Category Archives: Interviews

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With : Suren from Bombay Bicycle Club

Bombay Bicycle Club have announced details of their new live album, ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – Live At Brixton’. The album was recorded on 8th November 2019 at the band’s sold out Brixton Academy show, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album. It will be released on 11th December via Mmm… Records + Caroline International. I caught up with drummer Suren de Saram to talk about the new live album, Bombay Bicycle Club’s  three year hiatus and the music wizard Jim Abbiss. 

‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – Live At Brixton’ is set for release during a time when no one can see shows. It is quite a blessing to a lot of people. It’s a moment in time that people can remember how great it was as well as hopefully look forward to the return of shows. Suren explains it was a special moment for the band as well.

“We did play a very short run around the UK at the end of last year, celebrating the 10th anniversary of our debut album. We sometimes occasionally record our shows. We usually do, just to afterwards make notes to see how we can improve with that kind of stuff. I think we recorded a couple of nights on our tour, one of which was the Brixton gig. At the time we didn’t record it specifically with a view to putting out a live album, but it turned out to be a really special night for us. Listening to the recording afterwards we were all really happy with what it captured. It did capture exactly how we see ourselves as a live band, that kind of raw energy that personally, I’m not sure we’ve ever fully captured on one of our studio albums. So basically we were so happy with the recording and then, started talking about releasing it and you know with the way everything’s gone, this year, seems like a great time to be putting out a live recording to remind everyone what a gig actually is. That’s basically how it came about.”

Bombay Bicycle Club were due to embark on an extensive European and North American headline tour and numerous festival headline appearances this year. This live album is a really great way for fans to experience the bands wonderful sound. After returning from a three year hiatus the band were not expecting to have to take another year off.

“Yeah, absolutely. it’s been a difficult year. It’s been a super difficult year for literally everyone but I think it could have been worse. We came back from a few years hiatus towards the end of last year. We managed to do some gigs, end of last year and we managed to do a UK tour, at the start of this year, after we released the last album. It could have been worse, we could have just announced our comeback and then immediately, the pandemic and gone into lockdown right away so at least we managed to do some gigs. Yes, it is a real shame that the album campaign got cut short after two months.I think we were just getting to grips with exactly what was going on and I don’t think we were really in the right headspace to be writing new music but now we are getting our heads down and we figure the best way to use this time is just to start writing new material which hopefully we’ll be able to get out spring or summer next year. Then we’re trying to reschedule some festivals and the headline gigs that would have happened this year, for the end of next year, because we’re a bit hesitant to do it earlier than that. So, hopefully new music at some point next year to help propel those dates for a second offer next year.”

Upon its release in 2009, ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ was met with acclaim and cemented a barely-out-of-school Bombay Bicycle Club as key players in a thriving indie music scene; an unpredictable new act and a rapidly rising one too. I wondered what comes to mind for Suren when he thinks back to that album and its making.

“When I think of that album I think of very hectic live shows, with our mates when we played in London obviously not so much around the rest of the country but we just had our mates jumping up on stage shaking tambourines completely out of time and essentially ruining the gig a little bit. I think of that time as being like a crazy ball of energy, I suppose and yeah obviously over the years, we’ve I suppose, refined ourselves a little bit, especially our live shows, it’s changed quite a lot. So yeah, I think of that time as just a little bit hectic. A lot of sweat. Just generally a little bit messy, you know, in a good way.”

The band have come a long way since then and yet tracks like  ‘Always Like This’ is still an undeniable live favourite, however the band never felt the pressure from that album’s success.

“It’s interesting because I don’t think we did at all. That album debut holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts and I think people have come to really love that album, but upon releasing it, it’s not like it completely exploded. I don’t think any of us thought that was the album that sort of broke us, if you want to put it that way.The whole career of the band – album to album – has been like a gradual build. So, No, to be honest, we didn’t feel much or any pressure really to follow up that first album. We did quite a smart move releasing essentially an acoustic album as our second album. After releasing that no one really knew what to expect from us. We kind of gave ourselves, complete creative license to come on and do whatever we wanted after that. So, to answer your question, no it didn’t feel like any pressure. I see that first album as being a bit more of a slow burner and people have connected with it as time has gone on. “

The band had been developing and crafting their sound with each album release gaining momentum so when they decided to take a break it was quite a shock to people. It was a brave decision to just stop the band. I wondered if there was anxiety around what the consequences could be. Everyone’s mind can panic when you have been doing something for so long, the fear of being alone, trying to do something else or even that if you return to the band it won’t be the same.I wondered how Suren coped with this or if he had any worries at all.

“It was a mixture of things, there was definitely some anxiety for sure. Looking at it from the outside it probably looked like a very strange time to put a stop to the band temporarily. When we decided to go on a break we didn’t know what the future would be at that time, we had no plans to ever get back together again. For all we knew that was essentially it as far as the band was concerned. Yeah, looking at it from the outside, it probably seemed like quite a strange time to put that stop to it. The last album, before we went on a break, ‘So long, See You Tomorrow’, was nominated for Mercury Prize, Novello Awards, it definitely reached the biggest audience of any of our albums up to that point. It went to number one in the UK aswell.So, yeah, that album was amazing for us. But then, from the inside, we just needed time, we needed to experience life outside the band really once we finished touring that album. We started the band when we were in school. We went straight from finishing school into doing the band and the four of us had never really lived life without the band. So we thought it was really important for us to grow individually, a couple of the guys were clearly itching to release some of their own music, which they did. Personally, it took me a little time to adjust to the band not being there at the start of the hiatus because obviously you know it’s a big part of your life and identity so to suddenly not have that felt pretty strange. I eventually fell into the mode of working as a session musician playing with other artists which at the end of the hiatus can look back on that and think those years were super beneficial for me personally and I think it’s the same for everyone in the band, we definitely grew as individuals. We have come back, much more mature with a refound energy, enthusiasm and love for the band.”

The live album follows the release of the band’s fifth studio album, ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ earlier this year. The album peaked at #4 on the UK album chart and garnered widespread acclaim from fans and critics alike.‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ is a great title especially for all the madness that has gone on this year however when you delve deep into the albums themes one realises the title is timeless. It reflects something everyone has experienced at one time or another, finding comfort in something when everything else has gone wrong.

“It was the title of one of the songs on the album and when we were brainstorming – it looks like a morbid album – to us it’s actually a very optimistic and positive title to do with having music as that kind of solace and escape from anything and everything really, whatever’s going on in someone’s life, or our lives collectively. It did turn out to be weirdly kind of prophetic, which is very relevant. Obviously we didn’t see any of this coming. We just liked the idea of music being that escape that we all have whenever sh*t hits the fan.”

Bombay Bicycle Club merge a lot of styles on ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ but what stood out to me is the album is a slight return to the more guitar heavy days with some electronic flurries. I wondered if revisiting ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ influenced the creation of the new album in anyway

“It’s more to do with the album “So Long, See You Tomorrow”  Jack ( Jack Steadman ) he’s the main writer and singer in the band, a lot of the stuff that got introduced sees that kind of heavy use of sampling. Then if you go and listen to the album that Jack made as a solo artist under Mr Jukes. he really goes off in that direction. So I think Jack kind of got that out of his system so to speak with “So Long, See You Tomorrow” and with the Mr Jukes album. Then, when we regrouped, we started writing..and they were just naturally more kind of guitar focused. I think we quite like the idea of going back to our roots a little bit, we went off on various tangents over the years. Yeah, I quite like the idea of returning home, so to speak.”

Seen as it’s 10 years since the bands debut album. Suren tells me what advice he would give his younger self embarking on his journey with Bombay Bicycle Club

” I think we were quite smart in that we took our time with things. I know that sounds crazy because we recorded our debut when we were 18 and recorded EP, when we were kind of 16/17 but we consciously stayed grounded and did not allow ourselves get carried away. We waited to sign a record deal, until after we’d finished school when we were 18 and as I say, everything has just been sort of a gradual build at least that’s what it felt like to us over the years. There was never a moment where we signed a huge deal and were all looking at each other being like, ‘come on, this is it guys, like gonna smash it’. We’ve never had that moment, like never you know, had a number one single where we were like, ‘yeah, this is gonna break us’, Even “So Long, See You Tomorrow”  that got to number one in the album charts, we’ve just taken everything in our stride, and any success that’s come our way we’ve felt like we’ve earned it, I suppose, and very grateful for it.”

