Tag Archives: Interview

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

A Chat With: AJ Wander

I caught up with UK Pop Singer AJ Wander who has just released the video for his brand new single ‘Eye To Eye’. We talked about the new single, working with Louis Berry for the expressive video and his plans for releasing music. Wander starts the conversation on the topic of settling for a muffin over the desired pitta and hummus dish he craved for.

“I just tried Tesco’s, and found out that there are no pitta breads left. I was very excited for pitta and some hummus but, toasted muffin and cheese it is. Pitta breads have a long shelf life. So I feel like there’s always pittas and there’s so many different kinds of pittas they have the mini ones, they have brown, white, the organic ones but they have none. So, I wouldn’t say my days got off to the best start. I’m sure it’s on the way up though”

He explains how walking into Tesco for some pitta bread now more than ever can be the only in person human interaction one experiences during these crazy pandemic times.

“Yeah, this is like Black Mirror coming into reality. I like a bit of human interaction, I’m stuck at home by myself all this week and I’m tempted to just go to Tesco and see if there are any pittas there again, even though I know there aren’t. Just to say hi to the cashier.

“I hung out in the wine aisle. It’s just like urban wine tasting in Tesco. I’ve definitely gotten into my red wine in the last year. That’s been a good pastime. I’m actually doing a wine tasting this weekend with my family. I haven’t managed to go to the pub yet since they have reopened. I was away in the studio when they opened. I was in Spain, and then I just hadn’t gotten around to going, I was gonna go tomorrow night, then I’m in the studio on Saturday and I tend to sound a little bit like Bob Dylan when I’m hungover. Which is completely great for Bob Dylan I mean Bob Dylan pulls off Bob Dylan very well, but it doesn’t go so well for me, I wouldn’t say. So I’m not sure, I might have to rethink my pub plan and push it back another week. But I’m going wine tasting on Sunday, so perhaps I can wait a little while.”

 Wander has released his new single ‘Eye To Eye’. He explains to me that he has had this song for a while and is buzzing to finally be able to let people hear it

“Yeah, I’m super excited, it’s one I’ve had in the bank for a little while so to see it step out into the world and start its own journey is an exciting moment”

“I started this journey with a bunch of songs and I haven’t been releasing songs until November last year. I’ve been writing since I was 14 So, naturally I’ve built up quite a few songs so it’s a sensation that I’ve gotten used to. I think now the desire to release songs comes from more of a point of wanting to move on to the next thing, forever chasing the next thing. Releasing a song, allows you to move on to whatever comes next.”

With each release, Wander is showing a constant and impressive ability to capture emotion within his beautifully crafted tunes and this is an organic and natural result of the artist’s talent.

“It’s just how it comes out, every song is different. It depends on the subject of the song but I think that the tracks that I’ve released to date are cathartic and they are me dealing with personal experiences, and managing those emotions that come along with those experiences. Yeah, so definitely not contrived. It’s not an overly thought out process for me.”

“If it’s something that’s not about my own story and my own personal experiences, I probably will spend a little more time rephrasing things and working out what should be said, but those songs that are about my own experiences and come from my own life it’s more of a natural way of thinking and it just spills out into the page”

Wander’s knack for writing precise, well-crafted lyrics and clever turn of phrase within his songs is impressive. Lines such as “living it up is a lazy lie” “stay calm through the smoke alarm as we let it burn” are impactful and thought-provoking.

“I just stick my phone on to record and sing over the song a bunch of times, as I’m writing it, as it’s first coming to life. I don’t really know what I’m saying as I’m writing it and then I’ll listen back to those voice memos and latch on to certain lyrics. I think “living it up is a lazy lie” is something that felt good to sing and it did sum up, what I was feeling, and was trying to tell. I was talking to my girlfriend in the song and that’s what I was trying to convey to her. I guess it was the quickest way to get across that.”

The piano melodies within Wander’s songs are always a strong figure that adds a unique quality to each track. I wondered if the reason for this is because he writes the songs on piano or just that he loves having piano in the songs.

“Yeah I do write them on piano. It’s the only instrument I can play. It’s my only choice. I’m starting to have some guitar lessons but they’re progressing slowly, because I just gravitate towards the piano when I’m writing on the guitar. I should probably have a little bit more discipline. Maybe I’ll lock my piano in a cupboard somewhere so it forces me to write on guitar. I think naturally I create piano parts as I’m writing them on the piano and then I get into the studio and the producer loves them so they’re like we’ve got to put this in. Actually I just recorded a bunch of songs and there’s a few that are piano-less, which is refreshing.”

“I had co-written those songs though, so I didn’t necessarily write them at the piano and I had someone who was playing the guitar or a producer there sort of putting the track together and we wrote to that. So it didn’t have to center around me at the piano, which I think will be quite liberating especially for me when I get to perform live, to be able to actually step aside from my piano and just have a moment to sing and fully connect with that side of the performance.”

“I only really started getting into the swing of co-writing since September last year. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to step up and really get my teeth into, because I constantly have so many ideas that it’s almost nice to take some of the pressure away to present those ideas within the co-writing session, they can be like, I love that, I love that. I don’t love that. It means you get more ideas finished. My music is there to speak to other people so being able to have a co-writer in the room to tell me how it comes across is really helpful and it’s just a great indicator for me as to how it’s conceived outside of my head.”

The video for ‘Eye To Eye’ is well crafted. It has a groundhog day vibe with lots of plate smashing and tension. Wander got the opportunity to work with Louis Berry (JP Cooper, Emily Burns) on the video. 

“So much fun. We shot the whole thing in one day, which was tough, it was definitely a bit manic and we were shooting until the very last second of the day. It was great fun. I was really lucky to work with a team that I’ve wanted to work with. I’ve loved the director Louis Berry. He’s worked with a bunch of music videos that I’ve admired for a little while. So to be able to get the chance to work with him and create this vision for the song and again, like I said with the co-writing, to hear his take on the song and how he perceives its meaning was super interesting and how he thinks it should be conveyed into the visual world was really interesting, yeah that was a great day.”

“We had a bunch of long chats on Zoom about what the song means to me when we were coming up with the concept for the music video. I realized that it was about the cycle of this relationship of just constantly fighting because we knew something wasn’t right, and then something wasn’t right because we’re always fighting. It’s just this messed up cycle really that we’ve fallen into. He echoed that feeling as well when he had just listened to the song, without me saying it. It’s like our heads met there, we were like ‘well this is what it has to be, it has to be sort of highlighting that cycle and the toxicity of it all’.”

Wander’s debut single ‘Time Out’, has racked up 3 million streams on Spotify to date. It’s a fantastic achievement.

“Yeah, it’s a bit weird to be honest. It’s beyond anything I’d hoped for my first release. People are still listening to it and it’s just so nice to see it have its own life and get some lovely messages from people saying that it means something to them and it’s helped them more or it echoes a personal experience of theirs. That’s more rewarding than the numbers. It’s hearing that people are getting something from it, and can relate to it. But yeah it’s beyond anything I had hoped for my first release and I hope that it continues and people listen to the rest of the music I release.”

Wander hasn’t had the opportunities to experience performing these new songs live. He hasn’t experienced that magical moment of connecting with a live audience yet. This live show interaction is something he is buzzing to see. 

“No, I haven’t been able to gig any of the songs yet which is top on my list. I crave the most to get out there and be able to perform and hopefully, I am going over to the State’s in July. If they let me in and that’s a big if. So, yeah if Biden lets me in I will be performing my first show in July, which is so exciting and I’m starting to get into rehearsals now putting that show together with the band and, yeah, big moment and very exciting for me. That’s something I’ve been looking forward to a ridiculous amount since I started this whole thing.”

Last time I spoke to Wander he told me he had a lot of songs in his repertoire already. I asked if an EP is something we could see very soon.

“That a very good question. Initially, the plan was to release an EP and start touring that. Well, I guess, as I was releasing it I would be on tour already promoting that EP.  But, of course, there’s a virus going around. I can’t tour yet… things are starting to open up but I think realistically it’s not going to be until the latter half of the year until I can actually get out and tour properly. So, I’ve had to tweak plans and I’m actually going to now release a bunch more singles, which I’ve just been in Spain recording. I’ve got 10 tracks that I’ve recorded, and ready to release. So the plan is to release a song, a month until the end of the year, and then start touring that, and 5 of those 10 songs are going to make up an EP, and the other five are just sort of going to sit as stand alone singles, but again I feel lucky to be able to extend that record deal and be able to release more songs. Yeah, so lots more music is basically the solution to Coronavirus apparently.”

AJ Wander is a passionate artist and an exceptional melody wizard with a talent for writing poignant and captivating songs. His music comes from the heart and his warm and velvety vocals leaves you craving to hear more. I am looking forward to the luscious musical treats he releases in the coming months.

Watch the video for ‘Eye To Eye’ below


Author ; Danu

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

A Chat With : Luke Thomas A.K.A Butler

Dublin based dance/pop artist Butler has released the video for his new single ‘ME & YOU’ featuring White Wax. This vibrant tune oozes Butler’s signature sun kissed pop sound. I caught up with Luke Thomas aka Butler to talk about the new single, working with Wax White and the possibility of an EP.

“I love trying to discover different artists and I’m always on the lookout for different acts, particularly when the media will focus on maybe 10 of the best up and coming acts, there’s another 50 that are just outside the spotlight that you don’t see that are doing just as good. I like going down different paths and different rabbit holes to find different acts. I came across these guys and they had a couple of great songs out and I was like, I have to work with these guys. I never thought they would actually agree to do it. They’re two cool guys, two cool rappers and I reached out to them and thankfully they said yes. So we put the song together around Christmas and we felt the time was right now to get it out there”

“ With the lockdown you have to work within the parameters that you can and from the previous summer I had vocals and we had an idea on the guitar so we were able to put that together and send over that to the guys in December. They worked on it, got it back to us, we got it mastered. The process going back and forth can take time but it was worth it in the end. It was a few back and forths and I suppose, by the time we met up to do the video, it was actually the first time we’d ever met, physically, which is crazy.”

Remote recording and collaborating has created an opportunity for artists to work with other artists and producers that they perhaps wouldn’t have been able to work with before. I wondered if Luke thought remote recording is something that will be a lasting addition to recording music in the future after the pandemic is over

“I think it’s the way forward, certainly for electronic music anyway, because the digital stuff is so strong now, it’s so advanced. You have the opportunity to finely tune parts of songs and get them ready way before even going into a studio and that cuts down costs. People can produce albums from their house now. I know they’ve been able to do that for years but it’s really gotten a hell of a lot stronger. So I do think it’s the way forward. Absolutely.”

“Even the microphones people use now are so much better. The technology, the post production software, there’s presets…obviously you need to be able to sing to begin with, but to get to that studio level quality is not as hard to do anymore, which is great. It’s great for the underdogs. It’s great for people who are really struggling to get a record deal, or, they might have written some songs and they’re up and coming, it’s great to see that it is possible for those guys to get through and break through.”

Luke regularly collaborates with a variety of artists for his Butler project. For Luke each artist brings their own sound and style to the tunes. This blending of musical talent creates engaging and refreshing music for listeners to indulge in.

