism I guess. When lockdown hit, as for everyone and it’s pretty boring to hear me talk about it but it was a lot of stress, it was a lot of you didn’t know what was going on, we still don’t know what’s going on. We’re back in lockdown now so it’s just been uncertainty and I think everyone has been going through this weird joint psychological roller coaster and for me, that manifested itself. I’ve always been terrible at sleeping, and just before lockdown started I had bought this new record player, and these speaker setups, and they weren’t working. I had all this time stuck at home and I wasted a lot of it just trying to figure out how to make these bloody speakers work. So I realised that I was putting all of this stress, angst and worry into fixing these bloody speakers, and the song, kind of stemmed from that I guess – that and… I was listening to I think it was this New York Times radio podcast, where they were just playing moments from all over the States and all over the world of people dealing with COVID and lockdown. It was amazing to me to get all of these people’s brains just sort of fed into my head and that’s probably what was keeping me up. The song then came with a jumble of all of that, this idea of trying to keep yourself together and probably doing a very bad job of it.”
‘Keep It Together’ is the perfect example of each band members musical prowess as they intricately weave multiple layers and textures into the song to create a gripping listening experience that lingers in the listener’s mind for days.
“ I always joke that I’m a real lyric person and I’ll sit down at a piano and a guitar and write a song with lyrics and that’s how this song started, but the band I play with, these amazing musicians Dan [Walwyn] on bass, Kiran [Srinivasan] on guitar and piano and drums and Alex [Lees] on guitar, and I’m a real folk lyric nerd, but they’re like jazz nuts into prog. [ Progressive rock] and they’re a million times better than I am. We always joke that they take a song and just shift it and play with it until it breaks. I don’t have a big musical background so I just describe what’s in my head for a song and I think for this one it was the sound of a radio breaking and someone fluttering in and out of consciousness or whatever, and they ran with that and create this sound around the story. Interestingly for this one, because we sat with it so long over lockdown, it was made in a bunch of different directions. It started as a real driving kind of indie banger, just simple rock song, and that didn’t feel right. Then we took it away and we were just sending files back and forth to each other because we were in lockdown and Kiran created this drum loop and slowed the song down and that’s when we were like, this is the vibe for this one. Then finally, we got to record it in the studio, I’d say maybe six months, nine months after I’d started writing it, and we hadn’t played it live, at any point. So we went into the studio and we just kind of reinvented it again. It was really organic. The parts weren’t written on their own, we just played it in a room together which is the coolest way to play any music, and then just kept layering stuff on top of it until it felt right.”
The drum loop pulses through the song with a heartbeat-like effect, becoming the element within the track that exudes tension while an icy piano melody and synth embellishments create an ethereal expansive soundscape.
“Yeah, that drum loop was on the demo from way back and we again, couldn’t play in a room with drums and we couldn’t record in a room with drums in lockdown. We haven’t used samples or stuff before, but we had this drum loop that we loved, and that became almost the linchpin of the song. I always say there’s glass and there’s clay. Clay is the thing that you can mould and glass is the thing that you mess with, it breaks and for this one, it was the piano and it was the drums that were the glass of it. We actually tried to recreate that drum loop in the studio, and our producer Jono Steer was amazing, he is an amazing person. He was just like, ‘nah, just keep this’, and we ended up building more drums around it but keeping that. I think it goes through the whole song.“
The lyrics discuss putting on a good face and trying to convince those around you that you have it all together, which is a relatable theme even without the looming pandemic. Through his lyrics, Kevin perfectly captures a sense of loneliness while masking that hollow feeling through the metaphor of the broken record player. “I took it apart just to see what makes you sing. It was nothing but blue wires and the space between”.