“So what advice would I give – I’d say just take your time. There’s no rush, stay grounded. Don’t get carried away. Don’t get caught up in your own hype. Just work on honing your craft, becoming the best musician you can be in terms of the instrument you’re playing, or in terms of songwriting. Some of the earliest recording sessions when we were working with Jim Abbiss, he’s the producer, he’d just done the debut Arctic Monkeys album, just after the time that we were with him when we were 16. That was a real learning curve.It was a really interesting experience. Our first day he was like ‘ What on Earth have I got myself into’ because we’d never been in the studio before. We kind of let nerves, get the better of us. But, yeah, in hindsight that was a very valuable learning experience. So, yeah just take your time to learn your craft and there’s no rush, basically.”

A lot of young bands when they’re starting off they think when they are going into a recording studio everything is going to be natural. To know that Bombay Bicycle Club were a bit nervous going in is something that will give budding artists a lot of comfort.

“Yeah, absolutely. I think we have those recordings lying around somewhere when we were 16 with Jim first. We set up in the room and we ran through a few songs, initially just to show them to him and…in the end they are like a complete mess. It’s four very over excited and nervous kids and he had to whip us into shape very quickly just in the space of a few days. Obviously in the space of a few days you don’t change drastically but yeah he really used that time to kind of kick us on, and to work on what we need to work on.”

‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – Live At Brixton’ is a real gem which showcases a band without boundaries. Bombay Bicycle Club can take three years off and return fresher and more dynamic than ever. The album captures the magic and raw psychedelic indie sound of the band superbly. It the perfect album to tantalise the senses and ease the cravings until the next blast of Bombay Bicycle Club shows

‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – Live At Brixton’ is set for release on  11th December

Author : Danu

A Chat With, Interviews, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

A Chat With : Rory & The Island

I caught up with Irish singer-songwriter Rory Gallagher aka Rory & The Island to talk about his new single ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)’, touring and those fun facebook live streams.

Presented through wonderfully rich and warm musicianship  ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)’ is a passionate track which talks about the battle of keeping a sustainable career as an artist in a difficult industry. This theme is relatable for so many artists at the moment, but for Rory the track talks about his feelings after finding an exciting new chapter of his live crushed by the pandemic. The opening of his new music venue ‘The Wildcat’ in Edinburgh never reached its official opening night on the 21st March. 

” Yeah, myself and my wife, we moved our family over from Donegal last year, because we got a lease on a music bar in Edinburgh city center. We were going to open up the Wildcat live music bar and we were really excited. We got it painted, got in a PA system, stage lights – we had everything all set, ready to go and right beside the King’s Theatre in city center as well so it was great location.Our opening date was for the middle of March of this year, and we never got to see it because of the pandemic outbreak but we kept paying the rent, it was being frozen held back and everything but we were trying to keep it going as long as possible and it just got to the point, in the summer where we went,this could be a year, a year and a half, at least. So we just handed the keys back. I remember we had to go in and collect a lot of our stuff and some personal things and just that thing of switching off the dimmer lights and looking back at the bar going “Damn it, you know, we were so close”. It’s never easy when the lights go down and it’s like a double meaning as well because it’s when you’re finished a gig in the theater or stage and the stage lights go down, just that feeling, that one second in particular, you know…We’re definitely not giving up yet and that’s the chorus of the song as well, ‘I see Valhalla in the distance’, you know which is like heaven for warriors, but I never actually say I’m going there. It’s in the destination but I’m not giving up.”

Rory takes a laid back 90’s vibe and vintage folk rock stance on the instrumentation which exudes a sense of comfort and warmth. I was intrigued by the slick guitar work on the track.

“Yeah, I just wrote the basic structure of the song – acoustic and vocal. It is very 90s. It has that Neil Finn almost vintage Crowded House warmth to it. I just felt that warmth was needed and there is a bit of Neil Young influence there as well. I thought I’ll just play the drums and bass and I’ll just multi-track to myself in the studio, put it down really basic at first, and then take it from there. There’s no point in getting involved in a big fancy production thing here just make it, as you say, kind of like vintage folk rock, and then it just seemed to suit so well. It’s funny you mention the guitar line because that’s the one thing I was thinking of dropping out of it because I thought it was non experimental. It’s just playing the actual vocal melody on the guitar. You’re always kind of like, ‘oh god has this been done to death’. But I decided it’s actually such a catchy little melody that works, you know. “

“It’s such a natural thing. We were gonna go much deeper into production when simplicity just seemed to be the way to go.”

Rory’s music writing process changes from song to song and he has experimented with his writing techniques to flesh out his style.

” One of the songs I wrote was about a New York/Donegal gangster called Mad Dog Coll ( Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll ). It was based on true events from the 1920s during Prohibition in the USA. So I just sat down and wrote basically a poem about his life. That was one that I would have done the lyrics first but then other ones like this one I think I wrote that when I was tapping my knees. Sometimes it’s just so handy having a phone because you just grab the phone and hit record in the little audio section. I’ve got so many things with just 30 second splices like that. A lot of the time, I’ll come back to that 30 seconds maybe two weeks later and then, add to it and sometimes you get lucky that you get a complete song from it. That’s really the two ways that I would go – it’s either 30 seconds, or one minute, if I get lucky a burst of inspiration straight onto the phone and work on it later, or else I’ll sit and write, try and complete an entire lyric but that’s probably my plan B that’s much more difficult I find.”

Oozing folk and country tones Rory has a unique and diverse voice. However in ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)’ he exudes a more rock tone. Such confident vocal ability has not gone unnoticed, however he explains vocal confidence is something he built up over time.

” No, I’ve never been confident with my voice and even in the studio I hate hearing it back. I’ve always got a nice response from people and I’ve been doing the Facebook Live thing every Saturday night and it’s got good viewers and people just going ‘oh, I love when you sing this song’ so thank God those people are there because if they weren’t I probably would have stopped singing when I was 19. I just never felt comfortable with my own voice and I probably should have taken lessons but I never did and it’s probably that thing of craft you know when you’ve been doing it so long. I’ve been playing in the pub since I was 15, and for certain bands, you might have to learn a Nirvana song and then you’re playing in a bar and somebody at the bar’s favorite song is by Willie Nelson. That’s where all that would come from and it’s just you constantly learning different styles and hoping that you’ve maintained your own way of singing.I always try to keep my own accent and find my own meaning of the song. So I rarely would ever sing something that I don’t feel, you know. “

Rory has managed to break a world record by becoming the first solo artist to fill the entire eight-hour time slot given by Facebook live. 

” Yeah, well speaking of Wi-Fi, I tried it twice and the first time I got six hours into it the Wi-Fi cut out. Can you imagine that. So that was, like ‘operation don’t smash everything in the room’. But then the second time I tried it like two or three weeks later and managed to get through it and that was great. I didn’t actually end up as hoarse as I thought I would. I’d been doing the gigs for maybe 25 weeks in a row at that stage and just wanted to make it interesting and just start getting a little bit of a buzz going and kind of go right Facebook’s got an eight hour slot. I’m going to give it a go. And there’s that intriguing thing from your own point of view – you kind of go, ‘Am I gonna make it? So yeah it was great but the actual world record, the online world record I think is something mental like 24 hours of videos on YouTube and the actual solo gig was done by a French rapper/producer. I think he did it in Paris and that’s 28 hours, so they’re kind of untouchable swans.”

” You just make it interesting for yourself and you’re seeing people’s comments coming up on the screen as well so you’re interacting with that and sending stuff back to them and I wrote every song that I know. So, I think I wrote, like 210 songs and just put them all on sheets on the wall – the biggest set-list I ever wrote out. I just went through them all and I think I only repeated about six songs which is amazing.I actually enjoyed a lot of it. “

Rory was previously part of the band The Revs but independently earned himself 8 top 30s, 2 top 10s and a number 1 single in the Irish charts, as well as performing all over the UK and Ireland supporting the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Feeder and Alabama 3. I wondered was it daunting going solo.

