We sat down to have a chat with Donal Quinn in The Sound House Dublin to talk about his new single ‘Bubble’ and his career in music so far. He also performed a sweet acoustic version of ‘Do You Like Spicy Food’.
Watch the interview and Donal’s acoustic version of ‘Do You Like Spicy Food’ Below
Author : Danu
We sat down to have a chat with Lauren Johnson, Taylor Johnson,
Aaron Milligan, Logan Johnson and Luke Harris from Brand New Friend before their show in Whelan’s Dublin to talk about their new music and experiences while Wicklow band Felonies provided the shredding background music with their soundcheck.
Watch the interview here
Author : Danu
We sat down to have a chat with Steven King from Fangclub to discuss what we can expect from the bands new album ‘Vulture Culture’ which was released today. We discussed the themes running through the album and the emotional and intricate aspects of ‘Vulture Culture’ as well as what it was like to support The Smashing Pumpkins and Metallica.
Watch the interview below
We sat down to have a chat with Brendan Aherne, Sam Privett, Fabio Bocca and Kalyan Rogers from Alexis Kings before their Show in The Workman’s Club Dublin. We talked about how they create their delicious summer soaked tunes, their laid back persona’s and a bizarre incident that happened to them in China.
Watch the interview here
We had a chat with Oliver Dobrian drummer and backing vocalist for power trio Filmspeed to talk about their music, touring and how they form their tasty tunes.
Tell us about Filmspeed and how the band came about?
Nick and Craig have actually been playing music together for over a decade under various names and projects. Through the magic of the Internet, I joined the band about 2 and a half years ago and we haven’t looked back since! We are a rock n’ roll band based in Southern California, trying to keep the dying art alive.
Your tunes are so slick and very rock n’ roll with a nice dash of indie, pop-punk and hard rock thrown in. How do you keep coming up with these hook filled tunes?
Wow, that’s nice to hear, thanks! We are always striving to write catchy earworms that get stuck in your head. I think it just comes from our collective love of music and our various influences manifesting in whatever we play. By listening to as much different stuff as possible, it gives us a large pool to draw from when we’re making our own stuff.
You recently released ‘Bless My Soul’ and ‘Shakey Love’ two kick-ass swagger drenched catchy tracks. Tell us about the writing process for these tunes?
The two processes couldn’t be more different! For “Bless My Soul,” we wrote the tune and showed the demo to Jason Hollis from Punk Aristocrats, who gave us a few rounds of notes and we hammered it into what you hear on the record. We recorded it with him up in LA. For “Shakey Love,” we knew we needed a B-side for the single, but didn’t really have any ideas, so the song more or less got written on the drive up to the studio! We recorded it in Santa Monica at Manifest Music, and I believe the take we used on the record is maybe the fourth or fifth time we had ever played the entire song through, since it had been “finished” just minutes before.
Do you follow a certain format when writing your tracks or does it just flow organically?
We don’t technically follow a format, but it does generally follow the trend of Craig bringing in a riff or an idea, and Nick and me working around it from there. We’re all good enough friends to critique and suggest ideas to each other without our egos getting in the way, so we just strive to serve the song rather than ourselves, and make it as best as possible.
There are many shredding, gritty riffs throughout your tracks tell us how you come up with these?
You’d have to ask Craig, haha! He’s just an endless fountain of cool riffs and melodies. I think he just is constantly making memos to himself and humming into his phone whenever he gets an idea. He’s got quite the database by now.
Your songs are full of swagger and confidence does this reflect on your personality?
We like to think so, but probably not as much in actuality as we give ourselves credit for. We try to stay humble and silly for the most part.
Which of your songs are you most proud of?
I try not to play favorites in order to give each song its due when performing it. If I play a song, I love it! I think the same goes for Nick and Craig too, we don’t tend to do anything we don’t like to do, musically speaking.
You guys embarked on your first West Coast tour, kicking off in Los Angeles and made notable stops in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco before wrapping up in Anaheim. How did the tour go?
It was amazing! We had such a great time, met such great people, played some really fun shows. It was everything we hoped it would be and more.
Do you have a favourite memory or pinnacle high moment from the tour?
It’s impossible to pick just one! From me getting sick and my face swelling up at our last show, to Craig’s backpack getting stolen by junkies in Vancouver, to the transmission leaking on our van. Oh wait, did you say HIGH point? Just kidding, while all those things did indeed happen, we were laughing the whole way through and had the time of our lives. We didn’t call it the “Consistently Off” tour for no reason! We’re pretty good at taking everything in stride and staying content in the moment. Honestly the high points are always gonna be the shows. That’s the reason we even do the thing.
