Tag Archives: Interviews

A Chat With, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With: JyellowL

JyellowL
Photo Credit: JyellowL

Dublin rapper JyellowL aka Jean-Luc Uddoh has returned with his new single ‘See Me Finish’, produced by Nigeria’s Tee-Y mix. This follows his critically acclaimed debut album ‘2020 D|vision’, which was nominated for Irish album of the year 2020 at the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Awards and debuted at number 2 on the official iTunes album charts as well as number 1 in the hip hop category.

I caught up with the artist to discuss the new single, his upcoming EP’s and tour, his suave fashion sense, and how his collaboration with Tee-Y mix came about.

“I was in Lagos, and I met a couple of people who introduced me to a couple of people. One of them was Tee-Y mix. He asked me to come down to the studio for a couple of sessions so we did two sessions probably, two days back to back and we just got along really well. He’s Tee-Y mix, obviously he’s a legend. He’s produced some of my favourite songs from like Davido,Tiwa Savage and M.I. I told him that I wanted to fuse what I was doing with what he does, and the best way to do that, and make it a new musical direction and he just instantly inspired me. So, yeah, that’s where ‘See Me Finish’ came from.”

‘See Me Finish’ sounds so effortless and chill as JyellowL and Tee-Y mix blend their musical talents to create a vibrant backdrop filled with summer beats and lush melodies.

“It sounds effortless yeah, but I actually wrote the whole thing in that session, in the first session. I think between writing and recording we must have spent about four hours or so. Tee-Y is a beast though so he mixes as well in that same session. I’m pretty sure he mastered in that session as well so yeah we did everything in the four hours so it was pretty cool.”

“I hate demos, I can’t stand making demos. So, I was just happy he had the same mindset of, like, anything we did today let’s just make it the final product, or at least get everything you need to do and I’ll do the rest on the mixing front. So yeah, we’re on the same page in that respect so I was happy about that.”

JyellowL has become known for his witty lyrics and smooth melodies. He once again matches clever lyrics with irresistible melodies within ‘See Me Finish’ to create an enjoyable listening experience filled with vivid storytelling that keeps you hanging on to every word. 

“Yeah, I definitely do. I guess it’s something that I’ve trained myself to do I’ve trained myself on my delivery, so it may not take as much time now to say something in that lyrical manner, as it would have before. So yeah I do that purposefully.”

‘See Me Finish’ is a taste of the sound he is creating for his upcoming series of EP’s ‘shades of yellow’ and JyellowL explained what we can expect from these EP’s

“You can expect a new musical direction. ‘See Me Finish’ was a taster for what’s to come but the real thing with ‘shades of yellow’ is that it’s not just one project. It’s a series of EP’s, that will be different shades of yellow. I thought it was a really nice way for me to express my versatility. I want people to get accustomed to me sounding different ways, but still be comfortable knowing that ‘oh that’s still JyellowL, just in a different musical direction or sound’ but it’s still JyellowL. I want people to be accustomed to that, because I make so many different types of music, and it’s always an issue of I want to release this today but then I want to release this tomorrow and it’s completely different. And everyone’s like, yeah, but, where’s the coherence. I just want to throw everything out – I don’t make one type of music, the same way I don’t listen to one type of music.”

JyellowL is an ambitious artist who is constantly evolving and we discussed how he approaches keeping his sound fresh. I wondered if he is always thinking ahead and moving towards future goals or if he lives in the moment and lets his sound ebb and flow with his emotions.

“I just mostly live in the moment. It’s a hard thing to explain because honestly, I make some random music and I get randomly inspired. So for me it’s not even an evolution. It may seem like an evolution because of the timeframes in which those songs get released, but, I’ll be making them in the background anyway. So for me, I’m just being my whole artistic self when I’m allowed to be in studios, when I’m writing, that kind of thing”

JyellowL has recently become the face of Virgin Media’s ‘Up Your Speed Game’ 1Gig broadband campaign, a deal which saw the multinational company commission him to pen a track, ’Pick Up the Pace’ specially for the campaign and boy! did JyellowL take the task in his stride. His lyrics and rap are fluid and fast as he swiftly spits out puns with ease, mirroring the theme of their fastest broadband campaign. 