“It’s weird, after The Revs I moved to Lanzarote because I fell in love with a girl over there who is now my wife, that was in 2006, and I had no money. So, I had to go back and just start playing the pubs again. That was daunting you know where I’ve gone from like doing one hour sets in Europe, Australia and UK with The Revs and having to go into a three hour set of like 90% cover songs, and I had this fear that people down there will be shouting up failure and loser and, and it was probably even worse than that because nobody knew who I was. It was just basically starting from scratch again and built up a whole new thing and I always maintained that even from the age of 15 that I always tried to play my own music in the set, to the point where I’m playing 60% original music which is unheard of in Lanzarote, a holiday resort. So I ended up building up a completely new type of following and I went under the name Rory & The Island, so it was easier to Google, because going under the name Rory Gallagher was just a disaster with the blues legend. Florence + the Machine and Noah and the Whale were quite big at that time so I said well Rory & The Island is nice because I always liked the image of the island for escapism which it was for me. I liked the term Island from the book and from Island Records and when that was set up for Bob Marley. I just like the name Island basically. “

” What was probably daunting as well when you start up your Facebook page, you know, this was in 2010, and I had to start up Rory & The Island and it’s at zero. Then at the end of the week, you’ve got 81 followers and that stuff’s quite tough because you go ‘oh my god I had a top five album and I played Slane. How can I have 81 followers?’ – this goes on in your head with your ego, you know. So I just kept at it and every week grew it up and at the moment now it’s I think 27,000 after 10 years and a lot of them are so loyal it’s just brilliant. It’s very real as well because it just grew so natural but yeah there were a lot of daunting moments. I remember, Ocean Colour Scene and just thinking God I wish the two guys were here and we could play electrically, crank it up and really get this crowd going and then you’re just having to walk out with acoustic guitar in the Olympia before Ocean Colour Scene. Little moments like that, they were daunting. We had such a long slow wind down in The Revs like the last two years were just really tough because, we started off flying and we were doing Slane and Oxygen festivals and we got top 30 single in Australia, all in the first two years and then hit a brick wall and just started to decline. So in a way it was nice to break away for a while, to be honest.”

This allowed Rory to learn more about his own style of writing. It also allowed him to build and craft his own sound. 

” With The Revs, it was trying to make it as much of a democracy as possible so there was always that one third input from each member. You could arrive with a really good idea and after three hours it just wasn’t working with the other two guys and they would scrap that whereas, with the solo stuff it’s much easier, and probably much trickier in its own way because you’ve got enough rope to hang yourself. You can do whatever you want, you would release some of the stuff and then a month later you go ‘Oh my god ! Can I delete this from YouTube’ “

” Yeah, it’s nice to have yourself completely to blame for everything, if that makes sense. You can build up a lot of resentment, especially when you’re younger and there’s ego. You have enough rope to hang yourself so if you put something out, it’s a disaster, you put your own hands up and that’s it. So, yeah, there’s advantages and disadvantages to both things really. Rory & The Island project has been so much more acoustic based, a lot more percussion, bongos, kind of sunshine influence from Canary Islands, using small Spanish guitars and just trying to make it feel warm. Whereas The Revs was hard indie rock, so total contrast you know. That’s the thing after seven years in The Revs, you know even John (McIntyre) the electric guitar player, he hasn’t really played electric guitar much since. He plays with his wife Zoë Conway and they do brilliant interesting Trad Irish stuff. I think after a decade of really loud music and if you haven’t cracked it in the way Metallica or these guys have, you sometimes don’t really want to hear over-driven electric guitar for a long time. When you’ve heard it five nights a week in loads of different clubs all around the world, it’s just like a ringing. You get this ringing in your ear from electric distorted guitar and cymbals, and it’s just a relief to hear the natural sound of wood, acoustic guitars, things like that again. Then you can go full circle where after a couple of years of just acoustic you go ‘it’s time to plug in again’. “

2019 saw Rory return back to Ireland and extensively tour, filling out rooms around the UK and Ireland with his London show at The Dublin Castle selling out within 48 hours of going on sale. I wondered how he has been coping with this lull in shows.

“It’s been very weird. I’ve always suffered a little bit from anxiety. So, even though it was the worst in the world that hour before a gig, once I was 10 minutes into the gig, I was probably happier than I would ever be because I felt comfortable on stage and you could let loose. I was doing that five nights a week at minimum in Lanzarote so it was always there. You could have a bad day and you didn’t feel like the oxygen was flowing right in your system or whatever and then you would get that nervous thing at nine o’clock.Then you start at 10 o’clock, and you feel great at quarter past 10 and that carries through until the following afternoon. It’s weird to get into that addicted to applause type thing where you are just living for live music. For that to stop, for me, it was really difficult to be honest, especially losing the live music bar. So from recommendations of people that went ‘Why don’t you try the Facebook live gigs’ I started that and it’s been saving grace really every Saturday – something to look forward to. It’s not the same buzz at all, not the same energy because you just finish your song, and it’s like a musician’s nightmare. You play the final chord and it’s just silence..You just get used to digital interaction. “ 

There is a lot of pressure on artists now and the music industry can be competitive at times which can be overwhelming but Rory has some words of wisdom for artists looking to pursue a career in the music industry.

” I would say hold on just to see how the vaccine is gonna work first. Let’s just take it from there first. Then after that I would say always try and keep the love of it and always make it fun. It can get very stressy and it can get accidentally competitive if you start competing against other bands in your city. If you’re going to get into music, you’re going to get into it because you’ve obviously built up a love from listening to it. Just keep that initial buzz. I remember, when I was 14 or whatever in your first band and we would complete something by Iron Maiden. We just all looked at each other and tried not to hug you know, just that amazing feeling of ‘that’s what music should do’. Even though most musicians always try and deny it, it’s a big thing – a lot of the time your music is there to lift the soul. If it’s not doing anything for your own soul it’s not going to do anything for anybody else’s so you always have to be wary of that as well. “

Very wise words indeed and very much appreciated.

Rory creates passionate tunes which ooze emotion. His charming, mesmerising persona radiates from each of his tracks through heartfelt songwriting and rich musicianship. If you want to hear more of the antics Rory gets up to on his facebook live streams they are on every Saturday. Rory plans to record more tunes in the New Year. I am very much looking forward to hearing more music from this talented artist

” I’m gonna maintain these Facebook Saturday night gigs to keep myself going anyway and I’ve started writing again and got a buzz from that.I’m recording another single in January and going to put that out, hopefully in February and take it from there.”

Stream ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)’ below 


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

A Chat With : AJ Wander

I caught up with London-based singer songwriter AJ Wander to chat about his debut single ‘Time Out’ and how he managed to turn his life around during the pandemic. We discussed how sometimes the Wi-Fi gods cannot be appeased, the relief that we no longer live in the times of Nokia 3310 and if we did there would be no hope.

‘Time Out’ is a passionate and captivating new single which introduces Wander’s pop songwriting magnificently. However Wander didn’t instantly know when writing the song that it would make for a fantastic debut single

”I didn’t, no. I wrote the song a while ago, maybe three years ago, perhaps. It was after the breakup with my first real love.I had no idea it would be the first song I would release. It was one of those songs that almost wrote itself. It was just there after an hour of sitting at the piano and it was complete.It was a very easy song to write and that probably means that it, you know, it really did come from the heart and it’s honest.”  

”So, yeah, in terms of deciding that it should be the song to release, I guess, it was just going through all of my back catalogue of tracks that I had and all the demos. I had a version of that from a few years ago, when we wrote the song and we sort of clicked with it straight away and were like, yeah this is where we need to start”   

‘Time out’ has a progressive cinematic soundscape. Warm guitars, elegant piano twinkles and lush harmonies on backing vocals build alongside pulsing beats. In the studio, Wander explains the creative process was an organic experience. 

”Yeah, I think it is an in the moment kind of thing. I didn’t know what I was gonna sound like going into the studio and it was an experiment. The song naturally lends itself to a certain sound whether you know or not, and you just have to find what that should be. Again that sound came together pretty quickly and naturally, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be right to fight and that’s just how it happened, It wasn’t premeditated at all. It just happened like the writing of the song did really.”    

‘Time Out’ is an emotional song written soon after an explosive breakup and Wander offers an intimate take on a universal topic – relationships. Writing such passionate songs can be therapeutic but I wondered is it difficult for Wander to hear or sing the song now – do all those emotions resurface?

”It’s sort of taken on a new meaning for me I guess. I suppose if I forced myself to get my head back in that space where I was when I wrote it can be painful. But I think you know naturally, we all move on, we all want to move on.”

”For me when I sing, it means something else and it’s more positive, When I wrote it I was trying to be positive and trying to put a spin on this breakup as in, it’s a new beginning…so I think I apply it to just looking onwards and upwards right now and again that meaning will probably change for me, as my frame of mind changes. I’m sure it’ll mean other things to other people too, but I try to make it positive and more uplifting.”   