“I suppose that’s another reason why I wanted to work with so many different people because you grow yourself when you work with different people. You grow as an artist and you can learn so much. No matter what age, what genre those people that you’re working with are. It really, helps you and you’d be foolish to think that you know everything, in any field so it’s always good to absorb more knowledge, skills, information, all that sort of stuff. I love it“

Luke is a master at creating sweet earworm melodies that stick in your head for days and make you crave to hear them again. Within ‘ME & YOU’ the doo wop -esque melody is utterly irresistible. Teamed with the love saturated lyrical content, Luke once again proves his song writing prowess. 

“I have been writing melody and stuff like that for years and, yeah, it’s just the way the track was. [The] strummed guitar part, we decided to cut it up a little bit, and cut down some of the strums and just make them a bit more staccato. I think that worked and that helped give more room between the chords to get a bit more melody in there, a bit more feeling in there and I think that came out in the song, it’s benefited hugely from that.”

“I was trying to put myself back as a teenager, maybe 15 years ago, when you’re that age and it’s us against everybody you know. It’s kind of naive hopeful love, that side of things where anything is possible in life and it’s just about what’s happening right there and then. Nothing else matters. That is what it was aiming for. I’m quite used to putting myself in certain situations where I can draw on experience or draw on past situations and things that might have happened, maybe not exactly but close enough”

Dublin’s charismatic duo Wax White and their fluid, edgy raps add a cheeky edge to the song. Their clever rhymes perfectly contrast the track’s sweet melody.

“That was one of the reasons why I wanted them on board. It’s like yin and yang at times. Where I’d have more of a sweeter pop delivery and vocal, and then the guys come in [with] a different kind of energy, which is great. It keeps the track interesting and lively. You always have to have one eye on that. That a song or a piece of work doesn’t plateau and make sure it’s interesting for the listener, which is key.”

Luke has also released a video for ‘ME & YOU’. It’s a fun and charming video featuring a random panda head, bikes and the guys dressed in sleek suits. Being able to make a video is a treasured experience in the middle of this pandemic.

“That was the first time, physically together. It was crazy we were on the phone a lot and zoom and various different avenues getting back and forth to each other, but it was great to actually be there face to face, and have a laugh and the director just kept the camera rolling at times when we had the football there and so forth. Just to have fun with the whole thing and not take it too seriously, I think that’s the key. That’s the key with this stuff, so it naturally came out that we were enjoying ourselves. You can overthink stuff and it just causes more issues and there’s more opportunities for it to go sideways if you overthink it, as opposed to doing a simple idea very well.“

Last time I spoke to Luke he told me he was building up his tunes for a potential EP. I wondered how the EP was progressing.

“Yeah I have enough tunes for the Butler EP, I’m going to put it on ice till closer to Christmas because I might have another single, maybe in September as well just to build with the EP, and there’s no massive rush, I would like to coincide the EP with a live performance. So, I’m holding out to maybe closer to Christmas if I can get a venue, you know, just a small intimate venue maybe 100 people, and see if I can do it that way to get across what Butler is properly and see what people think of it live. That would be the idea. Everything, obviously has been pushed back a little bit with the times we are in which is fine. I’ll just be ready and waiting in the background locked and loaded, ready to go.”

Butler is an electronic pop project and the prospect of live shows soon had Luke and I discussing what a Butler show would look like

“Yeah, it’s heavily based with acoustic guitar, sample bass and drum machines, that’s the way we’d start off anyway and probably keyboards at the start. There’d be no point having a huge band, initially, until we see what sort of reaction we get and what sort of venues we’re playing. It would be like what you see electronic artists do on the likes of Jools Holland and stuff like that. They would set up for two or three musicians and they would cover the spectrum of instruments, between them. Initially, that’s what we are looking at”

So what can eager fans look forward to from Butler in the coming months?

“The plans are to promote this [‘ME & YOU’] as much as possible, look at maybe another single in September, with an EP around Christmas and hopefully a live gig to go with that. That’s the big plan and hopefully looking at collaborating with some other people as well. I have a few in mind, but I won’t say anything yet until they say yes or no to me, and just to create music to keep building on the brand.“

Luke Thomas is an ambitious and talented artist. His catchy pop songs and melody wizardry is mesmerizing. ‘ME & YOU’ is a fantastic example of his earworm magic. This upbeat radiant tune is the perfect pick me up we all need. I’m looking forward to hearing the tunes Butler releases next.

Watch the video for ‘ME & YOU’ below 


Author :Danu

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

A Chat With: Jim McHugh

I caught up with Monaghan singer-songwriter, Jim McHugh to have a chat about his upcoming album, ‘Pretending to Wake Up’ which is set for release on May 28th. We discussed the striking honesty within the lyrics, McHugh’s knack with catchy melodies and his fantastic and relatable storytelling within the songs.

Watch The Interview Below


Author : Danu

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

A Chat With : Etaoin

Photo Credit Frank Fiebe

Etaoin has released her new EP ‘Bedroom Walls’. This beautiful and heartfelt collection of tracks surges with earnest songwriting and soft instrumentation. Etaoin is a talented artist and this bittersweet EP is a must listen.

I caught up with Etaoin to have a chat about her new EP ‘Bedroom Walls’. We discuss how she crafted the tracks, finding her voice and expressing herself through her music

“I always get nervous before releasing music because it’s that thing like oh my god I just hope people like it because you really never know. You hope, but, you never know, and it’s all so personal. Everything that I’ve written on the EP is really close to my heart. I’m excited though”

Lyrically the songs on ‘Bedroom Walls’ are extremely honest. I wondered if Etaoin finds it more nerve-racking waiting to hear what friends and family think of her music as they potentially know what she is singing about or is it more daunting hearing what fans and strangers think.

“That’s a good one, because with your friends, they’re gonna bring it up… you could be at the pub and they would be like, What did you mean by this? and you’d be like, oh god! run from the conversation. But strangers too, I guess, in general, it all kind of blends into one when you release a song. I guess both. It would be hard to choose. “

“The song ‘For Her’ is a song about my old self. The idea of waiting for your old self to come back. When you go through a heartbreak. It’s not just, oh, when will I talk to this person again, it’s also like, am I actually going to get my spark back, when am I going to feel better, but I played it before, and people, especially guys would have related the song to their exes, waiting for her to come back. So it’s funny how when you release a song, it suddenly has all these different meanings to different people.”

The EP is composed of four emotionally charged songs filled with soft yet effective instrumentation and generally backed by guitar. This allows the earnest lyrics to take the main focus.

“I hate overproduction [on] songs and I like the idea of a song being able to stand on its own two feet. Sometimes production can be distracting. When I listen to ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele, it’s just her on the piano and I’ve always felt if the song is stripped back, it really allows no distraction, and also I suppose in the way I wrote the songs it was just me with my guitar, and it felt like a pretty natural thing. I didn’t want to overcrowd them, because the songs are focused on just feelings and lyrics.”

“When I think about all the music I love, a lot of it’s really stripped back. I love the idea of just keeping it bare and letting the song speak for itself, rather than relying on a trend or making it sound cool or whatever. I’d rather it just connected with people.”

Etaoin has a wonderful ability to create catchy and uplifting melodies,‘I Dare You’ has that powerful bittersweet melody that is so infectious while ‘For Her’ blends pop melodies with indie and even folk-esque tones. I wondered if these catchy melodies are a moment of inspiration or something she spends time perfecting.

“I’d say, often my best stuff would come pretty quickly. it isn’t like every time you sit down something decent comes. You sit down and you write 10 times in 10 days, you might get rubbish melodies, all those 10 days, and then on the 11th day when you’re like, oh my god this is going nowhere, something would come at an unexpected time, I’ve always been really passionate about melodies, I love hearing a melody and clicking with it. I’m obsessed with melodies, really. So that is the nicest thing in the world for you to say, that you find it catchy. But yeah it’s often quick as in when you actually write it, it’s quick, but the build up to it is like weeks of nothing.“

One striking aspect of Etaoin’s music is the raw honesty within her lyrics especially within ‘Pale Damp Cheeks’.

“Often when I write a song. I don’t even think about it. I just need to get it out.  It doesn’t really even cross my mind when I’m writing it, it’s just more of a therapeutic thing rather than, Oh, I want this to be this, because they’re all about people, they’re all about situations, they’re all about things that happened to me and things I’ve experienced in my life, but it is scary because when you’re being that honest and then people ask you about it, and you’re like, Please don’t ask me that question ever, leave me alone.”

“Writing has become a bit of a coping mechanism for me and I think song writing is a journey as well. Sometimes there are going to be topics which are hard to cover and scary to cover, and you think do I want people to ask me about this, do I want this to be out in the wide world or whatever. It’s just something that is so key to writing songs, just speaking about you and what you actually feel, and not just trying to write a good song or write a pop song.”

Since Etaoin’s first release ‘Bedroom Walls’ at the beginning of the year, she has raked in over half a million streams. In the uncertain times we are in with Covid 19, that is an impressive and promising achievement. 

“Yeah it’s crazy I’ve been writing songs since I was about 11 or 12 years old and I went and studied science in University. So music for me was always that thing. It was a thing that I would love to do but never gonna happen. It’s an unusual thing to happen so it’s a huge deal. I had no idea what to expect, especially with lockdown especially with everything like that. There’s no way to know how something’s gonna go. I’m feeling really lucky and I feel like I’m actually able to be myself more now, even around my friends. I was always kind of the woo girl, yeah I was ‘The Woo Girl’ . And often I was scared to show if I cared about something, but I’m able to be myself more since releasing music shows different layers [of] myself whereas before I was always a bit nervous to do that.”

Etaoin has a live show booked for Whelan’s in Dublin on November 24th. The prospect of seeing people react to her songs again in a live setting is something the singer songwriter is looking forward to

“I’m so excited. it’s been so weird because before lockdown I was gigging around London and I’d go home to Waterford and I’d be around the pubs and stuff, and so it’s been really weird not having that and not having that connection when playing a song. When you’re playing a song and you’re singing a really emotional line and can see someone’s really listening to what you’re saying and you make eye contact, just like we’re buzzing. It’s been really weird not having it but I’m so excited to get back out there. It’s crazy, I feel like COVID started out as something that was like, oh yeah COVID I heard there is a really bad bug, this is going to be over a week, and then it’s like the whole world just exploded into national pandemic.“

‘Bedroom Walls’ is about growth and renewal and it’s an extremely personal EP to Etaoin. I wondered if there was a song on the EP she was most attached to or proud of.

“I’m proud of all the songs for different reasons, melody-wise, I’m probably most proud of ‘I Dare You’ because it’s kind of an underdog song, but then I love all the songs for different reasons. ‘Bedroom Walls’ was pretty honest and explored some topics that I haven’t really explored on other songs before. like female body image, that kind of stuff. ‘Pale Damp Cheeks’,  first heartbreak, so I’ve always got that connection, you never get over it. So I like all the songs. I feel proud of all the songs for different reasons.”


I wondered if Etaoin has any advice for budding singer songwriters

“ Write loads and loads of songs because the thing that stands people apart really is the songs. Practice singing and if you can teach yourself an instrument that’s great but I feel something that really sets people apart is their song, and be honest in the songs. I feel some people as I said, focus on, I just want to write a hit. That isn’t ever going to be honest and, if you’re not connecting with yourself on a different level, you’re not going to connect with other people.”

Etaoin has a warm and mature voice, there is a smoky rasp and charm to her vocals that is instantly recognisable.

“ People have always said that since I was little. I used to do Trad singing and stuff like that, and when I was 12 somebody said you sound like a grown woman. But it’s just always been like that, it’s stronger and also because I play the flute. So I guess wind control and lung control. So when you sing if you have more breathing control [there’s] probably a bit more power behind it.”