“I wish I could say, I spent ages, meticulously crafting these words. But honestly, I actually don’t think I wrote them down. We were uploading them all to Spotify and all the things, and you have to put in the lyrics and I realised I hadn’t saved lyrics anywhere. Kiran our drummer, he’s a real organised brain, that I’m not. So I jotted down the lyrics, and he’s like ‘Kevin, these are not what you’re singing’, and he fixed them up. So it was a really weird one, I guess you get really lucky, sometimes with songs and there’s definitely songs that I sit down and I really write, but this one I don’t remember writing it and I couldn’t find notes where I had pieced together the lyrics, it kind of just all, fell out of me I guess”
‘Keep It Together’ feels like it lives in a dream state, or the in-between dreaming and awake. Kevin’s unconscious writing of the lyrics adds to the mystique of the track, while the cinematic instrumentation creates an awe-inspiring sense of elation.
“ I love when you mentioned cinematic, It’s such a compliment. I love images in songs and creating little postcards of images throughout songs and I’ve worked really hard at that, throughout writing lots of other songs. If the song hadn’t had those, I think I would have just thrown it away and forgotten about it, which I’ve done with 100 other songs that I wrote at the same time.”
Four in the Morning maintain a dreamy, night-time chilled atmosphere throughout the song, even when the background synths and elements of distortion create a tense and heavy soundscape towards the crescendo. The vocals are hushed and sombre, adding a haunting or deep sadness to the song. It’s as if Kevin is quietly revealing the lyrics as if it’s too difficult to say aloud. This is the first time we hear Kevin display his voice in this melancholic and earnest manner. His vocals walk a fine line between nonchalance and despair throughout.
“Yeah, it’s a really good point. We play a lot of bars and loud rooms and I love it …and the trick was always could you have a few people at the bar stop talking, if they stopped talking and looked at you, you knew you were doing something right. I love Glen Hansard, and those people who can really belt out a song, but this one because it was written in lockdown and again not played live it had a little bit of a different vibe and again, our producer really wanted to honour that for want of the better term, in the studio. I remember he asked us and I was like ‘I don’t know how to do the chorus should I be giving the chorus more than I currently am’, and he’s like, ‘well do it how you sing it live’ and I was like, ‘we’ve never sung it live, you [Jono Steer] were the first person we sang it in front of’, he’s like, ‘oh cool, just do it, how you’ve been doing it’. So I think in a way that hopefully does fit the song”
The song was produced, recorded and mixed by Jono Steer (Angie McMahon, Ainslie Wills, Leif Vollebekk, Julia Wallace) at The Perch Recording Studio in Castlemaine in rural Australia. I wondered what it was like working with Jono.
“I think Jono is an amazing talent to be able to come into a room and listen to the stuff that the band is playing and [hear] what’s important. So the way we work with Jono was. He came to a rehearsal of ours and he just sat and we played all the songs to him, and it was literally the first time we’d ever played the songs to anyone. We were like, oh wow this is like a little gig, and he kind of took that away with him, and he didn’t really say much. Jono is a really quiet dude, but he didn’t really say much at that rehearsal. But when we got to the studio then, I think he’d really inhabited the songs and knew the most important bits of all the songs and he set us up in a way that we were just playing in a little sitting room, basically together. He knew that’s how we practice and how we played together. He just took the best bits of the song and just really dialled them up in ways that capture the song and sounds that I hadn’t been expecting for the songs or I hadn’t really imagined could go there, and it was great. It was so cool.”
‘Keep It Together,’ is part of a series of songs the band have written for an EP called ‘Stress Dreams’. Kevin explained what we can expect from the EP.
“So, the EP. It’s great that you talk about dreams and this space between awake and asleep because the EP is called ‘Stress Dreams’, and we played with a lot of names, but I realised after listening back to it, that there was all these references to dreams and sleeping and I guess even, we’re bloody well called Four in the Morning. I realised these songs were all ways of dealing with the world in a way that dreams do. A lot of stuff happens to you during the day, you go to sleep, your brain spits out a dream at you. I love dreams, they’re amazing, and I think songs are very similar. They’re your unconscious thinking about what’s going on in your life, and that’s what these songs feel like they are, and in a similar way musically, it’s hopefully quite atmospheric, it’s quite lyrical but in a little bit of an interesting twist. In terms of themes and stuff, it’s a lot about missing home, like not being able to get home at the moment and missing friends as well as just dealing with the minutiae of daily life and ruminating on that,”
Kevin has been living in Australia ( currently in lockdown ) and has found the pandemic particularly difficult because he couldn’t get home at all to see his family.