Wander explains to me that he has plenty of songs written and how he plans to vary his songs and genres for his upcoming tracks

”Well, I think I might be covered for the next few, but in about six months time I might be panicking. I’m writing every day, and you naturally go through phases of not being able to write or not having as much to write about but then at times you’ve got too much to write about. So far, I haven’t struggled too much with writer’s block. I’ve managed to find things whether that be in my own life, or the people’s lives around me or just in the world around me and again in the studio.I think you’ll always find it, whether that does come naturally or not.”  

” I’ve been writing since I was 14/15. The ones that I wrote between 14 and 18, I’m not going to be playing them. I’ve tried to forget them. But, yes I have definitely kept a hold of all those songs and I still go back and look through them.I don’t necessarily use the whole song…I don’t know how many I’ve got – a fair few, and I dive in and sometimes tune in to a certain part…so it’s nice to have that sort of backlog of material that a lot of people starting out don’t, so I feel pretty lucky to have that for sure.”

”No artist wants to be a one trick pony. But it’s cool to at least stick with a theme for a little while, rather than just dipping your toe in and leaving it there. So at least topically it’s centered around relationships, love and the fallout from breakups etc for these first releases.”

”With respect to the mood of them ..there’s a range.They were written from very different places emotionally, and I hope that comes across in the songs”

The pandemic has been a productive time for Wander, he managed to turn his life around in this crazy time gaining signings with the US-based Elevation Group and UK-based BDi Music during the pandemic. I wondered did he see this time as an opportunity or was it all just a happy coincidence?

”I definitely did lots of drinking wine and eating for sure. But it was a conscious decision in terms of minutes. I’ve always been trying to do it and I’ve always been wanting to do it. Prior to the lockdown I drifted into playing piano bars, and hotels, etc for a living, to pay my rent, and that definitely started getting in the way of me actually throwing everything into my own music, and just being all on the line and saying ‘look, this is what I’m gonna do, I’m either in or I’m out’.”

”Yeah so it was a combination of always having that desire and that dream of doing it, and then lockdown sort of eliminating all the work that I was doing. It just made me reevaluate and reset and say in 10 years, if I look back and I didn’t give it my all then I know I’ll forever regret it.. It forced my hand into going all in and start to release music.”

A lot of artists when they release music they plan how they are going to perform the tracks live and Wander like many artists is craving the live setting. He has been performing for years and to be unable to see people react in real time and connect with his songs is difficult for him.

”It’s sort of craving nothing more than to get out and play the songs live and actually see people’s faces. So, yeah, I think about it all the time.”

”I’ve not done live streams, but I believe that is going to be coming very soon. I just need to get better Wi-Fi in and I’ll be out there live streaming to the world.” 

We have all become painfully aware of how one thing can affect work, entertainment and our nerves…. Wi-Fi. Live streams totally depend on this sometimes fickle creature

”I know, and it’s let me down this morning. But, yeah, it’s crazy the amount of time I spent on zoom in writing sessions, what a weird thing that is. I’m just glad that this happened now and not in 2002 when I had a Nokia 3310…Actually no, I didn’t…I was seven years old. What am I talking about, 2005 I got my first phone. Yeah, I think I’d be pretty bored of snake by now.”

Wander has been doing zoom writing sessions. I wondered can the mood and craft of songwriting really be captured in zoom with time lapses and glitches as well as that annoying inaudible moment when two people talk at the same time and they both stop and say nothing due to the awkwardness.

”Yeah, I think it’s very different. It’s less organic. It’s hard to cultivate this electric atmosphere that you often get in a room when you’re writing with people because you have to do your thing, you have to play your idea and then wait a minute, wait for the delay, and then wait to see what they think and then they’ll bounce back with another idea rather than it happening in the moment. So it can be a bit of a barrier for sure, but I guess it’s better than nothing. Some people love it. Some people hate it.I prefer being in person and being in the room, which we can actually do now, so hopefully I don’t have to experience another zoom writing session for a little while.” 

Wander’s lyrics are rich and filled with depth and emotion, however the goal of a poetic lyricist is not something he seeks out intentionally.

”Depends on what I am writing about I think.There are some songs where you’re writing about something that isn’t personal to you then, I think it puts more pressure on you to be more poetic and say something in a new way, that hasn’t been said before, because you’re observing something that other people can observe. But if it’s something personal. Then you just say how you feel. If it’s something about you and something you’re actually experiencing then I think there isn’t as much pressure to put a twist on it because I think you want to be honest.”

The music industry is a tricky business to navigate through. It can be difficult to learn your craft and focus on the music with so much going on. The rewards can be little. I asked Wander if he had any advice he would like to give to budding young artists. 

”I think just stick it out. It’s a long road.It doesn’t happen overnight and it hasn’t, you know..happened for me yet but I think you will never regret sticking it out and putting your all into it, and it’s easy to get distracted from it, responsibilities of life and living that responsible life but you’d never get more satisfaction than seeing your songs out there, and seeing how people react to them and knowing that you did what you’ve always dreamed of, which is to put the music out there, and give it your all.”

Hearing your song on the radio for the first time is a huge and special experience. I explained to him another artist I was in conversation with, when they were notified their song was going to be played on radio they actually went out and bought a radio for the occasion because they didn’t have one at the time. I was intrigued as to how Wander reacted the first time he heard ‘Time Out’ on the radio.

”I wish I bought a radio, that’s way cooler.I just put it on my phone. I think the first time it got played I was in the studio. Maybe I didn’t give it as much focus. I mean it’s definitely very cool.I think I’m a bit of a pessimist.I always find it hard to be like, oh that’s it, like I’ve done it, which I think is definitely not a good trait, because it is so cool and nice to be excited about achieving something in the moment, but I guess I’m always chasing the next thing. I think I’ve always found it hard to stand back and give myself a pat on the back for seeing something cool that I’ve done.But it was cool to hear it,and maybe I will buy a radio for the next one.”

So what can we expect from AJ Wander in the coming months ?

”Good question.I guess up until January, I’m going to be writing. I’ve got a host of writing sessions booked in, and in between those I’ll be writing by myself and hopefully get back in the studio with the songs that click with me most early next year. I’ve got a bunch of tracks that I recorded at the same time as I did ‘Time Out’, so I’ve got the next three tracks already lined up. Which, I’m actually a bit disappointed about because I love being in the studio and I wish I had a deadline to get something else recorded, because it’s my favorite place to be. But sadly, they’re already recorded. So I’m not sure when I will be back in the studio, hopefully next year and planning for the releases after this EP. But yeah, I think the next song to get released will be in early next year, maybe January/February.”

AJ Wander is a talented musician. His ability to capture emotion within his music is captivating. ‘Time out’ is a solid debut and a special gem to behold. I can not wait to hear more from him. Keep an eye on AJ Wander 

Stream ‘Time Out’ Below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Interviews, New Music, Video Interviews

A Chat With : JyellowL

I caught up with JyellowL to have a chat about his upcoming debut album ‘2020 D|Vision’. We chatted about the themes and topics that drive his tunes, live shows and how he creates his clever lyrics. Between some device changes due to some technical difficulties JyellowL tells us how he crafted his wonderful debut album, ‘2020 D|vision’ which is set for release on 20th November 2020

Watch the interview below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Indie Pop, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With : Bloxx

We caught up with lead singer, Ophelia (Fee) Booth from BLOXX to talk about the release of their debut album ‘Lie Out Loud’ and their huge UK tour scheduled for spring 2021.

‘Lie Out Loud’ has been a long time coming for the Uxbridge four piece, and follows a glorious ascent since BLOXX exploded onto the scene four years ago with their definitive brand of confessional, relatable indie pop. The album features the huge singles ‘Go Out With You’, ‘Coming Up Short’, ‘Thinking About Yourself’, ‘Off My Mind’, alongside a wealth of new material that showcases the band’s journey so far, which has seen them play huge shows, build an army of fans and amass over 30 million Spotify plays.

You guys have released your debut album Lie Out Loud. You guys burst onto the scene four years ago. Why did it take four years to bring out an album, were you crafting your sound, readying for this release to make it as cohesive as possible?

We really just wanted to build a bit of a name for ourselves with singles and Ep’s. Crafting an album can be a long thing when you’re brand new to the industry. It feels good to not have rushed it all.

Talk to us about the title, why did you choose to call the album ‘Lie Out Loud’?

It came as a bit of a shock when i said it out loud, and I didn’t actually think it made much sense until I dwelled on the idea that it actually does. We spend, as humans, a lot of time convincing ourselves that we’re being honest with ourselves, when we can just be lying. The act of lying out loud is the idea that we’re so unaware that we’re lying, we’re doing it out loud. A lot of the tracks on the record deal with personal things for me, and the feeling of the above. 