Etaoin has some exciting plans in the pipeline, we discussed what is to come in the next year and what she is looking forward to most.

“I’m recording at the moment, on the second EP to release later this year. I’m really excited to work with people I’ve really wanted to work with for quite a while. Geez, gigs later this year. So excited. and yeah hopefully getting out some video content later in the year as well. I guess we’ll see where it goes. You know I think the question, what’s next, often depends on the listener and how people respond to it, so fingers crossed people like it and good things are coming. Fingers crossed, toes crossed. My mom is already saying the Rosary for it at the moment. Not even kidding. Yeah, every time we release a song she says a week long Rosary every night. Yeah, I’m not even joking. I’m convinced that’s the only reason that it’s gone decently. I called her yesterday. I was like have you started the Rosary?. “

Etaoin is a diamond in the rough who crafts her songs meticulously to create emotion inducing goosebumps with each tune she releases and ‘Bedroom Walls’ is an exquisite example of this. Etaoin is an artist to keep an eye on.

Etaoin has announced a show in Whelan’s on November 24th.Tickets are available here https://www.ticketmaster.ie/etaoin-dublin-24-11-2021/event/18005A9DC5BD1E62

Stream ‘Bedroom Walls’ below 


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With : Yake Loga of NEOMADiC

NEOMADiC have released their new single ‘WAVES’ featuring shiv alongside announcing the release of their EP ‘AFTER DARK’ due to be released this summer. I caught up with Yake Loga to discuss the new single, working with shiv and how they create their sleek tunes.

‘WAVES’ features the amazing soulful vocals of shiv. Yake tells me how this dream collaboration came about.

“I was a fan of her music before we had touched base or contacted each other. We had been working on this track ‘WAVES’ and felt that it needed something else to really maximize the potential of the song, and shiv was a no brainer. As you said she has an amazing voice. So we hit her up and luckily, she liked the song enough to jump on it with us.”

WAVES is slightly more bright and mellow in comparison to the songs on NEOMADiC’s previous EP ‘The Neomadic Tape’. The duo have a laid back lush style with smooth vocals, abstract wordplay and sun-kissed, hazy productions. This seemingly effortless and chill sound took them some time to craft.

“A little bit yeah.The Neomadic Tape was back in 2017 and in the year 2018 we moved over to Vancouver in Canada for a couple of years, and we weren’t actively releasing then. During that time we were working on music and developing it. It’s always been a goal to not limit ourselves to a certain style and continuously evolve it so it’s just a natural progression of time. There has been a good amount of time since the last release so the music has developed quite a lot.”

NEOMADiC have their own refreshing style and sound that effortlessly flows into the ears. I wondered what sparked Yake’s decision to venture into the music industry, was there a specific moment that made him decide to get into music

“I don’t know if there’s one specific moment but maybe a combination of a few, just from creating it and doing it, performing it and how much I’ve always had a very big passion for music. I studied music after secondary school. So yeah, from 16 or 17 I definitely knew that’s what I wanted to do in some form or another, whether it’s performing or being in the studio or anything like that. “

Within ‘WAVES’ NEOMADiC uses introspective lyrics to detail personal issues along with subtle spiritual and pop culture references. Their raps flow fluidly throughout. These precise lyrics are due to practise and learning what works with each release.

“Yeah, definitely. Just over the years from writing and releasing.When you release something and you see how people like it and you’re able to step back from it and then you can analyze, then the next time you go back and you try and improve. Anything you do, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Myself and Dyramid have spent a lot of time even just messing around, you know freestyling with each other, back and forth so I find our chemistry on tracks together has come a long way.”

The duo’s lyrics are honest and very natural; there are no harsh or blunt phrases; they use precise tact to deliver eloquent lyrics through clever phrasing. “I’ve been working for tips, with lyrics on the tip of my tongue, I’m at the tip of my cliff, I got a tip I should jump”. 

“Yeah, I think towards the beginning it was probably more blunt and as we’ve progressed, we’ve tried to just evolve the writing where it can mean a lot of things,double entendres and more metaphorical and all that.”

“Writing songs could be from a certain thing that happened that day or that month, certain emotions have been triggered. The EP [‘AFTER DARK’] in particular is kind of written through the pandemic. We had been working a bit. Just minimum wage stuff over in Canada to pay rent and stuff so there’s some themes on society and how it can be very difficult if you don’t want to fit into the normal school, college, job pyramid there is in society at the moment. So I think there’s a bit of a rebellious theme/nature to the EP coming up.That’s kind of where we are in our lives at the moment, so generally our music just translates over from whatever we’re personally experiencing, normally pretty genuine. “

NEOMADiC’s new EP ‘AFTER DARK’ is due to be released this summer.This 7 track EP comes after the pair spent a couple of years living in Canada, it is a culmination of their experiences over the past couple of years and an expression of what they have to offer. The duo manage to capture the chill nighttime vibe really well, especially within ‘WAVES’. The song transports you to a setting of summer nights created entirely by the duo’s immersive musicianship. Yake tells me how the album was crafted and what we can expect from the EP.

“A lot of it’s in the title, it was written over the summer, last summer, just those late nights with people, good friends and special people to you. So the themes are around that. Then on top of that there would be that trying to make a living out of music, and not rely on other avenues for income.

“It took a while. So generally we work with producers and there’s just two on this EP. So with ‘WAVES’ and a few other tracks we kind of linked with Subroza from America and managed to get in touch just through social media and he gave us a couple of beats to mess around with. We just worked back and forth over a few months, nailing out the structure and different instrumentation and all that together so for this it was a lot better than ‘The Neomadic Tape’ where it’s more of a mixtape and we just took a bunch of random beats and rapped over them so this was a lot more crafted”

There are some great artists in Ireland at the moment in all genres but Hip Hop in particular is gaining a lot of traction and the quality of tunes from artists such as NEOMADiC, Denise Chaila, JYellowL and God Knows is setting the bar really high. I wondered if Yake thinks the Irish Hip Hop scene is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

“ I think it’s been slowly brewing for maybe the past half decade even a bit longer. But in the last five years, it’s definitely been more of an explosion onto the scene. Yeah it’s starting to get noticed a little more internationally, especially over toward the UK. So that’s a good first step. I can only just see that continue to grow to more people” 

NEOMADiC have had headline slots at festivals such as Electric Picnic and KnockanStockan, as well as support slots with hip/hop legends Souls of Mischief and Pharoahe Monch and like all musicians at the moment, Yake is itching to get back to those live shows.

“Yeah, definitely. I’m a little anxious at this point because it’s been such a long time. Probably a bit rusty, but it depends on the mind state. We’ve just looked at it as an opportunity to build up a nice catalogue of music for whenever that day returns that we’re able to then perform it with people and share with people so we just have to keep a positive mindset and see the opportunity, the silver lining in anything.”

NEOMADiC pack a lot of meaningful lyrics into each second of their songs. It can be difficult to remember lyrics during a show. I wondered if the duo find it difficult to remember their lyrics and do they stumble sometimes.

“ Personally I seem to do a lot more than Dyramid would, not too sure why. If you’re not regularly rehearsing and practicing you may be risking the chance of slipping up lyrics. Myself, I just really enjoy improvising and freestyling so sometimes that might distract me a little bit. Back in the day we would always do a little freestyling towards the end [of shows], let the crowd pick a few words for us to rap with and stuff like that it was a nice way to round off the shows.”

‘AFTER DARK’ is an exciting EP to look forward to and Yake tells me it has been keeping the duo busy over this pandemic and giving them something to look forward to as well.

“Yeah a lot more than normal, because of the pandemic, and the way we crafted the EP. A lot of it was done and recorded before I left Canada last summer. So there’s just been a lot of waiting and anxiety to get it out and with the pandemic there hasn’t been too much else to look forward to so it was a nice big relief to have ‘WAVES’ out. It’s just something to feel good about in these tough times. Hopefully the next single will be out on the 7th of May. Then two weeks after that on the 21st of May the full EP is out. So for the next month, that’s our main focus, just pushing and promoting the releases.”

NEOMADiC are an ambitious and talented duo. ‘WAVES’ displays their melodic prowess, sleek raps and raw skill through a mellow and blissful tune. They create dark, lush soundscapes with soul and pop elements enhancing the duo’s refreshing hip hop sound. NEOMADiC are ones to keep an eye on.

Stream ‘WAVES’ below 


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, indie rock, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With :Keelan O’Reilly of Post-Party


Post-Party have released the video for their brand new single, ‘Wasting Time’. This high energy track is a fantastic follow on from their previous single, ‘Being Honest’.With a sweeping rush on guitars, rampant basslines and driving rhythms, the track is an instant shot of adrenaline saturated in the infectious musicianship of Post- Party. I caught up with Keelan O’Reilly to talk about the new single, Colin Peppard’s magical camera skills and navigating through social media.

The band are all in their final year of college and studying for their exams. Between all this remote learning, final year preparation and study, the band manages to write, record and release some seriously smashing songs – ‘Wasting Time’ is the latest single to delight our ears.

“We wrote the song, just on the brink of lockdown when it was starting and we always really really loved it, just the energy and the ideas behind the track. I think it was the idea of how throughout the lockdown, we were spending all this time just waiting and waiting on normality to come back around, it felt like a good fit for the track with the name being wasting time. Everyone was picking up different kinds of hobbies and things just to pass the time that we hadn’t done before. It felt like a good fit, but the track had already been a favourite of the band in general, just because of the energy, and the ideas.”

The band have paced the release of their tracks well. Each track has been given its own time to shine. This has resulted in ‘Wasting Time’ being featured on key playlists, including Spotify’s New Music Friday, Hot New Bands, Fresh Finds: Rock, The Indie List and A Breath of Fresh Eire alongside Apple Music’s Breaking Rock, The New Rock and New in Rock.

“It’s just really good to see the reception we’ve received. Spotify have been very kind to us by putting us in all these fantastic playlists. It’s just really cool overall to see that people are receiving the music well. There’s been a good buzz from what we’ve released so the fact that we got a few playlists with ‘Being Honest’ and now for ‘Wasting Time’ to grow and develop on has been really really cool for us to see.”

“We definitely take everything on board, and we wanted to give ‘Being Honest’  enough time to breathe, but then we wanted to develop and push things on and we have loads of tracks we wrote and recorded during the lockdown period. We realized that we want to get them out and push the momentum forward, especially with the hope that live shows and stuff come back towards the end of the year or maybe the start of next year. We’re wanting to have as much music out for people when we are able to get a live show, but at the same time it is really important to let each track do its own thing, and to give it the time it deserves”

Post-Party shot the music video for ‘Wasting Time’ themselves with each band member recording their part individually, in separate locations. The result is a visually stunning video that superbly captures the band’s energetic and unique image. 