“ I haven’t been home in four years. Usually, I go home every two years, every second Christmas. I was scheduled to go home, Christmas of 2019, but I said, you know what I’m sick of going home in the middle of winter. I’m going to wait for a nice Irish summer I want long twilight evenings, walking on the beach in Lahinch. So I decided to go home July, 2020, being like, what’s the worst that can happen. It’s a cliche but you don’t really realise what you’re missing until you’re gone and I think that’s seeped itself into the songs in a huge way. I’m really looking forward to getting home and playing some of these songs to people at home.”
“It was really scary for me and my girlfriend. It was really scary for us because rightly or wrongly…we grew up as this generation of what’s a border, what’s a country, we’re global citizens all that kind of thing…It was a real stress and I guess it’s still kind of is. It’s tough, not getting home to my family…but yeah I’m really looking forward to going home. One of the songs on the EP, the opening track is called ‘Home Home’. It’s I guess about that joke, that idea in Ireland, you know, you’ve got your home, where you’re living, but you’ve got your home home, where your parents live or you go home to at the weekend or whatever.”
When Four in the Morning finally get to perform live in Ireland it will be a big deal for the band, and Kevin told me what he is looking forward to the most.
“The dream plan at the moment, is a realistic plan I guess, to head back around April next year. I don’t think we’ll get back for Christmas unfortunately but I think sort of April, March, May hopefully, we’ll start opening up again and yeah I’d love to get home and play these songs. It’s funny, I haven’t seen Fontaine’s DC live, I haven’t seen Pillow Queens live I haven’t seen all these great Irish bands that I love and I’ve been following from over here, whatever about me getting to play songs at home, I would love that and I really look forward to doing that. But yeah, just getting to some good Irish gigs will be exciting as well.”
Four in the Morning are a talented band. Their proficient musicianship crafts time stopping tunes laden in depth and meaning. ‘Keep It Together’ displays this superbly through beautiful melodies, eloquent songwriting and rich instrumentation. Looking forward to the EP.
Stream ‘Keep It Together’ below
Author: Danu
Paddy Casey is set to release his fifth album ‘Turn This Ship Around’. The double album is set for release on 6th of August 2021. I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about the album and the return of shows, the prospect which has been giving the artist dreams about getting up on stage and forgetting his songs.
“Well, for me, I had a lot of songs that I didn’t think they really fit but, I haven’t released an album in a few years, so I didn’t want to wait a few years more, I suppose. I had these songs and I really liked them, and I know that sounds naff, saying that about your own songs, but I did. Some of the songs, I didn’t think they fit together but I thought they were strong songs, so I decided because it’s been so long, to just split them in two and make one side kind of folky, stringy and piano-y or whatever and then the other side would be more full-on and upbeat.”
The first half of ‘Turn This Ship Around’ is energetic and lively while the second half of the album is a lot more laid-back and boasts wonderful use of elegant piano and strings or guitar and strings. Through the use of lush melodies and rich instrumentation, both sides flow into each other perfectly while allowing each track to maintain its own identity.