It’s an album of cracking energetic indie tunes with shredding guitars, driving rhythmic sections and oodles of energy. How did you guys approach the writing for this album?

I think it’s important for me to write as if I’m trying to write a song for the stage. I love the idea of a crowd in my mind when I’m writing. 

You have a wonderful knack with writing earworm melodies. Talk us through how you come up with these melodies. Do you spend time ruminating on them or does it just come naturally? 

A lot of it is patience, listening and feeling the music. But I am always singing to myself, sometimes around supermarkets I’ll have to grab my phone and record a melody that I’m singing. I listen back most of the time and it’s absolute nonsense.

To coincide with the album release, You have unveiled a new single ‘5000 Miles’. It’s an unconventional love song that perfectly encapsulates the feelings of love, lust and growing up in a British satellite town. Tell us about that song and what sparked you to write it?

It is about my girlfriend at the time whom I met in the US. When I left I was really upset and penned half of the lyrics for this tune on the flight whilst drinking red wine. The music came later in this case, which is unusual for me. 

Do you write your songs from personal experiences? If so do you ever feel anxious that the people you are singing about will know the song is about them? 

Yes sometimes but I usually send a text explaining that there’s no hard feelings. In some cases people think it’s about them when it’s not at all. I find that quite funny, but if the glass slipper fits I say! 

How did you choose which tracks you were going to put on the album?

It was a bit hard but most of them were no brainers. I rarely hate a song that I write. Except for ‘Lay Down’. Bin that one.

‘It Won’t Work Out’ is one of my favourite songs on the album. Tell us about that track and how you crafted it?

Oh right, amazing! Me and Steph Marziano spent a hot hot day in the studio just writing and this happened! The four on the floor really makes that tune for me, and the way it opens up with guitars in the second part. It’s a cool one.

Do you have a track that you are particularly proud of?

 I think it has to be ‘Coming Up Short’. We were totally able to completely capture my energy and my song writing style in that song. I’d love to think that’s my sound down to a T. 

Fee your vocals are strong and emotive while oozing attitude and swagger have you always been a confident singer?

Oh no, I used to be awful really. Confidence is so key to performance, and I didn’t have any, but I’ve taught myself that feeling strong makes you act stronger so I’m not nervous anymore.

You have constructed a solid reputation through touring extensively with the likes of indie giants Two Door Cinema Club and The Wombats, hitting up major festival stages and rapidly churning out anthemic crowd explosive tunes. I bet you were gutted that you haven’t been able to tour the album this year?

Yeah! We’ve been really lucky actually! We were really gutted yeah. Having to cancel loads of shows really hit us hard, and I’m sure it’s hit everyone! Just can’t wait to get back on the road.

What tips have you picked up playing these shows with Two Door Cinema Club, The Wombats and Sundara Karma, as well as the festivals like Reading, Leeds and The Great Escape?

I think it helped us grow up a lot. We got to live on the road for a bit and being away from home and family when you’re young is how you learn to be independent I think. All of the bands we’ve toured with have been amazing to us, and it’s been so great to learn things like etiquette and also how to perform better! 

You are set to celebrate the album’s release with a huge UK tour scheduled for spring 2021. What have you got planned for the shows?

So many great things. We want to make those shows the best we’ve ever played. Getting to play album tracks for the first time in front of people will be the best feeling. I penned some of these tunes to be live anthems, so we want to bring everything to the table next year for all the fans.

Do you have any advice for anyone watching who wants to start a band or career in music?

Keep going, write a load of music, stay true to your ideas and your sound, and never stop dreaming big. 

What’s next for you guys?

More music, more shows, energy and some cool surprises early next year!

‘Lie Out Loud’ is a tight, vigorous album and an impressive debut. BLOXX pack oodles of energy into these passionate tunes and the result is a hook laden album which evokes the raw energy of a live gig as well as providing a refined satisfying body of work locked and loaded for repeat listens. 

BLOXX are set to head out on tour in 2021. Check out the dates below 

APRIL

15 – The Rescue Rooms – Nottingham

18 – Riverside – Newcastle

19 – King Tuts – Glasgow

20 – Brudenell Social Club – Leeds

22 – Academy – Manchester

23 – The Bullingdon – Oxford

26 – Thekla – Bristol

27 – Heaven – London

Stream ‘Lie Out Loud’ below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Alt Rock, Classic Rock, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With : Stevie Westwood From Bad Touch

BAD TOUCH / NORFOLK / Shot by Rob Blackham / www.blackhamimages.com

We caught up with Stevie Westwood frontman from classic rock band Bad Touch to talk about the bands fourth album ‘Kiss The Sky’ which was released this year, their writing process and recording in Rockfield Studios

You released your fourth album ‘Kiss The Sky’ this year. It is a powerful, swagger soaked collection of bangers. How do you guys keep your sound fresh four albums in?


We’ve always been and will always be Bad Touch. We play feel-good rock n roll for the soul. Our never ending mission to give you the night you’ll never forget; a break away from the monotony and tyranny of life, and to leave anybody who is awesome enough to come to a gig smiling from ear to ear. That’s our mantra. This album is 110% just that, this is a dancing round your bedroom, annoying your neighbours album; that we hope people will love any bit as much as we do.


Was your music writing process for this album different to the previous albums?


Not much has changed since the early days, we still write and rehearse in the same space we have since day one. We just write about emotions and situations we all feel and have experienced, in a hope that someone else feels the same way and can connect to our music. Our attitude towards writing remains true as well, we’re a melting pot of influences and ideas from every member, not bound by role. Quite often George (drums) will have a vocal line or guitar riff, just as often as I’ll have an idea for a drum beat… it keeps things fresh.


The tracks in the album are full of feel good powerful tunes with shredding guitars, pummeling drums and oodles of soul. Talk us through how you chose the songs for the album?


We took a lot more time, effort, sweat and tears when it came to this album from the get-go. Our attitude to songwriting was a lot more critical. If a song wasn’t cutting-the-mustard, we either changed it until it did, or chucked it in the bin and moved on. No compromises.


Your songs boast some pretty slick riffage. How do you guys come up with these gritty riffs?


When you have two riff-meisters like Rob and Seeks it just comes naturally haha


It’s a swagger drenched album laced in classic rock. I especially like ‘Strut’ it really does fill you with that prancing confidence. Tell us how you wrote and crafted that track?

‘Strut’ was one of the first songs we wrote for ‘Kiss The Sky.’ Seeks (guitar) had that biting riff, and George (drums) had the vocal melody for the chorus, so we took it from there. We always write together and everyone chips in, it’s a real fun way to write.


Do you have a track on the album that you are particularly proud of or enjoyed writing?

Speaking personally, I can hand-on-heart say that I am proud and love every track on ‘Kiss The Sky.’ This album has been the hardest one to write so far, for all the right reasons. We’ve put so much into this as individuals and collectively as a unit, and we’re super proud with the end result. It’s fun, it’s loud, it’s in-your-face, it’s everything that Bad Touch have always been, plus so much more.

You guys got to record the album in Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, It’s where Oasis created their masterpieces, where Bohemian Rhapsody came to life and where Coldplay’s journey into the musical stratosphere took off. A place with such history can do one of two things: fill you with awe and make you strive to bring out the best in your tunes or fill you with shattering expectations and pressure. Did you get an instant shot of inspiration or fear within the studio’s walls?


It was completely jaw-dropping-ly awe-inspiring. We are so privileged as a group of friends to have recorded in a place with such musical gravitas. It really did kick us up a notch as musicians, and just felt so right. Plus I got to sit at Freddie’s piano, the one he wrote ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.


Is it difficult to get the raw energy you guys bring to your live shows into the recording?

For that we owe a special mention to our producer, (who later became our friend), Nick “Brino” Brine… He deserves a serious pat on the back. Through many tireless hours, he’s managed to capture and refine that raw energy that we’ve always had, but always struggled to get down on recordings up until “Kiss The Sky,” so to him we owe tremendous thanks.


You have announced your March/April 2021 UK tour.The 14-date tour includes Norwich, Manchester, London, Cardiff and Glasgow. What have you got planned for the shows?

With the year that 2020 has been, we owe it to our fans and to ourselves to make this the most explosive and fun tour yet, and we plan to do just that. We can’t wait to reconnect with the Bad Touch Family and hopefully make some new friends along the way. (badtouchrocks.co.uk for full tour details)


You guys are known for your energetic and raw live shows. Are you missing the live show energy at the moment?