“Our bass player Colin [Peppard], he’s a magician with a camera, editing stuff and everything. He’s been so interested in film for years, and it’s only now in the past I would say two years he’s really taking a passion on learning the ins and outs of working with film. So that’s slowly become part of our identity as a band like the imagery we use for our music through video, and as a means of expression, that’s definitely down to Colin’s passion and drive for film. That’s been spread across all of us as four different individual members, we’ve all become really interested in what we can do with visuals to personify our music. I think the lockdown was a catalyst for that whole thing, because it gave us the time to really hone in on creative ideas and creative decisions. It was something that was going to come eventually but we hadn’t really developed it before we got a chance over lockdown”

“ When you’re releasing any kind of art into the world you’re consciously aware of how people are going to receive it. But I think there is something to be said about just letting your work, do the talking for you and letting each individual piece of art, do the talking. It’s important to not take too much consideration of what other people think about your art, but at the same time you’re releasing it for people to appreciate and for people to enjoy. I think you can be critical about anything and it’s important to be happy with the work you produce”

The band recently released Post-Party merchandise which sold out in just a few hours. It’s great to see people supporting bands especially now during covid, artists need merchandise and record sales perhaps more than ever and Post-Party put a lot of work into their image, visuals and designs, it’s fantastic to see people appreciating it.

“Yeah, that was really helpful. We didn’t expect that at all. We had some of the basic designs done by an artist from Russia, his name on Instagram is idlehead [Nikita Maslov]. We used the designs that he created. He designed the band’s logo. He designed the artwork for all the singles we’ve released so far as well. So we used his artworks as the main focal point of the designs, but in terms of designing the T-shirts, that was all down to again Colin. He was a big help in that factor. We all pitched in our opinions as well. We all came together and made it work and we’re really happy with the reception and people seem to like it.”

“ That was a big help for us because I think people realize the struggle of the music industry at the moment. A lot of artists are putting out new merch, and it’s getting bought up really quickly and it’s really nice to see that the fans are coming together and trying to support those artists that are struggling to make a living at the moment. Luckily for ourselves, we’re only at the very early stages of our careers and we’re all finishing college at the moment. But for someone who is heavily involved in music as their nine to five. It’s really important for the fans to support them through this awkward stage. Luckily we’re hopefully coming towards the end of this but without people supporting the industry, I don’t know how things would go in building things back up.”

The return of live shows is an exciting prospect for Post-Party as they have been releasing music during the pandemic and growing their fan base, without having to tour. The shows will be different when they do return as the band will see new faces and fans that haven’t been able to see the band perform live yet.

“Yeah 100%. That’s something we’re really excited about. We’ve obviously had a good solid fan base coming to all our shows prior to the pandemic, but it’s really exciting for us to see new faces and new people listening to the music and enjoying what we’re doing. We’ve received loads of messages of people saying, as soon as the show is announced they will be at the show so that’s just really exciting for us to know that people are waiting and are excited to see the songs we’ve released over lockdown live in person”

The music scene in Ireland is very vibrant lately – there are so many amazing acts producing great music. Before the pandemic hit there was live music almost every night in Dublin. I wondered if the rush for venues when they open will create competition between bands to book certain venues, etc.

“ It’s something we’ve been aware of. The ideology behind it is when things come back, everybody’s going to be out the door and ready to go. I’ve seen a lot of gigs, and just live events being announced, as of now, and for the next 12 months or more. I think when things really do get back to normal, there’s going to be a stage of just so many bookings, so many gigs So there is going to be a lot of competition and we’re aware of that and we’re willing to wait until it calms down before we go out with our music,  We’re very happy with the pace that we’ve built our audience through the release of music and we are super excited to play live, but we’re not in any immediate rush, knowing that it’s going to take some time before things clear up”

A lot of artists have had to promote themselves more, and be more active on social media because of this pandemic. This is something O’Reilly and the band have had to become proficient at. Now that they have the hang of how social media works there is no stopping them.

“Yeah, absolutely. Social media has always been something that, personally, I’ve never been great at. It’s something that over the lockdown I realized how important it is to artists, seeing a lot of artists, expand their fan base through TikTok, Instagram and all these different platforms, and to such an extreme extent, compared to what you would have done in live performances beforehand, but the pandemic has shown, I guess, that social media is so powerful in that it can be nearly as powerful as live performances, or you know releasing music, if you use each platform in its unique position. I think in the future, for example, we started the TikTok just at the start of the pandemic to just put off our music video and we’re going to continue using that through the summer when me and the guys are all moving in together, and we’re going to try and push our TikTok a bit further. It’s quite difficult to create content when we are all separated, and it’s a lot easier for individual artists or a singular person, but as a group, we want to express our identity through our social media and it’s more difficult when we’re not all together.  So it’s going to be really exciting to get the opportunity to do that over the summer and just expand on what the public see and how they perceive us as a band.”

Post-Party create air-tight guitar-led tracks that are sharp, elaborate and energetic. The band’s sound is a fine display of feel-good dynamic indie rock at its best. ‘Wasting Time’ displays the strength of their songwriting and provides a glimpse into the ever-growing talent of this young band. Looking forward to hearing what they have in store for us in the near future. 

Watch the video for ‘Wasting Time’ below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With: Dara Quilty of Apella

Apella-Bured-You-3-Video-Still_Ray-Keogh

Apella have released the limited edition vinyl and CD of their debut album ‘1963’, alongside the band’s new single ‘Buried You’. Since the album was digitally released on January 29th, it has been going from strength to strength, with a whopping 500,000 streams racked up to date. The album reached #1 on The Official Irish Independent Chart and #2 on the Official Album Charts.

I caught up with Dara Quilty to discuss the album’s success, the energetic video for ‘Buried You’ and getting in shape for live shows.

“ This album went to number one in the Independent Album Chart and number two on the Official Album Chart. I was in the hospital with my mom, we were at an appointment and I got the phone call. I don’t know, like an hour maybe before the charts are published or something,and I was told it was the number one independent album and I was like, oh my god!. I was so happy. I actually shed a tear of Joy. Then I was told, hang on, and he said 1963 is the number two album in the country. I was like What do you mean?. So this is the official independent chart for artists who are not on major labels. but I look at that and like Adel is in there, Arctic Monkeys are in there. So to be number one on that is unbelievable and then to be on the official album chart. Justin Bieber is number one,  Apella is number two, Dermot Kennedy is number three, Dua Lipa is number four, John Spillane is number five. Demi Lovato released the same day we did and she’s eight and we are two that is, I don’t know, what do you say about that?”

“There has been nothing but truth about this campaign. Obviously I opened up a bit. I have never done that before. I’m no celebrity as you well know, but I just feel social media, I like it for what it is, I like to put my work up there and I like the fact that I can get engaged with people that enjoy what I do, whether it be the band or a podcast or a show or TV or whatever. I like it for that kind of thing, but I never post my personal life up there. Not because I think I’m a celebrity, just, because it’s the internet, and there are weird people in the world. So it’s kind of daunting to share that part of the story, and the response, I mean I have gotten so many messages from so many women, and so many young women that are my age, that are 31, 32 that have been through cancer, and they’ve never heard a guy speak about it. They have said they’re going to get support and they have realised they’re not okay. One girl said she was diagnosed at 27, five years ago and she said, I’m not okay. Five years later, I listened to your podcast and I’m gonna get help today.This is a weird thing, people can live their lives without being affected by it and they are so lucky. And people that are affected by it, every story is different, every experience is unique so I didn’t want to come across like a Mr.know it all, because I’m not a Mr. know it all. I’m a Mr. wants to know it all, I want to speak to people, I want to learn more from people. I can share a perspective, and an idea. Do you know how many women in Ireland are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. 3700 People, 3700 Women, 3700 unique experiences and stories. It’s so complicated. That’s crazy. I remember when you experience it for the first time, you don’t know what to do because it comes out of nowhere, so I guess if I could share my experience it might resonate with someone. That was a bonus to this record, if anything, to be able to do that, you know.”

Quilty has been open and honest when discussing the motivation behind why he decided to give 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the album to The Marie Keating Foundation. His mother lives with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer, and the title of the album ‘1963’ is named after the birth year of his mother. It’s a personal album that has resulted in him speaking frankly about his personal life. Something he has never done before

“It’s acceptance. This is the thing, I believe, and again, I’m no expert. I think life is complicated, difficult to navigate, and the older you get, the more complicated and difficult to navigate it is. The world is unfair, and then we all die at the end. So you decide on what you do with this weird experience. This absurd existence that we have, you decide. Do you want to be an angry person on Twitter, or do you want  to have fulfillment in what you do, for me it’s making music.”

‘1963’ is by no means an album about cancer. It’s an exquisite collection of pop-punk indie tracks sure to fire up the soul and have you dancing and moshing along in no time. Quilty displays his deft songwriting through these dynamic songs to give listeners something they can enjoy and listen to.

 “Someone referred to it as a cancer album, and I had to correct them. I was like no no no no no it’s not. This whole thing was written and recorded before. If you listen to the record, like the single is called  ‘Buried You’. You can’t have a cancer album and a song like that no. ‘Buried You’ was this athemic cliche breakup song about a guy who’s just out of a relationship. The lyric is “turned out the light, went out into the night searching for anyone that would give me anything close to love” , that’s just the power breakup, f*ck you, I’m going out and getting drunk and I don’t drink. So that was written from the perspective of a character. The album is all stories and stuff. Lyrically, they’re meticulously put together stories, some are from real life experiences and some are from fantasy.”

“I never in a million years thought I would be releasing an album under these circumstances, with my mom, with a global pandemic. Having moved to New York City, and being there for, I don’t know, six, seven months, and then Manhattan shutting down. More Americans have died from COVID-19 than World War One, two, the Vietnam War and 911 combined. I have a picture of me on 6th and 44th around Times Square at rush hour on a Tuesday. I’m in the middle of the avenue. I don’t know if you have been to New York, but up the avenue, cross the street that’s how you remember. So the avenues go up Manhattan. They are always full of cabs, Ubers honking horns. I was in the middle of the street, I didn’t have to wait for the crosswalk, there was nobody. I have this picture of me with a completely empty Times Square. There’s red steps in Times Square, that are infamous for Instagram. You never get near them there is always tourists. I have a picture of me just on my own on those red steps, you’ll see them in the Jay Z and Alicia Keys video for Empire State, but they had to block it off to shoot there and close it down. I have a picture of me just in there in the middle of the day I had the whole thing to myself”

  • Apella
    Photo credit: David Gannon Photography
  • Apella
    Photo credit: David Gannon Photography

“If you told me in 2019, the conditions, I’d be releasing this album under. I’d be like this is a dystopian future show on Netflix you’re pitching to me here this is crazy. But look, like I said life is difficult, complicated, and you choose what you do. I chose in this pandemic, I was like, right here’s a pause, let’s do a podcast, I’ve wanted to do for so long, ‘Quilty’s Differen‪t‬’. I love my podcast. My record is recorded, let’s release the record.  I released the record in January digitally, as you know and then April 2 physically, you know what happens in January, the music business? The festival booking.

“So all the festival booking happens around December, January. So if there was no pandemic, we would be booked now for festivals. Then we release it and then it goes well in the charts, and then the festivals would start bumping us up the lineup maybe. Then we go,ah let’s put on an Olympia show or the Academy show or let’s see what venue we can do, and let’s go around the country and tour. We can’t do any of those things. It’s such an unusual time to release a record but I was like I’m not waiting anymore.”

The pandemic has caused a lot of uncertainty within the music industry, and one crippling factor for artists is the lack of shows. I wondered, considering the album is doing so well, is Quilty annoyed at the fact he can’t tour to maximize the reach of the album.