From listening to your tunes there is an energetic vibe and high intensity, I get a sense that these songs would be epic performed live, what is a live show with you guys like?
Thanks! We actually like to consider ourselves more of a live band anyway. Our constant goal is to get people to support live music and just get out of the house to come see a show. All three of us feel most at home onstage when we’re sharing music with people. So if you come to a Filmspeed show, you’ll see three guys leaving it all out on the stage and having the time of our lives every time. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing to 1 person or 100,000, we aim to entertain.
What is your Favourite song to perform live and why?
Personally, I like to treat each time I play a song like the first time I’m playing it. It helps me keep things fresh and allows me to elaborate on songs I’ve played hundreds of times. I’m just so happy and grateful to be onstage whenever I am, it doesn’t matter what I’m playing. So I guess they’re all my favorite!
Will you guys ever venture over here to Ireland for a show?
Of course! When’s the show? We’re there! We’re aiming to conquer the world, and Ireland’s in the world, right?
Stream ‘Bless My Soul’ below
You Can Follow Filmspeed on
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Filmspeed/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/FilmspeedMusic
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/filmspeedmusic/
We sat down to have a chat with Dylan Kearns, James O’ Connor, Eamon Ganley and Eric Walsh from Gorilla Troubadour after their ‘Tom Cruise Does All His Own Stunts’ single launch in Whelan’s Dublin. We talked about the new single, how they come up with their sound, college and what Gorilla Troubadour have planed next.
Watch the interview here
We had a chat with Broncho’s Ryan Lindsey to talk about their new album ‘Bad Behavior’. We got into some of the intricacy and juicy elements of this luscious album while also discussing a petition for an Irish show, what they learned from their touring with Queens of The Stone Age and brief mention of Hanes boxer briefs and high dollar tequila.
You have released your new album Bad Behavior tell us about the concept behind the album?
We did our usual plan of not making any plans except to show up without a plan until things make sense. It’s my favorite plan
There are so many sublime tracks on this album each one bringing its own infectious slinky charisma and flirtation to the table. Talk us through the music writing process for this album? Was it any different to Can’t Get Past the Lips, Just Enough Hip to Be Woman and Double Vanity?
Very similar to our previous records in certain ways. Each record has been a mix of writing styles. It’s really up to each individual song. Some songs had been cruising around our minds for a while and some we came up with while recording.
I love how delicious the melodies are in this album, you never disappoint when it comes to melodies but these 10 tracks are deliriously mouthwatering. How do you come up with these melodies?
Well, first of all, let me say, thank you very much! you’re making me blush. We always want things to taste good. I would hope that we are that healthy junk food, made with real sugar, to help you feel less guilty about the whole thing
It feels like, as a band, you guys are pretty tight – each instrument gels and weaves perfectly together. There are some slinky guitar moments with rich rhythms and groovy bass lines how do you guys combine your innovative elements together?
Touring tightens up the whole thing. And anything that don’t get tightened up on the road, gets tightened up in the editing bay. I like a healthy amount of loose, and a comfortable amount of tight. I guess we value comfort. And flexibility. And stability. Which is why I wear Hanes boxer briefs.
Ryan you sing with a mischievous twinkle in your voice, peppering the verses with suggestive uh-ohs and ahhs and at times barely pushing out your words to the point of whispering. What sparks these cheeky vocal moments which have now become such important characteristics to the songs?
Sometimes it feels good to get soft. It also feels good to push. It all starts with the diaphragm. Vocal control comes from the diaphragm. But above all things it feels good to be cheeky. Being cheeky also starts with the diaphragm. It takes a lot of breath.
There are a lot of bands and artists talking about the world events through their music lately however you guys depict the Bad Behavior in the world through a non-biased danceable, fun, sometimes dark and sleazy medium. Was this your attempt to take this discussion and perhaps put another less doom and gloom spin on it?
We’re taking a non biased reporters stance on the current times. Just reporting on what we observe and adding “facts” to support “our” “theories”. Doom and gloom ain’t fun. Unless it is! Depends on what party you’re looking for. We are that party where you can relax, because we all know what’s going on and nobody needs to talk about it. Unless you do!
The album version of ‘Get In My Car’ sounds a little different to the single version released last year did you re record it for the album and what did you choose to do differently?
We added slap to the vocals and ran it through a different tape machine and maybe some other itsy bitsy changes. but you got a good ear because the changes were subtle.