What a question! It’s like we’ve lost the best part of ourselves, to say we are missing it is a huge understatement. We cannot wait to be back on stage doing what we were born to do, but we won’t until it is safe to do so, for the sake of everyone. Stay safe everybody.


You’ve been doing Facebook videos called “The Isolation Sessions” to stay connected with your fans while everyone is at home.Have you felt pressure to make each one better than the last?

I like to think that some of the beauty of The Isolation Sessions was that it was just me and my guitar playing into my mobile phone. That’s it. It wasn’t about the production or the effects, it’s just me having a go at some songs that have influenced me as a singer. I did one a day for around fifty days, they’re on hiatus at the minute, but who knows, I may dust off the guitar soon!

Have you found time to write and relax during the lull in touring?


We’re still promoting ‘Kiss The Sky’ at the moment, but we’re always writing and looking to the future.


Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start a band?


Just do it, and don’t give up. If you’ve got a band you love, playing music you love, you can make it work, and everything else will fall in place around it. Trust me.

What have Bad Touch got planned for the rest of the year?

Sadly this year seems to be all but written off, nobody knows what’s around the corner at the minute, but know that we’ll be here to rock your socks off when we come out the other side. Stay safe you beautiful people.

Stream ‘Kiss The Sky’ below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Interviews, New Music, Video Interviews

A Chat With :Lizzie Fitzpatrick From Bitch Falcon

I caught up with Lizzie Fitzpatrick From Bitch Falcon to talk about the band’s upcoming debut album ‘Staring At Clocks’, how the band record and write their tracks as well as how Fitzpartick has developed and honed in on her amazing vocals. ‘Staring At Clocks’ is set for release on November 6th.

Watch The Interview Below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With : Damien McKenna from Orwells ’84

Last week I caught up with Damien McKenna from Orwells ’84 to talk about the band’s new single ‘She Is So Sweet’, the craft of songwriting, the band’s upcoming album as well as his friendship with David Keenan.

Orwells ’84 have returned, bringing their familiar sound to the masses with the release of their latest single “She Is So Sweet”. The track is the third release from the band’s well received debut EP “Truth is the First Victim”, which garnered attention in all the right places. The band recorded most of ‘Truth is the First Victim’ in Sun Studios in Dublin with Pauric McCrum and Peter McCoy of Pillowhead. This is the band’s second venture with the duo; having worked together previously on the single “Cailín”. Brimming with traditional tones and cheery refinement, ‘She Is So Sweet’ is perhaps the perfect single to release at the moment. 

“I think we always viewed that particular track as a strong track musically, there’s a lot going on in it. It’s definitely the most lighthearted track on the EP. It was always going to be something that we would release and we decided that we would make it our third single because, you hear stories your third release should probably be your strongest release. So we held off and that was the reason why we used it. We just think it’s a good radio track and it’s a very pleasing track for people to listen to“

Radiating indie elements, folk tones and wonderful melodic progressions, ‘She Is So Sweet’ has a hearty sound that is wholesome and rich. I wondered how this lush backdrop and instrumental vibrancy came together.

“We started off with the melody first…then we were working originally with a violinist called Pierluigi Cioci and our cello player at the minute Ella, and they created the string pieces which kind of sat in sync with the melody of the vocals which really brightened up the whole track. We wanted to go with that because it sounded a bit Beatles- esque, we wanted to go down the psychedelic route as well.The whole concept of the song is that it’s a love story gone wrong. It’s a guy who is in love with a girl, she’s not interested but then when he’s gone she then becomes interested. But it’s just toying around and playing with it and the bouzouki plays a big part in it as well. We tried to make our bouzouki sound something like Johnny Marr from The Smiths would play. I don’t know if that makes sense but that’s kind of what we were going for, to make your bouzouki sound like a guitar and make your guitar sound like a piano.So, yeah, that’s where we got it from.”

‘Truth is the first Victim’ is an interesting title for an EP. A title like that had to have a tale behind it. I wondered what was the story behind the name.

“When we were putting together the EP. At the time Brexit had just been passed, so there was a lot of talk about borders, and being from Dundalk we were in the midst of looking at what would a hard border look like again between North and South. Obviously, in America you had Trump and all this kind of talk was going on. So we started the EP, a year ago and still to this day it’s really strong this division between people. You hear about the extreme left, far right, and this kind of division is set and it’s embedded in our community, it’s embedded in the world at the minute. So it was a real of sense of this division, and I was in the Museum for Modern Art, just looking around one day. It was an exhibition by a photographer called Les Levine, who was doing photographs on Derry in 1970 around the division for young people, and around how it was impacting them, some really powerful photographs. One of the photographs was called, Truth is a Victim. So I thought that was a fantastic idea and you always hear there’s one side of the story and there’s another side of the story and somewhere in between, lies the truth and we just felt, in this day and age, because of social media, because of everything else and because of to coin a term that’s very much in use.. the fake news that’s out there, we genuinely believe that, when these things happen or when there’s stuff going on the truth is the first victim. It’s never the thing that people go to because there’s not a good story. You know, they all say don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. So that’s where it came from.TV shows are an embellishment of the truth. We want to live our lives as these things, you know, filters, selfies. All these things are led to show or to allow people to live a different life, and as you say, the truth of their life may not be as good as what they’re able to present…I think people fear the truth. Some people don’t want to hear the truth, and as you say sometimes the truth just isn’t a good story. It’s a shame it’s a really dark way of looking at it but, it’s a powerful message that we tried to get out and, in fairness, you were the first person really that picked up on that, like what were we trying to say with the EP, because we’re not a band that would put something out and then just call it something flippant, that’s not art. Everything you do, everything you say and everything you put out to the public, as an artist should have some sort of message behind it and whether that message is to make people think, what are they trying to say, or whatever, it’s something to say, something along the lines of getting someone to think about their realities then it’s all beneficial and it’s all art. So, that’s why we were going through that title, and when I suggested it to the guys they loved it”

What is striking about Orwell ‘84’s tunes is the tight instrumental arrangements and songwriting. How they craft their songs can vary from song to song

“We’ve tried many different types, different forms of writing but generally what works for us now I’ll write an idea or a verse or chorus and we’ll play it out. Then we start putting the creative touches on it as we go along. Once we have the structure we tend to put the microscope to it, and we will say ‘why is the strings playing this bit why can’t the strings maybe try something else’ or ‘how about we take the drums out of this bit’ or ‘how do we use the bouzouki instead of the guitar again just to use it. When we did ‘Cailín’ someone suggested, have you listened to Lankum. When it comes to trad music they use this harmonium which isn’t a trad instrument, but they use it so very well that we decided, well, why don’t we try and get a harmonium and create that drone on ‘Cailín’. So the idea comes or the general idea or the lyrics will come from myself and the melody, or the foundation for the melody, and then it’s about the creative piece and getting together and really trying to focus in on what’s going to work, and what’s going to benefit the track”

The Ballad of Frank Owens is the final track on the EP. The band play strings as if they are guitars in the song and it seems the actual guitar takes a backseat.

“On our vinyl, actually, it’s the first song and that was because we created an orchestral piece to open the EP on vinyl, which was more of a selling point. We decided that if people want to invest in the music or invest in the EP that they’ll get this bonus track, so we restructured to make it sound like that and then we used samples of famous speeches about the border and about division and one of them was Martin Luther King saying that, ‘I have seen the promised land and I may get there with you someday’ and then there’s a line of Frank Owens about the promised land so we just said that flows better. When it came to the EP digitally it’s just the orchestral build up at the end it’s the strings, it’s the cello playing the fast vibrant part. it just kind of ends, a bit better, and I suppose, in a way, it kind of bookmarks instead of ending this chapter in our music, where it leads us to think, because Frank Owens is a very socialist song, and it leads us to think ‘well, is there hope out there, can we get together, is society doomed or are we going to be able to drag ourselves up by our bootstraps and move forward?’ Frank Owens for me , it’s probably my favorite track on the EP.”

Listening to Orwells ‘84’s music and the progression of their songs, I am intrigued as to how the band blend their instruments together. Each instrument can be clearly heard and yet at times the tempo picks up and the instruments seem to merge into one flowing musical arrangement. It reminds me of a stream of consciousness in writing. I wondered if the band strives to create this aspect of their music or does it just happen naturally.