“No I’m not annoyed at all, because it’s outside of my control. Who knows if I released this record in the usual noise of the world it could have been lost in the noise. I don’t know, it is what it is, I accept it for what it is.  Right now, what I’m doing is talking to you, what happened an hour ago is not important, what’s going to happen in one hour is not important. The album is the number one and number two album in the country right now and then somebody else will take over. So,  this is going to be I hope, a key to continue the success in the United States. Because there’s an alternative market over there that doesn’t exist here. As in, there’s alternative radio stations like K-Rock in LA and ALT 92.3 in New York City, that just play bands like Apella, Twenty One Pilots, Weezer and Machine Gun Kelly all day long. ‘Buried You’, ‘We Met At  A Party’,  I can hear that song on all those stations, not sticking out like a sore thumb. But I love this country. This country is magnificent and the ‘Buried You’ music video would have cost me approximately $20,000 to do in New York. I got to do that here in Ireland with creative people that I know as a collaboration.

Ireland is a beautiful country for that. My team of people with Apella, it’s not just me, it’s me, it’s Ronan, it’s Joe from the studio it’s Ray, who does the cinematography, Dara Munnis who shot the album cover, Natalie who designed and Sabrina, it’s a team. This is good for, not just me, this is good for everybody. Everybody has a role, and everybody’s celebrating this. Maybe it’s because I’m in my 30s now, it’s not a narcissistic experience. Did I want to be a big rock star when I was 22 Yeah, I was 22. Now, 10 years later I’m like okay I just want to do this, I don’t care, I like doing it. We just love the studio, Ronan is such a good drummer. If we’re gonna put on a show we’re going to put on the best show possible and if people come and enjoy that, that’s amazing, because we care deeply about it”

Apella have also released the video for ‘Buried You’, which was directed by Ray Keogh. The video showcases the live energy of a show and gives a glimpse into Apella as a live band. Well captured and beautifully presented, this clip definitely whets the appetite for anyone longing to see the band live, which will hopefully not be too far in the future.

“I’m so happy you said that because when I came up with the concept for that video I had this idea of black and white but like colors, not black and white video. That video is a representation of what you would see walking into a tent at Electric Picnic or Glastonbury, you know, there’s Apella. That is the energy we play with live. We’re both very ostentatious performers. Ronan is particularly spectacular to watch live playing drums and I’m a tall drink of water. To me, that video is Apella. That’s what we are, the lights, the look, the energy. That was all shot on a handheld camera, there was no jib, there was no tracking, there was Ray Keogh and his genius brain. It was all handheld. He edited that video and Ronan Kenny was the lighting designer, and that is the band. What you see in that video is what you should see at a music festival, except it’s on YouTube”

“ Yeah, we were contemplating do we book one [shows] or not now because I know shows are being booked, and I see people for September and stuff or October and I’m like, the government are saying, you’re allowed meet one other household but not in your garden or their garden. I feel like if we put a show on sale we’ll just have to reschedule it.  This idea that Ireland is going to go from being allowed to meet one neighbor not in your garden or theirs to like the Olympia, I just I don’t know, I can’t predict that. So we’ll do shows when shows are back.” 

“Shooting ‘Buried You’, we had such bad headaches after that video, because we hadn’t performed in a year. Your body gets used to it. The headaches weren’t from the music it was from, and it sounds really lame but it’s just rocking out our brains!. Ronan after the second take was like, oh god I can’t see anymore, because he plays so hard. I think in the pandemic he did some shows with Gavin James. Gavin James and Apella are very different. Gavin is beautiful, it’s about his voice and Ronan is very lightly playing drums in the background. Apella is like, throwing the kitchen sink down the stairs. So, the day after we shot that video, it felt like we had been drinking for, well I imagine what a terrible hangover feels like. Again, I don’t know I don’t drink or do any of that sh*t but we were just so f*cked the following day because… it just took so much energy. You need to be in shape for tour, I don’t think people realize this about touring”

One aspect of touring that can be difficult for artists is the comedown after a show. It might not seem so, but to go from the high energy and adrenaline on stage to a quiet room on your own is a difficult transition, and this is another aspect of touring, artists have to prepare for.

“Oh I know about the comedown jeepers.I spoke to Dougie [Poynter] from McFly on my podcast about this actually. Dougie and I bonded many years ago over a mutual love of Blink-182. He was in McFly doing arenas every single night and like you said, went from standing on the stage to 14,000 screaming girls to what they call, I don’t know what they call like – it’s like, a speed exit or something. It’s when there’s music still playing but the talent are taken off stage, put onto the bus and brought away from the venue straight away.  You go from standing in front of people to being on a tour bus in a bunk. I don’t know if you have ever been on a tour bus before but the bunks are tiny. So you’re in a bunk alone after literally 10 minutes ago standing in front of 40,000 people. Imagine doing that 265 times a year.”

“I guess I’m kind of lucky in a way that I’ve been working professionally in this business since 19 via radio. I always think it’s so funny people’s reactions to celebrities like people freaking out because we’re all just people you know. But I’ve definitely been super jaded after festivals.  I remember we did Sea Sessions a few times and that’s really far away. Donegal is like a four-hour drive and we never stay anywhere we just come back because it’s too expensive, you drive for four and a half hours to play a 40-minute set. I remember one Sea Sessions… I was just exhausted from the whole day, all the gear in the van, getting there. I drove us there and then our tour manager had to drive home. I was like, I need to pass out. I need to sleep, our tour manager had to drive, and I passed out immediately. I was asleep for most of the ride home. Just because I was tired from four hours of driving, and you’re on stage at a festival. For festivals, you have to stick to your timeslot. There’s a big thing on the side of the stage, because if you run late the whole day is screwed. So if you run over on your set time, the next band are starting. It works like clockwork, especially like Electric Picnic and stuff, behind that big curtain is the next band setting up all the gear. It’s all on wheels so one band rolls off, the other band rolls on, and this happens worldwide. When you’re a smaller act you don’t have a crew of 15 people to do all that stuff for you, so you know you got local crew so you got to do it yourself, which is fine, but then you do the show, then you get all the stuff back in the van, and then you got to drive four hours back to go to bed so it’s tiring. But I still want to do it again.

“Being on stage is probably the best. It’s probably the most fun thing. It’s such a different experience from doing it to watching it, you’re in another place. It’s hard to explain. Going into a song, I won’t know what the first line of the song is, and then Ronan counts in, and then it just happens. It’s like you’re pouring yourself a glass of water. You don’t need to think okay, lefthand, I need to turn the cold tap on, leave it run, right hand, glass, okay the glass is full. It’s just a thing you’ve been doing your whole life so it’s just muscle memory.”

Social media is a huge element of artists live’s now. I wondered if Quilty finds navigating his social media easy or is it a difficult but necessary task.

“We can take nice pictures on Instagram all day. We can be on TikTok, all day, a lot of people do that and that’s where they put their energy and that’s fine. My least favorite part of this whole album has been the Instagram and social media promoting. Everything is different. This many words are allowed on twitter, twitter video can be this long, Instagram video can be 60 seconds long, this is this aspect ratio of the story. I’m like, Oh God, I wish I had someone to do all this. I love social media but I don’t like constantly having to push and put up the videos. I just like doing the music bit of it and I like having the silly time.”

“If I wasn’t doing this as a job I would not be on any of it.If you log onto my Instagram it’s just stuff I’m doing. Like I said earlier. I’m not an influencer, I look forward to reading the book on social media in like 50 years. Donie O’Sullivan from Kerry who’s the CNN journalist is sort of lifting the lid on major social media platforms and propaganda, and especially during the Capitol Hill riots that time. I look forward to reading the book somebody in 50 years will write and it’ll be called the Social Media Experiment or something. I think it’ll flip reverse, I think eventually our grandkids will say grandma how didn’t you know. They’ll be like, there was a camera on the front, there were three cameras on the back.”

Like all bands now, Apella have the power and influence of streaming platforms, giving artists huge exposure; however, it doesn’t make them money. They have the opportunity to reach more people but don’t reap the benefits as much as an artist would with album sales and touring. Artists have had to adapt to this mass consumption of music and make the most of what they can.

“I feel it’s being devalued. It’s a good way to get your music out there and digital is the future we got to just accept that adjust and adapt. Like we had to adjust and adapt to COVID and like we’ll have to adjust and adapt to the next thing. This record is literally a demonstration of adjusting and adapting to a circumstance and trying to prevail. This is the number two record in the country, and the number one record on the Independent chart, you know, the word chart was never even part of that. This is my first actual official release, I’ve been releasing music for 10 years and I’ve skipped this bit because I’m like I’ll just put it up on MySpace at the beginning. Fox Avenue, all we would do is put ourselves on MySpace. Go and play The Academy Whelan’s, Olympia, whatever supports slots we can get you know, that’s what we did. Now, it’s a completely different world that we live in. I think our publishing company, which is just a self-publishing company, you just do it yourself. It sends it to 88 places. The obvious ones are Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Tidal, but then there’s ones in China and Japan I have never heard of and it just goes, Do you want to send it to everywhere and you’re like, Yeah. So just goes on to all the places and I’m like, did I get any money for this?. Anybody pay me for this any time, anywhere along the way. So that’s why the chart thing, I never thought about that because I’ve never done it before, ever. With a chart, you need to have a company, scanning barcodes.”

People really appreciate the care and attention to detail provided by Quilty. All the pre-ordered limited edition white vinyl’s of ‘1963’ come numbered and signed by Quilty. He is also giving away a custom-built RQ1963 pink guitar designed by himself and crafted by Custom Built Ireland to one lucky person who pre-ordered the album

“I did a personal note to every single person who pre-ordered. I thought it was going to be really nice until it was 3:15am, and I was only on order 185. And with GDPR and all that they didn’t send me full names so it was just a first name I got. I vividly remember being on 185, and it was three o’clock in the morning, and I was like, what am I doing, but it was a limited edition vinyl, there’s a specific number of vinyls, so I wanted to number them. I don’t know, I just like to go the full nine yards. I got so many tweets and Instagrams about it so it was nice. It was kind of fun, it was like oh look, we found vinyl 145 Oh, we found vinyl 86. I enjoyed seeing where they landed. A lot of family and friends were supporting the record and I was like hey you got vinyl 99. Did you not preorder this when I asked. So it’s fun stuff like that”

“Yeah, we haven’t given that away yet [ custom-built RQ1963 pink guitar ]. We haven’t picked our winner yet, that’s only for the people that pre-ordered. I guess we’ll probably be giving that away by the end of the month. The competition is closed, it was only for people that pre-ordered. “

‘1963’ is a well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable album, Apella has managed to capture a whirlwind of emotions heightened through sublime musicianship and production. The refined glorious melodies and masterful instrumentation portrayed within the tracks makes each song dynamic and energetic. ‘1963’ is a must listen

Watch the video for ‘Buried You’ below


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With: Faye O’Rourke of Soda Blonde

Soda Blonde

Soda Blonde have announced the release of their debut album ‘Small Talk’ on July 9th with their new single and title track. I caught up with singer-songwriter Faye O’Rourke to talk about the new single, gaining confidence as a band and within herself, how she crafts her poetic lyrics and how Adam O’Regan is a “multifaceted genius”.

Soda Blonde are honing in on their craft, dropping alternative pop gems with each release. All four band members (O’Rourke, guitarist Adam O’Regan, drummer Dylan Lynch and bassist Donagh Seaver-O’Leary) are seasoned musicians who have been perfecting their craft since their teens. The result is the Soda Blonde experience. Title track ‘Small Talk’ gives a glimpse at what the album has in store for listeners.