You have seen your songs featured on influential TV and radio and have toured the U.S. and Europe, including arenas with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, The Growlers, Portugal The Man, and Cage The Elephant – that must have felt amazing, is there anything in particular you took away or learned from those experiences?
There’s multiple ways to do this whole thing. Everyone you mentioned does there own thing and does it at an elite level. It’s all about doing what you do, and then doing it well. They all teach through example. The way they take care of their biz. None of those bands ever tried to tell us what to do, they just let us watch what they do, and that’s what I love and learned from all of them. That and also Josh Homme told me the easiest way to the other side is to go all the way through. And I love him for that and a lot of other things.
Did you get any advice or words of wisdom off any of those bands?
Queens introduced us to high dollar tequila
I saw you guys support Queens of The Stone Age in Dublin last year. Your performance was very suave and energetic evoking an effortless sense of awe in the audience. How have you worked on your live shows to make them so enjoyable?
That was easy because we were opening for Queens in Dublin! That show automatically gave us the motivation we needed. I also love doing what I do and that makes it easier to be enjoyable because I’m legitimately having fun. I also stretch from time to time, and occasionally work on my core
From watching that show and some youtube videos it appears like you have developed your own floppy signature dance, everytime I hear a Broncho track I can just see you bopping with your arm in the air can you remember when that dance began?
Sometimes you gotta move and there ain’t nothin you can do about it. Unless there is! But when there ain’t nothing you can do about it, you just gotta let that arm get up there, and let your leg get out there.
What’s the most bizarre thing to happen to you while you were on tour or onstage?
A gentleman in Tempe Arizona asked if he could sit in on didgeridoo and of course we obliged. And would love for it to happen again
You released a joint 12 minute video for Sandman/Boys Got To Go. Talk us through the concept for the video and who came up with it?
Pooneh Ghana came up with the whole idea. She had been in Tulsa with us and met our friend Mark. Over the next couple of years she started talking about wanting to do something with him. When we played Sandman for her she started writing out the whole thing. We just did some more filming with her on this tour and will have more things to come from her semi shortly.
Can we look forward to anymore videos from this album?
We have two more videos done and we got more to shoot. Lots of work left to be done!
Have you any plans to come to Ireland for a show?
Not currently, but I strongly suggest a petition to be made for us to return. That way all party’s involved will have a legal obligation to bring us back!
Do you have any advice for anyone starting a band ?
Work on your diaphragm
What’s next for Broncho?
We are finishing touring the eastern half of the U.S.. we tour the west coast in February and then play the UK end of February. And if the petition gets pushed through swiftly, we will be playing Ireland!
You can catch Broncho live at :
27 Feb – Glasgow, UK @ The Blue Arrow
28 Feb – Manchester, UK @ Yes
1 Mar – London, UK @ Moth Club
1 Mar – Brighton, UK @ Patterns
Watch the video for ‘Sandman’/’Boys Got To Go’ below
We caught up with producer, multi instrumentalist Robbie G from Modern Whale to chat about his career as a producer, his new project Modern Whale and the new infectious single ‘Dead Wrong’.
Tell us how Modern Whale came about?
Modern Whale came about kind of organically, I’ve been a record producer and musician for all my adult life and in early 2016 I sort of went back to basics. What I mean is I did some things that were reminiscent of why I got into music in the first place, with the electric guitar and just doing some things for myself. In the many years that I have been doing record production and songwriting with other people I have consistently been very good at compromising, always happy to change for the sake of the artist or songwriter or whoever I was with at the time. With Modern Whale it was really an experience to do what I wanted to do and to be honest it was something I thought wouldn’t be released. I was just in my studio and I was just creating and one thing led to another and here we are. We’ve released 6 songs at this point starting in June 2017 and I’m very thankful and excited that people have loved what I have released this far, so it’s all been very good.
As you said you are a record producer and published songwriter, you are also a seasoned lead guitarist and bass player. Do you feel that it’s important for a producer to be a musician of sorts to bring enough to the table and make the tracks come to life?
My first instinct is actually no and the reason why I say that is because as I get older I continue to realise that there is really no rules.I certainly think that the more skill sets or abilities that a producer has the more he or she might be able to bring to the table but I don’t know that there is necessarily a rulebook that says that you have to be well versed in something to be able to do something creative. Music is an art form in general, you know there is really no rules. You can just have ideas and be able to direct or be able to hum but there is no question about the fact that again the more of a skill set that you have the more you can bring to the party. But I don’t necessarily see that you have to be a virtuoso at a certain instrument to succeed or to do something creative. Another thing that I have also seen in myself over the years is when I started as a kid I was just a guitar player. I was interested in Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page and I was never thinking about singing songs.I was never thinking about writing songs really. I was just thinking about learning Led Zeppelin riffs and that sort of thing so even the idea of being a record producer and making music with other people you can’t help but learn and develop and that’s the thing about music you know, when you play with other people and you make music with other people you do end up learning just from the experience of it all.