“It’s both. I’m blessed with such a large band.I’m playing with five fantastic musicians who can throw their hand at anything or can create anything.So we might play the track once and then we’d sit down and then we’ll say, ‘I heard you play something like this, what were you playing’ and then we’ll focus in on that piece, or sometimes it generally can be when we just play the track it just happens organically. But we do, in our recording and in producing music, we do tend to look a lot at the structure, and I’m a big fan of The Beatles, big fan of, you know, that pop structure. I know, people will argue The Beatles aren’t pop but that kind of, four bars, chorus, bridge, I’m a big fan of that and I think that’s the foundation of music you know. I think, if you look beyond that, then you’re getting creative, or you’ll get, I’ll say avant-garde but you’re becoming a bit more out there with what you’re thinking or your thought process.”

“Generally it’s just a mix of both, you know, we just really are blessed that Peter (McCoy) and Pauric (McCrum) who produced it are very good at honing in on them things as well, and saying ‘look the dynamics are not working here, maybe we need to change this, what about the tempo of this?’. A good example on the EP would be ‘You Took The Night’ it started out as a country, Neil Young kind of song and then we played it as it is now. Then everything started being added on top of it, and it was through playing it together in a faster tempo that the piano was introduced, doing the stabbing chords and the strings were introduced doing nearly a counterpoint to the piano. So, really it can be a stream of consciousness sometimes but I would mainly say it would lean on the side of definitely a thought process more so than a stream of consciousness.“

Even though Orwells ‘84 are a band of multi instrumentalists with different creative ideas there are no arguments or issues with creative differences, the band are very much a family.

“Not really no. I mean, I always joke, Peter (McCoy) and Pauric (McCrum) because on the fact I’m a fan of The Beatles, I could sit in the studio for a week, focusing on a chorus. If I was allowed. I always have these grand ideas, especially around stuff like titles of EP’s and all that. I always have these elaborate ideas and Peter and Pauric are very good and I don’t know how they do it, they have this way of coming back to me and saying ‘that might work, but what about this’, and nine times out of ten they are generally right. I don’t think we’ve ever had a disagreement… I think it might have happened once and it might have been on ‘Frank Owens’ when we were recording it. They suggested something with a melody and I had kind of said no, not doing that, That’s too, like heavy metal, and I’ve nothing against heavy metal music it’s just not my scene but even that was amicable, we didn’t come to blows over it. We’re a band, we’re very much a band of brothers and sisters, we’re in it together and I think everyone respects everyone’s opinion. We’ve got accomplished musicians, Róisín and Ella are both trained classically in violin and cello both played with Cross Border Orchestra so they are qualified musicians, Sean Byrne can play any instrument that he wants, he just has to pick out and figure out where the notes are, and then Peter and Pauric are very good at knowing what’s going to sound good. So, if you allow yourself to respect the opinions of these people, it just makes it a whole lot easier. I can come up with all the grand ideas I want they will either tell me that it’s not gonna work in their own way, or maybe refine and hone in on what would work for my idea so I’m happy enough. It’s a very happy medium that we’ve got, and I hope it never comes to a day where we have to start throwing down and having fights, because I love them.”

Orwells ‘84 have performed with the likes of David Keenan, Nix Moon, Myles McCormack from Belfast group Lonesome George and Finnian among many others. David Keenan has become a friend to Damien. I wondered what he has learned from performing with these artists.

“I suppose the biggest lessons that we can learn was from being around David and watching him and his professionalism backstage. David is one of my best friends so I’ve seen him grow from a songwriter when me and him were putting gigs on in Dundalk to this massive star now. It dawned on me just shortly after we had supported him, I was watching the show, it might have been the Olympia Show I think and he had like himself, then it was himself with The Organics then it was himself and The Unholy Ghosts and then he had supporting artists coming in to do stuff and then he had ballet dancers and stuff. He would often reference that kind of Rolling Thunder documentary of Bob Dylan with this traveling circus of musicians that this is what he wants you to do. We all know that was chaotic but when you find out then that, you know, Bob Dylan was in total control of that, he knew exactly what he was doing and it was the same with David. Watching the professionalism, how to get it together, what they were doing. I’m not saying we weren’t professional but these guys they were there from five o’clock that day, they weren’t leaving any stone unturned..and even just stuff like getting the guitars out they’d all kind of get together and sing, it was good vocal exercises. So it was that kind of eye opening experience to look and go, you know, this is what it takes. This is what you need to do. If you want to be, I suppose on top. We never did this but loads of bands just turn up five minutes before the gig plug in and turn up to 10 and start playing and that doesn’t really work, because you’re, losing yourself in your own chaos then.”

“During lockdown David would write something, and then he’d send it to me and say ‘what do you think of this’ I’d be like ‘ah its amazing’. Then I’d send him something and say ‘what do you think of that’. Just after lockdown we sat down with our notebooks out and I’d say ‘what do you think of this’ and I’d play it and he’d say, ‘don’t change to that chord’ because you know, there’s a thought process behind it and as we were saying at the start nothing’s done by chance and nothing’s left to chance everything’s thought out, he’d say ‘why are you gonna do that’. He’s younger than me but he’s, definitely someone that I would look to as a teacher for me, you know these kind of things, because it’s so natural to him. It helps as well that we have similar tastes in music certainly when it comes to that kind of stuff of, using the instruments you have around you, using the process of music and using the process of creativity.”

“You just don’t write the first sentence that comes into your head, and then go out and play it. You write the song, then you come back to it maybe a week later if you’re not happy with it and you see what’s going to change or what you need to change and that’s the way it has to be if you take your craft seriously, that’s the process that it has to be. There’s no point in being fed from the bench, if you’re going to say something make sure you’re saying it the way you want it said. My style has grown over the years and it’s still maturing really, and it will probably always change. I’ve tried many methods, I’ve tried the William Burroughs method of the scrap paper writing, I’ve tried cutting newspaper articles and putting stuff together,I tried many things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and if it works it’s wonderful. If it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. A painter will sketch hundreds of sketches for one canvas and then they will go and they will deliberately put on the canvas what they’re looking for, so it’s the same with music.”

I wondered what advice would Damien have for an aspiring songwriter or musician.

“I suppose, you just have to keep writing. You often hear of Gaelic players, taking 20 footballs and trying to kick them all over the bar. They’re doing that because when it comes to Sunday or whenever they’re going to play they are going to be able to do that instinctively, its the same as song writing, same with your voice, your vocal your instrument. Whatever it is you need to sit down and play it, you need to be comfortable with it, you need to know what you can do what are your limitations, where you want to go beyond. Also, I suppose it’s just get comfortable with what you’re doing and then when you’re comfortable push yourself further and continue to write and never look at a situation that presents itself as nothing more than a situation, there’s always going to be something there that you can take for a song. Listen to music, because there is only so many chords out there. “

Orwells ‘84 have released a video for ‘She Is Sweet’ and are making plans to release an album.

“ At the minute we’re in the middle of pre-production for the album so that just seems to be a natural progression for us. We’re really looking forward to that. We’re also looking to do a creative piece with An Táin in Dundalk, we’re going to work with a performance artist and we’re going to do a live performance but it’s going to be pre-recorded. So it’s gonna be shot live with the performance artist, doing her thing on stage, she’s already in the middle of it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.  She has some big ideas. We have some big ideas as well, different stuff we’re gonna try. We’re supposed to be back supporting David in the INEC. But I think that was pushed out again to December so I think we’re just gonna wait to see what the story is with live music.”

Fingers crossed Orwells ‘84 can film that live show and can get back to gigging again soon. They are a talented bunch of musicians who showcase their effortless, ambitious talent through enjoyable, rich and vibrant tunes which display lyrical depth and remarkable songwriting.

You can support the band through their bandcamp page here https://orwells84.bandcamp.com/

Watch the video for ‘She Is So Sweet’ below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

A Chat With : Lucy Gaffney

I caught up with Lucy Gaffney. We talked about how she became comfortable as a solo artist, her inspirations and how she wrote and recorded her new single ‘Send Me Away’.

Hailing from Belfast, the now Liverpool based, Irish songwriter has released her new single ‘Send Me Away’, via Frictionless Music.The track was produced by The Coral’s James Skelly, positioning her as a rising artist in the fertile Northern English indie scene. Featuring on the track alongside Lucy is Thom Southern (Electric Guitar, Bass) and Jim Sharrock(Drums).

“The reaction has been amazing, the radio play as well there’s been so much support from radio stations.I only released my first single, back a couple of months ago, and I’m obviously a brand new artist. So coming out with the second single, I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out because for me it’s more of a lo fi track, but everyone seems to be loving it and there’s RTE behind it and Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 6 played it the other day so I’m so chuffed about that as well. So yeah, it’s great.”