“Oh yeah completely. One song,’ You Are The One’, I really liked but I just didn’t feel like it belongs there at all. I played it to a couple of people, my daughter heard it and I know you can’t really ask your family but, she seemed to think it was great and then a couple of other people thought it should have even been a single. I really liked the sound but I didn’t think it fit but then I went.. do you know what, I don’t know where to put the song, so I’m just gonna plonk it in the middle. Honest to God, I didn’t know where to put it and I just went, well there’s no place it belongs, so I’ll just stick it there.“
“Honestly, I don’t have a plan when I write an album, I really don’t. I write the songs and then I just kind of go, well there’s some songs that I think people will like. I don’t do concepts, the only concept is, maybe like another thing I’m working on is a disco album, but there has to be only three instruments in every song. I know that sounds stupid but you know, it’s fun if you give yourself rules like that sometimes. You’re right, the songs, they all grew in their own little worlds. It’s me on different days, you know, everyone has their weird days and they’re up and down days.”
The album begins with energetic tunes ‘Won’t Take Much’ and ‘This World Is Stranger’ which are absolute bangers. Not only does the singer-songwriter lace the tracks in catchy melodies but in a true Paddy Casey style, thought-provoking lyrics resound throughout. A perfect example of this is in ‘This World Is Stranger’, where Casey croons over a bouncy melody “ I know some people say we’ve never been up to the moon. What difference does that make to me if that thing has no gravity or if it’s all technology that someone left for us to see What difference does it really make to me”. Casey hits the nail on the head with social and political topics taking a relatable and light-hearted stance that is charming and witty.
“I don’t really care either way politically. I mean I think it’s all nonsense, most of the time, what matters is the way people feel at the end of it, how they feel about themselves and how they look at themselves. When all that bullsh*t is gone, all that’s really left is how we treat each other. It sounds slightly pretentious but, I think at the core of everything, maybe for that song, ‘This World Is Stranger’, that’s all I’m really talking about, none of this bullsh*t matters. The world isn’t such a small place you know. Let yourself feel the things that you naturally felt as a kid, that you might have pushed aside. It’s not something, we all don’t know. I think sometimes musicians, point out the obvious, sometimes you need to hear the obvious. But yeah, for me it’s like, there’s enough people in the world trying to make it smaller for you without doing it to yourself.“
There are plenty of musical gems on this album. ‘Turn This Ship Around’ in particular exudes a cinematic atmosphere filled with synths, strings, piano and ethereal soundscapes that keep subtly building throughout. The song sounds as if it was written for a movie.
“I can’t remember, that’s a few years old now, I actually don’t remember how I started it. I think I just started with a piano. It’s a breakup song. I mean if I haven’t written it in the lyrics, I’m not really doing a good job, I suppose you find yourself out on that abyss, or like this kind of no man’s land and you know you’re hanging on to something that’s not really coming back, and you’re missing out on everything else because you’re doing that. I wanted that to happen in the chorus, that decision to happen. So it [the chorus] had to be big and it had to be like, f*ck it, let’s do this, let’s do something else, let’s go for another world. I’m not great at explaining my songs but there definitely had to be two different worlds, there was the guy who was, out there lost, and then there’s the guy who was like, I could spend the rest of my days looking for something.”
Casey blends an array of lush sounds that create subtle bursts of musical euphoria throughout his songs. From the electronic pulses and swaggering guitars in ‘Ready For The Good Times’ and the sugar pop rhythmic bop of ‘You Are The One’, each track is a delight to listeners ears. I wondered does he ever get overwhelmed discovering these perfect musical blends and moments of inspiration when creating his songs.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever said this, but when I’m writing a song, I will sometimes start, and just sit there and actually sing the song line by line like when I’m recording it, and I won’t have any lyrics in my head beforehand bar, the first line. I’ll know where I want it to go. Sometimes I write like that and sometimes, the next line just feeds, how I want the music to feel if that makes sense. Sometimes I play it line by line because sometimes I literally don’t know what I’m gonna do. I know in my heart what I want the song to say, but I haven’t written the words if you know what I mean. So I will just sing it and I’ll know the line feels right, I’ll know it’s not perfect but it’s pure heart.”