“Yeah they pretty much gave me creative freedom within certain parameters. I had to come up with a lot of broadband puns and metaphors and euphemisms. It was really cool for me though, but the thing that I really enjoyed about that campaign was the fact that everyone was aware that it had to sound like something I’d release anyway… it has to sound like JyellowL, and it has to be in a way that feels natural to me and they were completely supportive of that. So yeah that was a lot of fun. It was definitely a lot of fun because it felt like a writing drill for me. I think I wrote the track, as soon as we confirmed everything, say, in the afternoon we signed off on everything or whatever, I think I wrote the track, that evening, sent it off to them in the morning like one am or two am in the morning and then, they signed off on the lyrics and that was that, recorded it and everything”

Packing in such brisk lyrics for recording is an achievement in itself but what about performing it live where you can’t make any mistakes or stumble. We discussed the possibility and fear of forgetting such rapid and dense lyrical content while performing live. 

“It’s muscle memory. The more I do it, the more my tongue gets used to keeping up with the lyrics in my mind, so yes muscle memory.”

JyellowL has some shows coming up in October. This is such an exciting prospect for both JyellowL and his fans as he never got to tour his acclaimed debut album ‘2020 D|vision’ due to the pandemic, so these shows will be an extra special celebration for everyone involved.

“I can’t wait. I really can’t wait, I think the tour has been rescheduled multiple times. I think it’s looking like its definitely going ahead now, so I’m excited for that. I’m very very happy, because, it was meant to be the album tour. But then the album’s nearly a year old now, and we still haven’t toured it so yeah I’m excited for that. Now it’s just going to be a JyellowL tour I can’t even say it’s an album tour anymore, because there’s new music to perform.”

“I’m just looking forward to celebrating this freedom with real people…it’s just gonna be such an emotional experience and I’m looking forward to it”

JyellowL has worked hard to establish himself as a musical force to be reckoned with. He is a talented artist who alongside others is making huge strides to put Irish hip hop on the map. He told me what advice he would give a budding artist.

“The best advice I ever got, was to be patient and persistent not persistent and patient and know the difference. That’s something that I still live and abide by, you know, I just work by myself, regardless of what it looks like right now, when the weather’s fair when it’s not. I just stay working, stay improving, put my time in regardless and I’m aware that there’s delay gratification, with whatever work that I put in. That’s the advice that I live by, so I guess that’s the advice I give someone else.”

JyellowL’s style and how he presents himself is very suave and sharp. He explained to me the importance of branding and being true to your style. 

“I want to say yes because branding is always important in business in general, branding and packaging yes, however, when it comes to a personal brand I’m of the opinion, and I mean, my opinion is not gospel but I’m of the opinion that you should represent yourself because otherwise, eventually, it will be just too hard to keep up an appearance that’s not yours. For instance when I do my shoots or whatever, I wear what I would wear normally, and I’m pretty big on my fashion. Most of the time, I’m casual and I think that comes across in my shoots and stuff and therefore it allows me to stay on brand and it’s easy for me to stay on brand because that’s my personal appearance.”

‘See Me Finish’ is a vibrant, well-crafted tune that provides an exciting glimpse into the many facets of JyellowL’s sound. His ambition, eloquent songwriting and diverse musicianship makes him an artist to get excited about. I’m looking forward to the ‘shades of yellow’ releases. If ‘See Me Finish’ is anything to go by they will be richly textured, musically lush and a joy to listen to again and again.

Stream ‘See Me Finish’ below


Author: Danu

A Chat With, Alt- Pop, Indie, indie rock, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With: N.O.A.H’s Adam Rooney

N.O.A.H have returned with their new summer anthem, ‘Hands Up’. The track presents a very different sound from the band as they venture into a more summer pop style rather than the raw indie rock we experienced in their previous single ‘Darkest Hour’. I caught up with Adam Rooney to chat about the new single, N.O.A.H’s return to live shows and what we can expect from their upcoming debut EP.