The track has a heavier sound with fuzzy guitar, psychedelic soundscapes and dream-pop melodies which is quite different to the sound of Lucy’s other projects Southern and MMODE.

“Well what happened was I was coming out of, one of the previous bands, and I was on tour with The Coral at the time. James Skelly produces a lot of bands and he was just watching us live, you know every night and he said ‘you guys are great, would you ever want to get into the recording studio’. So it was just kind of a natural thing and we didn’t really have any expectations. It just felt right for me to be doing my songs that I’ve had on the shelf for ages and he was really into the vibe that we were getting, it was kind of like Krautrock, kind of shoegaze. Thom, who was in the previous band with me, my brother he creates a lot of guitar sounds and I would write a lot of my melodies on top of that, probably, almost the same way like The Stone Roses would work. It’s very melody orientated with elements of deadpan vocals and a lot of reverb and things. So that’s really what I’m into, and the sound really just developed after doing those two tracks in Parr Street with James so I’ve had them ready to go since last summer.”

“I was just taking the time to do gigs, I went on tour with Bill Ryder-Jones and that was a great learning experience for me because it was the first time I was solo performer, without a band or anything so working with him as well on that tour, gave me that kind of, I don’t know full roundedness that I have in my vision for the music that I do. So yeah, the songs are coming across really well and it’s just a shame I can’t gig them. “

Doing shows on your own can be difficult when you are used to having a band with you. I wondered if the solo transition was daunting.

“Definitely, yeah for sure because it was my first, I had done gigs just kind of one off gigs. My first gig was actually supporting the DMA’s in Belfast which was an amazing first gig and yeah I was super nervous. It’s more the build up to it that you’re nervous about and then when you’re on stage it just comes so naturally, because that’s what you’re good at, and on tour with Bill (Ryder- Jones) was more about learning how to engage the audience and finding your place on stage in terms of, do you want to give a lot of yourself away to the audience, because Bill in particular, he is almost like a comedian on stage. In between the songs he’s telling tales and I’m not really like that you know naturally I’m probably a little bit more of an introvert and I wouldn’t want to give too much of myself away but yeah, so just finding that balance.”

“It was definitely daunting to begin with but it’s like anything, you know, practice makes perfect. Since being in lockdown it’s weird because doing the live gigs online has been really beneficial for me, because I think it’s more daunting to play a gig online for people than it is in real life. I mean it’s like doing faceTime with someone and the camera you have to get your camera angles right and you know there’s all that flack and you’re always worrying is the signal gonna go mid set, whereas live, the freedom that you have to play live is just amazing there’s nothing like it. So yeah, I’m definitely missing that but I’m hoping next year we’ll have some socially distant gigs.”

In her solo career so far, Lucy has already had acclaim from Liam Gallagher (who called her music ‘celestial’), a collaboration with DMA’s and tours with Bill Ryder Jones and She Drew The Gun with support on Radio from BBC Radio 1, as well as BBC Introducing Merseyside and BBC Introducing Ulster. 

“ I’m just launching literally and if anyone tells me they like my song I’m glowing after it. Whatever you get in response to your track it’s just nice for it to resonate with people. I put out the cover of Oasis and I don’t normally do covers but I happen to really like the song ‘Songbird’, by Oasis and obviously, Liam Gallagher is very influenced by John Lennon, and the Beatles and I’ve always been really influenced by, The Beatles and their songwriting and John Lennon in particular, so that’s obviously why I like that song, but I put it up on Twitter and in the few hours it had gone viral and Liam Gallagher caught wind of it and commented on it. So yeah, it’s just amazing, it is mad how the internet works.”

The music industry has changed a lot with streaming and social media and Lucy has managed to keep on top of her social media by putting out a lot of content during lockdown to keep her fans engaged. This is a task artists can find difficult with pressure of finding visually appealing settings etc.

“Yeah definitely, it’s a job in any sense having to do that kind of thing and it’s been a learning curve for a lot of musicians, trying to come to terms with the fact that the only way we can promote ourselves is online. I am a bit of a technophobe, apart from posting photos and stuff and tweets, I would never have been going live on my phone. But you do get the hang of it and it is really nice you know when people tune in and people are lovely. I’ve never had anyone say anything bad, I’ve always had really nice feedback during the gigs and everyone was being really supportive and people love it. In fact the only thing for me that I don’t have at the minute is any merch and a lot of people say to me, do you have any vinyl things since the songs have come out but obviously it’s early days for me so I’ve not had them made”

“The whole experience I think has been really beneficial for me, in particular, as an artist. I think for bands that were touring a lot before the lockdown happened it’s been hard for them. It’s funny and it’s something I have talked to, my friends who are musicians. It’s almost put the power back into the artists hand, and it’s taken a bit of the, I don’t know, control maybe away from the record labels, I mean social media was doing that anyway.  Even my friend who plays drums for me, he is promoting himself online and he gets such a great reaction, people love it. It’s so interesting, even for me, to be able to watch someone online who I admire. I was able to see Beck, who is a bit of a recluse, you know he was never really sitting online chatting and I’ve looked up interviews of him from the 90s and things and there’s so few and to watch him sitting in his living room playing live has been such a novelty. So yeah, it has definitely been a game changer for musicians, I think. “

Lucy’s voice is beautifully sweet over the bubbling instrumentation in ‘Send Me Away’, it creates a lulling sense of calm. I wondered was she always a confident singer

“I definitely wasn’t, just because of my background. As a kid, I sang in the school choir and I was really into female singer songwriters. Like any young girl when I was seven or eight Avril Lavigne was my inspiration and so it was always in my mind to be a songwriter and sing. But because the way I started was in a duo, I started busking with my brother and we were really based around harmonies, so I sang alongside someone else for years, so it does take mental strength to work up the ability to do it completely alone. It’s always a learning experience throughout your musical career to do anything, for example I play a lot of piano, but I’ve never played it live so imagine if I was to have to do it I’d probably be nervous because it’s not something I’ve tried before. But I think now I’m definitely a confident singer, I could sing to anybody on the street I don’t mind.”

“I think it always depends on each song really but my influences in the last few years were bands like the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star, so, I was always into that kind of soft, you know, sultry vocal and I love a deadpan vocal. I love Grian Chatten’s voice in Fontaine’s DC. I love how he sings, I love that kind of laziness to it, and even in the last few months I’ve really been listening to a lot more of Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile and that. That is just my kind of vibe, so I think towards next year the songs are going to be maybe less shoegaze, and more, I don’t know, you’ll hear more of my voice, to an extent. Yeah and I’ve definitely got a lot more new material since the lockdown happened. I’m actually working with a couple of producers at the minute for next year. I can’t really say who but the new songs for me are miles ahead of what I’ve done before. It’s gonna be really exciting to put them out, so I’m really looking forward to next year, to be honest.”

So what advice would Lucy have for anyone who wants to start a career in music or as a songwriter.

“ My advice, just from my experiences…You can only ever be yourself in your songwriting. I never liked it when I see someone who’s just regurgitating other artists. I can understand having an influence but I think it’s never good to just rip other artists off, and I think it doesn’t necessarily have longevity. So I think always working at your craft and always having a passion for it, it’s probably the same with any art form. But definitely being honest and making sure you actually like the songs you’re putting out because, I mean, I have spent years putting out things because I think it would fit, it would be something that people would want to hear rather than if it was something that I’d want to hear myself. And I think I’m at a position now after a couple of years of working my craft to know that if I love my song, that’s all I care about.”

Lucy has some exciting plans for the coming months and next year with lots of amazing tunes for us to indulge in

“ So I’m promoting ‘Send Me Away’ at the minute but hopefully I’ll be in a recording studio over in England in a couple of weeks, doing the third and fourth singles and they should maybe out by December or next year. I also have way more recordings and I’m booking in gigs and stuff at the minute for Ireland next year so if everything goes ahead hopefully, you know, lots of tours and lots more music.”

Lucy Gaffney is a compelling artist and talented songwriter, showing strong personal musical growth from her days in Southern and MMode. ‘Send Me Away’ is just a glimpse into her musical prowess and songwriting capabilities. It’s an immersing track laced in rich textures and lush instrumentation which hooks the listener from the start. I’m looking forward to hearing more from Lucy Gaffney in the future.

Stream ‘Send Me Away’ below

Author : Danu