“ I don’t know what people think about my songs. I know they love certain songs, and I don’t understand why they love them. It’s not a problem, but it used to get me. I was like, why don’t I get what they get off that song or why don’t I understand it or whatever. Now I’m just grateful that they do. You know, that’s their world and that’s the way they feel and I know why I wrote the song, but I always feel like maybe, I shy away from emotions a little bit sometimes. I’m not really great saying how I feel, I suppose. Maybe that’s what makes me kind of weird and uncomfortable about it.”
“I have songs that I wrote when I was a kid that people love and for me, it’s like if somebody read your copybook when you were in school or wherever, all the sh*t you’d written you know, to me it’s a little bit like that. But I put it out into the world so I should be able to accept that.”
I wondered if Casey often looks back at his older songs and thinks, if he could do it again, he would change them.
”Yeah, the first album [Amen (So Be It)], we literally went in and banged it out. I just picked up whatever instruments were in the studio. We had two days, it was supposed to be demos. So, it was just literally me just having fun for a couple of days doing demos, but that’s what I thought it was. So, there’s definitely a few things on that I’d love another go at but I’d ruin it for people if I recorded them”
‘There Will Be Love’ begins the second half of the album – radiating a mystical atmosphere and a captivating cello arrangement, Casey blends folk tones with warm guitar, ethereal soundscapes and Traditional Japanese undertones to create a timeless and beautiful tune that is simply divine.
“There is a Japanese girl playing on that and you can kind of hear the bit of a Japanese vibe and there is a girl playing cello as well so there is two string players on that one.”
“She was singing with us because she’s a friend of my daughter’s and she gigs with my daughter, So yeah, I’ll rope in anyone who’s around but they were doing gigs with me and so I was dragging her on stage in my set or whatever and she’d just jam in. She’s a great, great violin player and the cello player I’ve been playing with for years so I drag her away from her kids for a day or two, as often as I can, just to record stuff.“
Casey is hoping to do live shows soon to accompany the release of the album. However, the absence of gigging due to the pandemic has caused a sense of anxiety and nerves for the singer-songwriter as he anticipates the return of live shows.
“That’s the plan, It depends on what the government say, in their next rollout. I can live a little bit longer but they want to get it together soon. Even if it’s just outside, anything you know. It’s a long time to leave us in the lurch”
“I’m sh**ting it, excuse the language. I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I walk on the stage, I mean, it’s the stuff of nightmares. Gigging, for me, it’s like, I don’t think about what I’m doing before I walk on the stage, and somehow it just, comes together, like the first few songs I might be a little bit nervous but it kind of kicks in, I’m kind of hoping that the muscle memory, still kind of works, you know. I should practice because my voice is definitely not up for doing a few gigs in a row. I’d say I’ll have to sing a bit every day now before I start. I get hangovers from gigs, like the next day. I don’t know maybe it’s the breathing, I’ve always tried to figure out what it is but maybe it’s because you’re breathing, you’re singing and you’re breathing so fast, or something. Yeah, you’re breathing differently than you do normally. It could be just pure adrenaline for that long, maybe makes you feel a bit sore, I’m not complaining but I definitely get a weird hangover off gigging. I think you just give an energy that you don’t really use every day in your life, [ it ] sounds stupid because you don’t get a hangover from running around the block. But yeah, I’m nervous and I’m slightly anxious of doing a gig. I’ve definitely dreamt about getting up on stage and forgetting songs or not being able to sing a song or get through a song, and then the crowd just walking out and things like that, just weird things. There’s a certain degree of the unknown and fear factor when I walk on a stage. I think it’s a good thing to have it. If you walk on stage with no feeling at all, you might as well be sitting in your sitting room watching telly. You have to feel something. As soon as I start walking on stage, and I’m not a bit freaked out, then maybe it’s time to stop. “
The musician has been at the forefront of the Irish music scene since his multi-platinum-selling debut album ‘Amen (So Be It)’, His career has taken him all over the globe touring with acts such as The Pretenders, R.E.M, Ian Brown, Blondie and Tracy Chapman to name a few. He has played all over Ireland, including a record-breaking week-long run in The Olympia Theatre, alongside special guest spots with U2, Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan and more. His successful debut album ‘Amen (So Be It)’ achieved many international highlights including tracks being featured in hit television shows such as ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘Roswell’ alongside extensive American and European tours. Further establishing himself as one of the country’s most successful artists, his second album ‘Living’ went on to become one of the biggest ever selling albums in Ireland (approximately 15 times platinum). I asked Casey if he had any advice for anyone who is embarking on a career in music.