It would also increase your experience with other genres of music and make your own music a bit more rich
Absolutely, it’s because of my experience that I am here on the phone with you right now. It’s because..of my heartfelt passion to make music and be creative,my many skill sets have been born because of my effort to make a living in music or continue doing what I’ve been passionate about and quite frankly it’s really what it comes down to.
You have released your new single ‘Dead Wrong’ talk us through how that song came into fruition?
Well ‘Dead Wrong’ is an interesting song I co-wrote with a good good friend of mine who I’ve known since about 2004.His name is Scott Harris.Scott has recently had great success as a songwriter, writing for people like The Chainsmokers and Shawn Mendes. Scott and I have been friends for many many years before one of us were really making a living in the music industry but we have written a lot over the years together and we still write together and Dead Wrong was a song that sort of happened naturally. The lyric itself is very much about something that was going on in my life where I have a relationship with someone, who like any other relationship, we are trying to figure it out and make sense of things. It really was organic and we wrote it on a little Casio keyboard and I had actually done the song in a couple of different versions after we wrote it. It was a little bit slower, in a higher key, I did more of a rock n’ roll version with a lot of drums and more guitars but I keep on coming back to that first version that Scott and I had done with the keyboard where the vocal was really the main point of it and I’m quite pleased with that song. I think it’s a really nice statement. I think it’s just very clear.
Yeah it’s a lot more electronic pop root compared to your previous releases ‘Kill the Flame’ ‘The Dirt’ ‘How Deep We Get’ and’ Brave Face’.
Yeah there is actually a version that’s a little bit more like the Modern Whale that had been released earlier but I think you know in the grand scheme of things I’m a new artist and the music that I had made initially and I’m still making was fully for myself.But I’m reminded again about Led Zeppelin because if you think about Led Zeppelin I and how heavy that record was and then Led Zeppelin III and how it was very acoustic. Like growing up with mom and dad’s record collection and seeing an artist like that have multiple sides of them for me it’s completely ok and also, truth be told and this is not to throw myself under the bus but I think that Modern Whale is something that’s developing in many ways and over the last few years or so I have been finding my voice. I don’t mean that necessarily from the singing perspective but just becoming more comfortable as an artist…in many ways ‘Dead Wrong’ has opened up some doors for me that again I’m just struck by the fact that if you continue with something more doors open up. If you don’t give up and you just continue being creative and making music and being true to yourself the possibilities are endless. It’s quite nice to be talking to you about this and to be reminded why I’m doing this in the first place.
How does your work with other artists influence or aid your own material?
Ultimately I’m easily inspired, I’m the kind of person that if you came over with a piano part or you play the guitar or if you sang a melody its very easy for me to work with something and I think thats what makes me an ideal record producer. It just flows out of me. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to answer that question, only because I think that inspiration comes from all different kinds of places – some of its subconscious so I never really set out and think well I’d like to write a song like this or I’d like to try to do this. I’m really doing it because I just can’t help myself and want to be creative and I want to do things and I’m sort of doing it regardless of anything. It’s in me to create and my passion has always been over welling. I think it’s a long career of being out on the road and being around a lot of talented people and you know whether it’s development of the different musical instruments or even developing my singing voice over the years, these are things I never saw coming, you just can’t predict how life is gonna go.Even with ‘Dead Wrong’ Scott came over that afternoon and we had this idea and in just a few hours we had the raw sketch of what ‘Dead Wrong’ was and it just was a very heartfelt melody and a heartfelt lyric and as much as I tried to produce it in some ways like the first batch of Modern Whale songs it just kept on calling to be this way. It’s a different side of me. I could see potentially moving forward releasing something acoustic I don’t see a reason when I’m able to make records by myself like this I find that I’m just being inspired and letting to not just let it happen.