“I thought Small Talk was a very fitting title for the album in general as it’s a very self-aware title. In terms of what it’s about, it’s about loads of things. Initially when we wrote it, when you’re listening to it you think it’s about a dialogue between two people, but it’s also kind of talking about one’s inner dialogue. I think, especially now, in the times that we live, it seems like we’re beholden to one or two scripts. It’s becoming more and more polarised, and a lot of times it’s all talk and no action. So Small Talk just seemed like a very fitting title for the album as a whole and also for the single.”

‘Small Talk’ is a catchy alternative pop tune with a dark undertone, and this is something we see a lot within Soda Blonde’s songs.In fact, it could be what makes them so enticing. Sometimes it’s a deep bass groove, pulsing synth or mystical melody that tantalises the ears and entraps listeners in the band’s mesmerising sound.

“ We always set out to serve the song, and that’s one of the great things about the band and why the music is so diverse. So yeah, I guess there’s a darkness in the lyrics that sometimes, I feel is countered with the music. We’re making music that makes you want to move, but the subject matter can be quite dark. I’m definitely exposing parts of myself through the music that I wouldn’t necessarily do on a daily basis. I’m probably more honest in my music.  I’m exploring parts of myself that I wouldn’t want to discuss with somebody, you know. So I think the music does counter that but also there is a darkness to it as well, I guess, as you said”

I wondered if it was daunting approaching the band with all these very personal, emotional, honest thoughts within her head.

“That’s a good question. No I’m not because we’ve worked together for over 10 years and we’ve been through a lot as teenagers, and we have a very intimate relationship with one another. So No is the answer, I’m well used to it at this point. But I’m still always anxious about their reaction because I respect them so much as musicians and as artists. That’s still a very nerve-racking thing. I’ve gotten better at that over the years. When I was younger I would be kind of shaking because the first time you do expose those feelings is often the most nerve-racking, so I’m probably better at that now. It’s definitely something that I had to get to grips with over the years”

“We’re all very communicative and open. I think a lot of the time, because our lives are so intertwined, they can relate to what I’m talking about or, they understand it. When you expose yourself as a person, I used to see that as being vulnerable or a weakness. I felt like I was giving away parts of myself and I didn’t have anything left for me, but now I’m seeing that as more of a strength because I’m just more comfortable with myself. At the end of the day, it’s me living with myself in my own head. I suppose it’s therapeutic and I feel like I’m achieving a little bit more contentment, in that way. “

Soda Blonde’s music expresses and discusses universal, relatable themes and topics however they also have personal meanings for O’Rourke. A special result of this is fans and listeners can take away something meaningful from the songs. The manner in which O’Rourke crafts her lyrics and how the band creates the backdrop allows listeners to draw their own experience and value out of each track.

“That’s the whole point, especially with this song [Small Talk] in particular and with the album as a whole. I’m never trying to be didactic or tell people how they should live. I think the idea is that people take ownership of it and that’s what makes a good song. That’s what makes it stay with someone forever is If they insert themselves into it and derive their own meanings. So that would be my intention anyway… to open it up to people’s interpretations and for them to find themselves in it”

Catchy melodies seem to be something Soda Blonde are pros at creating. Every song the band releases grabs listeners ears with a bittersweet infectious melody and irresistible hook. I wondered if O’Rourke has a secret recipe to create these and if the melody comes when she is writing the lyrics, or if she writes the lyrics and then puts a melody to it

“I’ve always listened to pop music, and a wide range of everything, I don’t just listen to one genre of music. I think I listen to every genre of music but I don’t go out intending to write a pop jam or something really hooky, it’s just that I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I’m losing myself in it. It’s a subconscious thing and I always make sense of it after I’ve written it, but I feel that’s just my musical sensibility – to write things that are hooky, I guess, I hope.”

“I very rarely do the latter, it’s usually, I’ll sit down at a piano or with a guitar or something and there’ll be one moment or one line or one lyric that presents itself, and that’s usually through the hook or something like that, and then I’m like oh that’s kind of good, I’m a genius for like five minutes and then… my subconscious will begin the exercise, and then my rational self will come in and fill in the blanks after. I think it’s amazing when people can sit down and go, I’m going to write about this and structure out lyrics and then put it to music, that’s an incredible skill, but for me, not saying that I don’t know what I’m going to write about, a lot of times I will know generally what I’m trying to express but in terms of structuring the lyrics, it usually comes out as I’m playing”

O’Rourke is becoming known for her strong and poetic lyrical content. I find there are certain turns of phrase within Soda Blonde’s tracks that hit you when you are listening to them. For example, in ‘Small Talk’, the lyric “Do I suppress everything? Am I just too late to admit that I’m Ignoring myself? “. It’s an honest ponder eloquently expressed in two short lines

“Yeah, I suppose it’s a scary endeavour because I’m relying on something that I don’t have any control over at all and that’s why the guys are such amazing technical musicians. I wouldn’t really describe myself as a very technical musician, I can navigate my way and articulate myself, but musically, it takes me a bit longer because I’m kind of like I know what it’s supposed to feel like, but I can’t remember where this chord is you know. But yeah, that’s the thing, that’s why it is therapeutic and it is spiritual and something that I’m very grateful to be able to do because I didn’t train to do this, I didn’t go to college to do this, it was just something that I was always able to do so, I respect that process. I certainly do structure after. There’s a few parts that come that way but I definitely do sit down and crack the whip and, as you say, the rational brain comes in and structures it in a way that,  for me it should feel complete. It has to have a start, middle and end, and there has to be some kind of hard-hitting conclusion for me with songwriting”

Soda Blonde have been playing together since their early teens, with their previous band – the internationally renowned Little Green Cars, whose seminal debut album skyrocketed to number one on the Irish album charts. Soda Blonde stepped in a different direction to Little Green Cars. There is a more indie-folk sound that is enhanced by impressive synth-pop elements and 80’s influences within Soda Blonde. However, this wasn’t a surprise decision.

“Oh no, it definitely wasn’t we’ll give it a go and see what happens. It was kind of like, this is the only thing that I feel we’re geared towards doing and the vehicle of Soda Blonde has been just so rewarding because we can take control of things that we couldn’t do before. Little Green Cars was winding down quite gradually. I think people just see it as one big announcement and I think a lot of people were surprised by how quickly Soda Blonde emerged after that. But it had always been there, certainly for me in some capacity. These songs, they go back a couple years, they weren’t just all written as soon as we conceived Soda Blonde as such, I had these songs in me for five, six years, some of them. So it’s sort of everything really, you know”.

“Obviously we did have such big success with Little Green Cars and we were so young and everything but I think you understand a bit more in hindsight about, where and why those things happen and we were a great band and I think we’re as good a band, as we were then. It’s a different thing. I see them as two different things and Little Green Cars will always be a huge part of me, it’s all of my reference points. I grew up in that band. I do see it as one journey of my life, and I would love to have as much instantaneous success but that can also be against you in a way, I think when you’re working against hype. It’s quite difficult. I think that was kind of an invaluable experience because I understand it now. I understand the hype machine thing and how volatile things are. It’s a very volatile industry and you just have to be able to put your head down and make the things you want to make and push on. So, I don’t think there’s pressure for me necessarily to achieve the same things. I just believe that we will get there, whether it’s fast or slow, doesn’t really matter. I think I’m happier and more secure in myself with this debut. I was a nervous emotional wreck when the band started when we were teenagers and it was hard to enjoy it. Because you just felt like you were an imposter. You felt like you didn’t know where you were, what you’re doing, what you were supposed to say. I remember playing Coachella, when we were 19 or 20 and looking at other massive acts, going, I don’t look like that, I don’t wear those clothes, do I belong here? Do I even fit in here? and I feel that’s all part of being a teenager and part of growing up.I think this time around, I feel very confident and we love our music and we love each other so you know, come what may type of thing.”

The band create a musically rich and diverse sound, with each member injecting their own unique flair and musical talent into the songs to create ambient and gripping soundscapes. From bassist Donagh Seaver O’Leary’s swaggered elastic grooves and Dylan Lynch’s dynamic drumming coaxing you to bop and groove to Adam O’Regan’s virtuoso guitar, the band are the dream team musicians. However, one striking and instantly recognisable aspect of Soda Blonde is O’Rourke’s vocals. She has a wonderful command and ability to create emotion through her vocals.

“I always loved singing, it was always a big part of my life, since I was really small. I think I lost confidence when we were in Little Green Cars a little bit because I was very tense, and over the years I’ve learned to use my voice with a bit more diversity. I was always singing very loud and I’m kind of a belter, that was part of the expression, it was kind of like the pain was coming out through the vocal and through how I was singing, whereas now I can use my voice in different ways. I respect it more as an instrument. I feel I’m more connected with it, if that makes sense…that’s why, when I’m writing I can feel there’s a good version of that song just with me and the piano, or me and the guitar, and I think that’s going back to the songwriting thing, like the standards, it has to be a stand alone thing without all the arranging, it has to sound good with just my voice and one instrument.”

Soda Blonde have an Irish and UK tour starting in August. The prospect of live shows has been a pipe dream as of late due to covid, but the notion that live gigs could come back soon is an exciting prospect for artists.

“ Yeah, I just don’t know how I’m gonna feel, for me, this is life now, because musicians and artists were the first things to go and they’ll be the last to come back. I’ve just come to terms with this new world that we live in, in a way. And we’ve been doing so much visual work, and putting a lot of focus and energy into making visuals, yeah I’m just so excited to do something with people. All the live streams are an opportunity to do something different…but yeah the prospect of actually feeling the audience is just, it’s essential. It is essential to the creative process because a lot of it is so introverted and you’re using emotions that maybe people don’t want to use on a regular basis or in their day to day so the payoff of that process is sharing it and getting that audience connection. So I think it’s been a challenging time for artists in general, because they don’t have that other side of the coin”

Soda Blonde’s ‘Love Me World’ live stream was a real treat, with the band providing a unique and mesmerising visual as well as a standout performance. They made the most of this live stream freedom using various lighting effects to create a dazzling and atmospheric ambience to enhance their enticing alternative pop. Each song moved like a scene from a movie and added depth and perspective to their performance.

“They were what was getting us all through lockdown, and it was really great. I think there was that moment when that was kind of bringing everybody together and especially in the music community everyone was watching each other’s live streams and it was great, but at the same time, we wanted to do something that was next level. It was challenging though. We had no budget,  it was just us and two of our friends helping us out, there was no big massive crew, it was just what we could muster. But it was great. I’m really proud of it.”

“Adam and I are big film buffs, but particularly Adam. Since we were kids, he was recording our music and engineering it, I mean like from the age of 15. He directs and the two of us conceptualise but he mainly directs everything that we do so, he’s a multifaceted genius man. He really is our secret weapon when it comes to all that kind of stuff. It’s great, I love being able to explore different mediums, not just music, we’ve learned so much in the last year about so many different things, because we’ve had to”

For me, the unreleased track ‘In The Heat of the Night’ was my favourite from the live stream and I asked O’Rourke if there would be any more singles released before the album in the hope she would satisfy my craving to hear the song again

“Yes, we will have another single out in a few weeks, it’s called ‘In the Heat of the Night’’.

O’Rourke has experienced different aspects of the music industry, from the hype of Little Green Cars and the time of A&R’s to the fast-paced music consumption of modern streaming. I wondered if she had any advice for anyone who wanted to start a career in music.