“I think it’s different now. I don’t think you need a record label now. If you’re really good at pushing yourself online you can do as well as anyone. So it’s a different world. For me, the only rule, I had at the time was, just play everywhere and play to as many people as you can in the beginning. Don’t be a snob about gigs, don’t be a snob about anything because people are people and it doesn’t matter where they see you, you know, where you see them. I think the best thing to do is just put yourself out there in front of people because that’s where you learn everything when you’re standing there. You don’t learn it sitting in your room. You learn it forged in the fire. The truth is you really learn everything while you’re doing it and no amount of pontification is going to help you. I think the kids are brilliant now, lyrically people have come a long way. Maybe people are better at their feelings now or something I don’t know but it’s a good thing”
“They don’t rhyme anymore. Everything needed to rhyme when we were starting. Nobody gives a sh*t about rhyming anymore and it’s cool, it works. I still rhyme all the time. I don’t know are kids smarter, smarter in some ways, you know, the internet, Spotify as much as I hate it and it killed the business, it’s great for getting music out there because people don’t necessarily want to spend money but they want to hear your music, you know,”
Casey isn’t one to sit still. He is writing music all the time and even has a musical in the works.
“ I’m always writing songs. I’m writing some great songs at the minute. As soon as I release the album I’ll sit down and I’ll try and finish off a bunch of new songs. I’m gonna try and get a new album out by next year and even if it’s not an album, because they say you shouldn’t even bother releasing albums anymore. I mean even just EP’s or whatever, you know, people only want songs now. I always love albums and I love what people are trying to do with albums. I don’t necessarily do it myself, like I was saying earlier, my album is kind of a bit Higgledy Piggledy or whatever but I love when somebody gets together and the whole vibe of the album feels cohesive. But I am a Prince fan and Prince did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. In the beginning, when I make it [an album], I want to make myself happy with it. I want to feel that excitement of a song, whether it’s the emotion or whether it’s the style, it has to be in there somewhere. Once I get that I’m like, Okay, I hope other people get that too or something. I don’t really know what I’m doing and that’s the truth. You’re not making the chair, you know, if all you had to do was somebody would sit and it was comfortable and it didn’t break, at least you know that’s what an album should be but it’s not like that. There’s no rule. Most of my favourite music is random. I love Parliament but, you know, from one album to the next, they’re a completely different band and that rubbed off a bit. You don’t want to write the same song again ever. I’m doing a musical and the best thing about the musical is I can write a love song. It’s not necessarily me, you know what I mean, I know that sounds stupid but I don’t want to write ‘Saints And Sinners’, again, or I don’t want to rewrite ‘Sweet Suburban Sky’ even though I think I could write it better now. I’ve just been doing it [the musical] in my head for years anyway. It’s only because of lockdown I kind of, consciously set out to do it. I’ve been writing and a guy I’ve been working with over the years he mixed one side of this album and he always thought I was writing a musical from the day we met. That’ll be two years at least. That will take a while, it’s actual work.“
‘Turn This Ship Around’ is a sublime collection of songs that showcase Casey’s deft musical prowess. Each tracks intricate instrumentation and emotive lyrical content are a fine display of beautiful musicianship. This double album is a real treat for listeners to indulge in again and again.
‘Turn This Ship Around’ will be released on the 6th of August for more you can follow Paddy Casey on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/PaddyCaseyOFFICIAL/
Stream the single, ‘Won’t Take Much’, taken from the album below
Author: Danu