You can tell that ‘Dead Wrong’ came from the heart the melody is very sweet and dreamy it doesn’t at all come across manufactured
Yes that’s true, I appreciate that, that’s a nice thing to hear. I’m just singing about things that are important to me or things that make me feel an emotion and being a human being. When you have to really try to do something it shows and it’s effortless and it comes out. That’s the thing about keeping the original Modern Whale songs I did them for myself. I didn’t even tell anybody I had done them for the first 6 or 7 months. In April 2016 I just started being creative and a few of the songs were born over a couple of days and then over the course of a few months I worked on them and I didn’t even tell anybody about it. It was really a thing that was special for me, I was just being creative and having a release. There were things happening in my life that were personal.I lost my father in 2015 to cancer, I had a bad break up in 2015 and by the time I started recovering in April 2016 it was a release and I never saw any of this coming. It’s nice to hear somebody be so real but I never thought I would be on the phone doing an interview with someone from Ireland. It wasn’t even a part of my equation. I didn’t even have an equation.
Do you have plans to release a video for the single?
Interestingly enough I’ve just watched the final video and some of my reason for being late was dealing with the final changes with the video.So the video will come out likely … I wanna say January it could be as late as February but it will be early next year. But the video is done, it’s very cool I wish I could share it with you right now because it makes me super happy and I think it’s very creative and I’m psyched about it.
What can we expect from your upcoming EP which is due out next year?
The EP is another thing that is pretty mind blowing to me.It’s almost like its the term paper of my life, It’s this thing where I’ve been on this road this whole time making music, being creative, finding my way, touring the world, making records with people, developing my own skill set and I think for the first time ever I have the opportunity now to focus on myself and it’s a gift that is indescribable.So to have December and January to do the EP and to work on this balance of four songs – basically it will be a five song EP so one of the songs is ‘Dead Wrong’ and then there will be four more songs which I’m working on right now.I’m just arriving at a place of being more confident and also being more comfortable with understanding my position as an artist and just being a little bit more self aware of who I wanna be and I just couldn’t be more happy about it. I feel like I’m on the precipice of doing the best work that I’ve ever done.
To round out the lineup for your live performance you have added bassist Rocky Russo and drummer Kerel Lacy how did you choose who you would add to your line up?
Well, it was a timing thing it just happened. With Kerel I met him through a mutual friend at a bar in New York City he’d just moved from Texas. I was looking for a drummer and about a month later after we met that night at this particular bar he hit me up, he found my phone number through another friend and it was the day that I had a number of different drummers scheduled and the guys scheduled at 3 o’clock had canceled and Kerel hit me up literally in that window. It was like it was meant to be and the rest is history. He’s been a great teammate and he’s been a great inspiration to me.With Rocky it’s a similar story. I was trying to get this girl to be in the group as a bass player and I went to a venue in New York to check out this bass player. I actually had opened up the show, so her and I sort of became friendly and we were raising money for those being held by ICE for their legal fees, etc.. The girl I was trying to get as a bass player was playing the next set after me and I ended up hitting it off with the sound guy who is Rocky Russo and he just was really cool. I asked him for his card because I thought he was professional and about two or three days later I peeled his business card away from my phone case and recognized on the card it said audio design or sound guys or whatever and it also said bass player. I thought aww man! Maybe I should have a backup plan just in case this particular woman doesn’t work out and that’s it.
What is a live show with Modern Whale like?
It’s definitely energetic. It’s very true to the way the stuff is recorded. Sometimes it gets a little bit heavier than the record just because of the way the electric guitar is but it is upbeat and it’s fun. At the end of the day I’m really just trying to entertain people.I want people to lose themselves in the moment and be happy. When I go to a concert and it’s great and it’s exciting I forget about my day and my problems, that’s the kind of thing I want to put in peoples lives. Make a really nice vibe and entertain people, get back to basics of just being around a campfire and making people at peace or comfortable and enjoy the show
Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to start a music career?
Don’t give up just keep on going. That’s the easiest way to put it. Like I said earlier I never saw any of this coming and I think it’s fully because of my sticking with something. I guess it’s easier to give up isn’t it? Sometimes the hardest part is just sticking with something but I think that a real parable about life in general whether its a relationship or if its a job sometimes things aren’t easy and if you continue to weather those storms good things can happen. I think it’s a matter of staying true to yourself and doing what you are passionate about – that’s my best advice.
What’s next for Modern Whale?
Right now I’m totally focused on the EP. Doing very little outside production work. It’s an absolute blessing that I have the opportunity to make an EP and to focus on the EP. So right now my head is totally in the studio game just wrapping up these four songs. I have them written so right now I’m in the production stage and I’m really just developing the material. My feeling is that I will have them all done by February 1st. I’ll likely release them throughout 2019 and they will ultimately be bundled as one EP which will include ‘Dead Wrong’.
Stream ‘Dead Wrong’ below