“You just have to do it for you first of all, and it’s true now more than ever that you have to be able to rely on yourself a great deal, that would be my advice. I don’t think it’s one of these things where it’s like never stop working and you know you got to get your head down and just, be at the grindstone, but liking music, always exploring, looking at other artists, watching as many films, reading as many books and just living your life. I think experiencing life is one of the greatest tools for creating. Just get yourself out there. The landscape has changed so much since we started. When we started, there was A&R guys coming over and somebody did your social media and there was more people in these kind of industry jobs, whereas now it seems, everybody does everything themselves, you have to be able to do multiple different jobs now, so it’s harder in a way, but it’s also great because there’s more of a platform for people at a starting out level to get their music out there. But I think it’s just about meeting people and meeting people that you want to work with and just making connections and having relationships with people”.

“ I don’t have a thick skin, I’m an emotional wreck so if I can do it, anyone can do it, don’t think too much. Just do it, don’t think too much about it. Don’t analyse it, just keep making stuff”

‘Small Talk’ is a masterful tune and an intoxicating appetizer to Soda Blonde’s debut album. This band’s talent knows no bounds. Looking forward to the album.

Stream ‘Small Talk’ below 


Author : Danu

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

A Chat With : Rory & The Island

Irish singer-songwriter Rory & The Island has released the video for his brand new single ‘Miss This’. ‘Miss This’ explores the basic little joys we all miss during this crazy COVID situation and has become a firm favourite during Rory & The Island’s successful weekly Facebook Live broadcasts. I caught up with Rory to discuss the new single, his live broadcasts and the exciting prospect of live shows later in the year.

As Rory was “having a bit of a meltdown trying to get Weetabix out of a table” which was delightfully “mixed in with Crayola and milk” we talked about ‘Miss This’ and its slightly different shift in tone compared with his previous release ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)’. With its subdued instrumentation, the song creates a warm ambient atmosphere. Obviously, the lockdowns due to covid sparked the inspiration for the song, but I wondered was it Rory’s personal experience that made him write. ‘Miss This’ or was it seeing other people struggling.

“Probably a bit of both, we just got old clips of me playing live gigs and merged it in with myself and the kids around the sitting room. It’s just the contrast of lockdown as opposed to being able to go out and play in front of a live audience and even just put in some footage of when I used to go and watch a Donegal game and just the contrast of that. That was the thought running through my head but it’s so weird, when I put the video together, I have to be honest and it might be because of my age, but it looks like it’s a midlife crisis. It’s almost like a pining for your youth. I try not to make it too sentimental either. There’s a positivity, as you say – it’s melodious and rich. I went for that because I didn’t want to do another sob story of the pandemic. It’s the kind of song that maybe in eight years, I would hope, that you could listen to it and it’s still this song about reflecting on good times, it could be about a missing friend or missing some days that you had when you were younger with your family, but I’d like to think that it’s positive, you know it’s not got bitterness to it. “

It’s easy to accept and get used to the “new normal”, but when I heard ‘Miss This’ for the first time, it hit me hard. Everything we are missing just came flooding back, and it does every time I hear the song. It’s the perfect little reminder of all we have lost without being sad. Instead, it’s wonderfully nostalgic. Rory seems to have captured a sense of history in the track, yet it has a timeless feel.

“Even just buying a glass of wine during the day and sitting down at a cafe or two friends just getting a couple of cans and sitting on the beach on holiday. That can’t be done anymore and it’s hard to get your head around that. You would never have thought that was a big freedom”

“ I wrote it in like nine or 10 minutes, and that’s the same with, ‘Wired To The Moon’ and ‘Valhalla’ [‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla)]  that kind of stuff connects well with people. Even with The Revs, we used to find that the stuff that we would spend three hours on would come out better than stuff we spent three weeks on. It’s really weird. So I just basically scribbled down on an A4 – sitting down for coffee in a restaurant, simply sitting down with a friend, having a conversation with a beer – you know, little basic things like going to a football match. I just wrote down about 10 things and then just started playing, the little old fashioned four chord rotation which is like a 1950s rotation really. It would be from ‘Blue Moon’, or ‘Stand By Me’ it’s just one of the classic chord formations. It’s kind of like that Bruce Springsteen thing of, can I get something really basic really quick? with a couple of chords. And sometimes, nine times out of 10 you can’t get that because after 20 minutes you do something that sounds like 20 other songs and it’s going nowhere and it’s not even interesting to me. But with this one, that was one of those where I was like wow! you know, the hair stands up a little bit on your arm. After five minutes, you know that you have a song almost complete which is so weird. “

This emotional and sweet sentiment that ‘Miss This’ summons within the listener makes you think of the live setting and how special this song will be live. It’s going to be a teary song with swaying and hugs when Rory finally gets to play it in a venue for the first time.

“This week I put out tickets for three gigs and the Glasgow one is almost sold out already and it’ll be 200 people upstairs at Malone’s in Glasgow, which is a lovely gig, it’s an Irish venue in Glasgow. Just the thought of being able to walk out with an acoustic guitar and kick drum and start off with that song. It’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s just going to have a totally different resonance. You could almost add an “ed”  at the end you know “I missed this”. For people that have been locked up for all these months to get that little release. Though August is still ages away and who’s to say there won’t be some variant from Mars or Venus to throw another spanner in the works but yeah that’s one of those songs that I think is going to work really well live. It was really hard to record it. I said to Josh who would do the co-production with me, he’s a friend of mine from Rock School in Ballyfermot. We went there in the late 90s and to be able to meet up again years later is mad. He has a recording studio in Yorkshire, that’s where I do all my stuff, it’s such a nice studio it’d be like Abbey Road quality.So I sat down and I just said this one I want it to be acoustic guitar, tambourine, vocal, and it’s just got that broken down at a festival type song. So we put that down first and after two and a half minutes we thought there’s something dull about this and we didn’t want to make it sound overproduced so we added a little bit of kick drum which is natural anyway because I use a kick drum, and then I thought there’s still something. It was so tricky. We’d say ok let’s try a string section, you put that in and all of a sudden you go, well it’s missing drums and bass now so let’s take that out. It was getting to the point where it was 10 o’clock at night and we’re going, Holy sh*t. It was so annoying because sometimes when you’re trying to find simplicity, like if you listen to certain songs that you would think they’re really simple, you realize there’s about seven overdubs in the background that are just making it glorious and that’s what we really struggled with so we managed to slice it down to moments of piano, moments of strings, kick drum, bass guitar subtly underneath the acoustic in the background and tambourine and harmony. But for the first two minutes of the song it’s really just the guitar, vocal, that you would hear. So,it was really tricky. The other song I did, ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla), I flew through that much quicker because I knew it was going to be that kind of Neil Young, Meat Puppets type thing. I could hear the drum pattern, the bass pattern, the guitar pattern. So this one was a bit of a panic in the studio and I actually thought that we had blown it. When I got the mix back. I was like, I don’t even know if this is gonna get played on the radio. It sounds weird, you know, but yeah it’s going good so far”

Rory’s previous single, ‘When The Lights Go Down (Valhalla),’ reached Number 1 in early November 2020, and it kept Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, and Dermot Kennedy off the top spot for the weekend. He admits this success put a little pressure on the singer-songwriter as he approached his next release.

“I know yeah, it actually gave this one a bit of pressure, it was like oh my god, the last one went to number one if this goes to number six everybody’s gonna slag me oh you’re not as popular as you were in November. All these stupid things go through your head. So I was glad that it did go to number one for a day. “

Rory’s weekly Facebook Live broadcasts have built up something of a cult following with an average of 30,000 weekly views over the past year. These fun-filled nights of great tunes, fantastic originals and mighty covers have cheered people up and given them something to look forward to each week. There is a little community here, as Rory gives shoutouts, birthday wishes and requests. Along with his cheery and fun persona, there is something extremely charming about these live streams.

“Yeah, it’s been amazing, I suppose the only thing is that there’ll be a slight songwriter artistic guilt within me because when I started off I wanted to give it a real feelgood factor so I was taking requests, so I’m playing all this stuff, and I wouldn’t normally have a lot of it in my set, you know, but the fact that it was a keeping the spirits of the people up type vibe, it almost felt like well, if they’re feeling good, I’m serving a purpose this year. After all that time now it’s really hard to pull back and go, Okay, well I’ve done loads of cover versions now I want to do 90% of my own set which is kind of a dilemma but I think I’m gonna have to do it. I’m gonna have to shake off the people that are just watching it for, you know, having like 20 cans, and singing along with the screen.  That’s the one thing I’ve found a little bit tricky, just judging Facebook. As you say people tune in / tune out so much you would keep it more upbeat, more commercial than you probably would. It’s a weird line that you have to tread.”.

If anyone is looking for a short pick me up, they need to check out Rory’s 2021 Song on Facebook. It’s a catchy, cheeky ditty that will stick in your head for days.

“That actually went viral, a few of them have gone viral like the one I did for Meghan and Harry. But I think if you’re clever and you make sure there’s just no narrow-minded malintent behind any lyric it will connect with enough people. You trust that people might be on the same wavelength as yourself. In the past, Ricky Gervais seemed so dark and rude but at the same time, he didn’t. It was the same with Steve Coogan, there was almost this, taking the p*ss out of himself type thing. It works you know, and I don’t like cheesy writing, I don’t like sentimental writing, but at the same time, I don’t like just rude for the sake of being rude. I like to have it with a bit of thought behind it, I think that’s connected with some of the more silly stuff that I’ve done”

Thankfully these live streams won’t come to an instant halt when the live shows return. Rory plans to keep them going as long as people want to see them.

“For me. Yeah, because I’ve built up a lot of fans that would be in the vulnerable type class, you know they’re like oh my god I can’t really buy tickets to your live gigs, because I feel too nervous or because I’m severely asthmatic and I’m not ready yet, so I just said back to the people until the view figures hit like, 190, 85, then I’ll know it’s time to call it a day and then maybe even if they’re hitting that figure and that’s on a Monday night and seven o’clock and I’m playing all my own stuff, there’s no harm in that. So I think it’s always gonna be there. I think every third week maybe just keep doing Facebook Lives and stay in touch with those people that have been really kind to me for the 13 months. I’m very lucky that I’ve built up a lot of followers in Canada, America, Japan and even Dubai and some random places…like in the Bahamas.”

Rory has been writing a lot over the last year and is hoping to release some more music this year. Along with his live shows booked for later in the summer, he’s got some exciting things planned

“ I’ve been lucky. I’ve had a good spell I’ve written about nine new songs so hopefully if we can get maybe the best 7 of those recorded and then put it with the four I’ve recorded this year. I would like to get a proper digital vinyl out, maybe like 1000 prints in November/ December this year. It’d be a nice way of just gathering all the stuff that I’ve done this year and then maybe not make it pandemic related. I’ve done a lockdown special EP with just a lot of the cover songs that were going down the best, mixed with my own songs and we just did an acoustic CD. Put out like 500 Copy limited edition and that sold which is brilliant. It got me through three months really from the old fashioned CD profits, it was like, 1998 again! So I’ve got an album of stuff ready to go. I just need to get enough days where it’s legal to go to the studio.”

“I think there’s a subconscious thing where people realize that even though we’re all trying to get as much for free as possible, a lot of people,at the end of the day they know artists are only getting maybe like a 90 quid cheque every month from Spotify at the very most if your doing quite well. Whereas if you buy a CD, it should be, when all is said and done, maybe eight euro straight to the artists. So I’m looking at the good side of people and I think that’s what a lot of people are thinking, especially this year. A lot of people even bought the CD and took a photo of the CD in the kitchen saying it ‘arrived today Rory! thanks a million, I don’t have a CD player but you know.’ People are almost doing the artists a favour just because they know it’s been a tough year. I think even indie bands and all that, their Spotify at the end of the year could be 300 Euro. So people will go, you know what, I like this band, I’ve seen them live twice, I’m going to get their vinyl, because it’s something to hold in my hand, and they might actually get some money from it. There’s a much sweeter sound off vinyl and if you have a nice vinyl player in the sitting room, it just looks really cool, if you have a few friends around, put on the vinyl, sit down, the tone is nicer. I wouldn’t have thought that when I was younger but the more you go into a recording studio and hear the difference in frequencies it does become apparent that there’s not really much difference between CDs, and mp3s, on Spotify, there’s really not much of a difference but there is with vinyl”

Rory has two live gigs in Glasgow and London for August (Dublin Castle, Camden) and he is excited to get some more booked in as soon as he can

“I’m trying to get a few gigs booked in Ireland but it’s just really difficult as I’m sure it is for everybody. I was hoping maybe August, September, but it’s just very hard. One problem is, the venues have such a backlog of bands that were meant to play that they’ve got like gigs on six nights a week, on paper, starting in July, and they’ve got to work their way back from like seven months of backlog gigs. So, for me, booking a gig fresh I might actually not be able to perform in Ireland until February or March 2022 which is just crazy to get your head around that, but over here in Scotland I’ve got Glasgow almost sold out for August and then I’ve got Dublin Castle in London and Camdon and that’s almost sold out as well and the Irish Centre in Liverpool so it’s nice to see gigs coming back and it’s great to see as well that people have a thirst for buying tickets which is a relief.”

Rory crafts beautiful tunes filled with earworm melodies and heartfelt emotion. He is proving himself to be a diverse and refined musician. His music exudes such an infectious sound, it is sure to have anyone singing along in no time. I’m looking forward to the earworms he releases next.

Watch the video for ‘Miss This’ below 


Author : Danu

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

A Chat With : Thom Southern

Belfast-born Liverpool-based songwriter Thom Southern has released his third single ‘Soul Singer’.It’s a fantastic burst of fuzz-pop that continues the frenetic sound we have come to love from Southern. I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about the new single, working with Sonic Boom and how he is carving his own recognisable sound as well as the advantages of beginning a solo career in the middle of a pandemic.

“Yeah, it’s always good to finally get the song out there because as a musician, you kind of just want to play it as soon as you write it and record it, you want to put it out the next day but there’s always a bit of a process to releasing music. I finished writing that song, probably a year ago and then I just sort of last-minute ended up asking Sonic Boom to work on it with me and he mixed it and added his instruments. Then we decided to put it out quite quickly, which was cool. Normally there’s more of a strategy to releasing music, especially if you’ve got a record label but with this track, I released it completely DIY. It was just fun to do it completely on my own and use friends to make videos and things. So that’s cool.”

‘Soul Singer’ was produced in collaboration with Peter Kember a.k.a Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3. A collaboration made in heaven as Spacemen 3 were notoriously known for their minimalistic psychedelic sound and Southern’s previous releases have shown flairs of psychedelia while maintaining a shoegaze and indie bite. Southern chuckles as he tells me how a random social media interaction brought about this beautiful collaboration.

“ It’s funny, I’m a big fan of Spaceman 3, for years I’ve been listening to them. And it’s [Soul Singer] actually really inspired by tracks that were probably more prominent with Pete [Peter Kember] because obviously Jason Pierce and Pete, their styles are very different inside Spaceman 3. You can kind of hear the difference, especially on the Recurring album. I’m pretty sure they’d split up by that point, and they did that album completely separately, and I think tracks like ‘I Love You’ and there’s a track called ‘Big City’. I think that was mainly Pete doing them. Those two tracks actually really inspired the production sound of Soul Singer so it was weird. I didn’t even know Pete then and I was just producing myself with Spaceman 3 in mind. Also, I love going to Spain, and everywhere you go in Spain, you kind of hear that…, I don’t know whether it’s Samba or whatever, you know, that kind of beat pulsing through every song, everywhere. Its like, boom, kicka boom ka. I’ve always really wanted to make a tune like that in an ironic way. So I just sort of blended that kind of Spanish influence and Spacemen 3 with like, another track I like, ‘Movin’ on Up’ by Primal Scream and I just really wanted to make a really feel-good song. I just felt like it was the right time to release it because, everyone’s a bit down at the moment, and it’s coming up to the summer, but yeah, it was funny, I just started following Sonic Boom on Instagram and he had released a new Christmas tune or something and I put it up on my story and then he shared my story post, and then I shared his share of my story post, and then he shared my share of my share, you know, and we kept doing that for like 10 minutes out of nowhere and we created this, In a way, it’s kind of poetic, but we created this kind of interstellar story sharing thing, and it’s like a parallel universe. It kind of looked like that with loads of shares. So we were just laughing and joking with each other all day and then I just said, you know what, I’ve actually got this song that I think would be perfect working together do you want to do it? and he was up for it, so it’s quite weird but yeah we’re kind of friends now on email and I keep in touch and stuff so yeah it’s funny how life works out like that.”

Like all true production maestro’s, Southern crafts his songs meticulously adding lush melodies and layers through each melodic whirl or sharp guitar wail. Within ‘Soul Singer’ there is a wonderfully sweet key melody that becomes the hook that lures your ears into the song while a catchy guitar and vocal melody intertwine to create a lush and exhilarating soundscape.

“I think, the way I connect the instrument and the vocals together, like the way I write songs, they sort of are always intertwined with one another. So a lot of the time I write a guitar chord that gets me going. I’m like oh this is class. I love writing a very simple hook inside the guitar. In a lot of my songs you’ll find, that I write the melodies of my lyrics, based on what the guitar’s doing or vice versa. So with Soul Singer, I’m pretty sure it was the acoustic guitar riff . I just sort of heightened it with a very clear melody and then I wrote the lyric, “you’re taking my problems away”, that’s the same melody over the top of that. I quite like when songwriting is completely simplified down to almost like a nursery rhyme hook, you know, just something super simple. So, yeah, that’s kind of how that came about.”

“Some of the verse melody ideas and lyrics I actually wrote when I was like 19 or something. It was at the very beginning of my old band, Southern. It used to be a song called Violet View or something, then I changed it to Soul Singer and sort of made it about a different story, but yeah it’s kind of three songs sort of put together and developed over time. I think it’s been hanging around for a good few years and I was never really happy with it. I wanted to define a vision for the production if you know what I mean. I think whenever I heard that Spanish drumbeat when I was going on holiday, a lot of that just sort of clicked.”

It’s interesting to see the versatility within each of Southern’s releases. He is creating his own instantly recognisable sound. ‘Soul Singer’ blends the swelling blitz of fuzzy shoegaze from ‘Shivers’ and the sweet heartfelt nostalgia of ‘Perfect Someone’ while adding more textures and sounds. I wondered is this Southern weening us into his sound or just showing what he can do

“That’s a good question. I think. Yeah, because of lockdown, I was watching an interesting interview with Mac DeMarco the other day actually and he was being interviewed about his process since covid came and everything, and it was funny what Mac DeMarco said. He said, there’s no point in me releasing anything at the moment because I can’t show and tell. That made me laugh. It’s so true, like normally I would write music that would incorporate how I’d like to present it on stage, so like, if I had a tour coming up or whatever I’d always make sure that the songs, sort of sounded similar so that when we go on tour, I can capture people in that moment and that style and get lost in it with them. Whereas I think because of all the lockdowns, it has sort of thrown the rulebook out of the window and it’s allowed a lot of artists to experiment more and I think it’s funny, I launched my solo career in the midst of it all so yeah, I think you can kind of get away with more. But, long story short, I think, It’s a bit of both. I’m just experimenting and I don’t think I can ever really have a specific style, because I really love a lot of genres, but the basis of my songwriting is always pretty similar, you know. I like writing catchy pop songs. But then,  experimenting with the production sound. So maybe it’s more like the production sound, is what is more experimental. I think I’m just developing it at the moment. Eventually,  when I’m ready to go on tour, I want to make a more full body of work where it’s like six tracks all interlinked and the whole story and the songwriting is all based around that EP whereas at the moment I’m kind of just releasing singles. So yeah, I’m just enjoying this.”

This experimentation has created a diverse listening experience for fans as they can hear the produced spectacle of the track as well as a more raw version when Southern performs the songs live. Recently Southern showcased how the tracks will translate live through a performance on This Feeling, providing yet another side to his sound that I’m sure fans were eager to see.

“I think, with Soul Singer, it was more of an artistic collaboration with Sonic Boom. It’s kind of not a representation of me on my own, just doing it completely on my own. So that was just a fun collaboration and something that I wanted to do because I admire Sonic Boom and I just thought, you know, it’d be cool to mix our styles together. But if I was to play Soul Singer on an acoustic guitar, it would sound more like what I did for This Feeling. And obviously, you know, ‘Perfect Someone’, it’s hard to replicate a sound like that with just three people on stage, unless you’re playing the backing tracks and I’m not a big fan of backing tracks. I prefer to hear the band totally raw. So, yeah, I think, what I did with This Feeling is probably more close to what I will sound like on tour, in general. Especially if I’m only playing with three people, you know guitar, bass and drums. I mean it’s hard to replicate all those sounds that I put into the production of Soul Singer. So, yeah that’s a good point, I think what I would really like to do is to make a more raw EP, eventually, I think at the moment just because of lockdown and everything I think it’s more fun to just do whatever I want, production-wise, and then when I’m ready to go on the road I definitely would love to make a more live-sounding EP, or album that I could easily replicate on tour. But for the meantime, I think it’s more fun for artists to just do whatever they want because there is no rule book at the minute.”

Versatility is an important trait to have as an artist and Southern doesn’t shy away from pushing himself to create tunes that erupt with life and energy. He also showcases his versatility through a few covers, most recently Billie Eilish’s ‘everything i wanted’.

“Actually it was like a year ago that I did the majority of that recording. I just kept hearing Billie Eilish’s name everywhere and I was like, you know what, I’m just gonna go and listen, and then the first thing I listened to was ‘everything i wanted’.Obviously, I think I’d heard some other stuff and it’s brilliant, but it’s not my cup of tea, you know like, ‘bad guy’ and stuff. But then I heard ‘everything i wanted’ and I was like, whoa, For fun I just started stripping it back onto an acoustic guitar and singing along with the lyrics and you just realize how good at writing her and her brother are. I think it’s as good as any master songwriter out there and it just suited my voice while I was singing. I thought I’d do my own take on it and I showed it to a couple of my friends and they were like you should definitely put this out, but I was sitting on that track for a while, and I just decided to put it out at the end of the year. And, yeah, it’s pretty cool and she won a Grammy for it the other day. It seems to be my most popular tune on Spotify which is cool”

Thom Southern is a talented singer-songwriter. He combines a natural knack for heartfelt melodies with an intense and ever-growing soundscape of alternative pop, shoegaze and psychedelia to create a sound that is truly mesmerising and lush. Each release brings something new and exciting. Looking forward to hearing what Thom Southern releases next.

Stream ‘Soul Singer’ below 


Author : Danu