“Well, we were always big fans of pop music in general and dance music to an extent. So, it was fairly natural. It wasn’t a conscious decision to change sound. We started working with a producer called Ruadhri Cushnan and he’s won a Grammy he’s worked with Ed Sheeran, Mumford and Sons, The Maccabees, and so many other amazing artists. His influence on our sound obviously is coming through too. He knows how to balance a song, and he brings the best out of all of us. We’re so lucky to work with him. We’re working on our EP at the moment with him, we have a few more tracks to finish up, and we’re ready to go.”

‘Hands Up’ is a sonically rich and well-balanced tune that boasts sweet pop sensibilities, refreshing instrumentation and a driving bassline. 

“That song itself, started with a chord progression and a sample that we made. Basically, I was just messing around with Ableton on a sampler, and I had a vocal chop that Ryan did. So then I just heavily effected it, that became the lead melody line. Then it was a case of figuring out nice chord groups on top of that, figuring out a baseline, and once we had them three elements, the chord progression the baseline and the top melody, the rest of it was fairly fine. Lyrically, we all write our own lyrics, so we just put our general ideas together, and that came together in about a day as well, so fairly a quick process”

When N.O.A.H released their debut single ‘Shine’, they told me they had to record everything remotely due to the pandemic. Adam explained how the band have been working on the track since then.

“We had the demo for ‘Hands Up’ over a year ago. So we’ve been working on that. When we brought it to the studio with Ruadhri we probably had like four or five days on that track, just finding the balance, bringing what needs to be up up, what needs to be down down, and slight tempo changes and that sort of thing.”

‘Hands Up’ marks a brighter and more upbeat shift in the bands sound. Even vocally, Ryan Hill takes a softer approach rather than his usual powerful delivery. 

“Yeah, I think it was more to suit the song. It’s not really like a ballad-y song so we’re taking inspiration from bands like MGMT and even Irish bands at the moment like Wild Youth or even The Weeknd. So, singing in that nearly falsetto range for a period of the song I suppose that helps create suspense. It’s also not getting in the way of what’s going on musically either, I suppose yeah, it helps build the idea of suspense and release or tension and release. So the chorus is a bit more full-bodied and full-voiced vocally, and then the verses are a bit more restrained and pulled back.”

N.O.A.H are very much a modern band. They fuse elements of indie rock, pop, electronic and whatever else they feel to create their own incomparable style. With each release, fans eagerly wait to see what the band will do next as they are constantly evolving their sound.

“Yeah, thanks so much. We talk about this a lot you know are we a guitar band? I don’t know, we like electronics and synths and pop music as you’re saying as well so it’s a bit of a blend between a lot of things.”

The band have released a lyric video for ‘Hands Up’. The animation for the video was constructed from individual elements of artwork made by Rionagh McNamara, and it’s an impressive visual for sure.

“The artist who created the artwork for ‘Hands Up’, she’s doing the artwork for the EP, which is amazing. Her name is Rionagh McNamara. What she does is create art but the way she does it is she hand detailed the pieces, and she’ll work in a layer type fashion. So, when you look at the art for ‘Hands Up’ in minute detail, they’re all individual hand-cut little pieces that she then goes and layers on top. So once we had the digital render of each individual layer, we were able to get it animated. It brings a bit of continuity across from the artwork to the lyric video. It turned out really well.I was delighted with it. Even her description of the actual meaning within each individual part of the artwork is, it’s amazing. She brought her own unique perspective to that piece of work, you know”

To mark the release of ‘Hands Up’, N.O.A.H performed one of Ireland’s first indoor shows on July 24th at Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, which was also streamed live. Seen as the band’s debut was released during the pandemic, they hadn’t been able to perform these songs to a live in-person audience. Adam explained how exciting it is to finally be able to do gigs as N.O.A.H.

“Yeah, we had a gig in Navan in The Solstice Theatre. Since that’s a theatre we were allowed a reduced capacity of 50 people. So to be fair that felt like our first gig back. You could see people slightly, we had feedback, we heard people clap or cheer or sing along and things like that, so that was lovely and yeah we played in Mike The Pies, which was an outdoor gig, it was on the rooftop of Mike The Pies, which is such an iconic venue. It was amazing to play. We were supporting Josh McClorey, and he used to be in The Strypes, and that was an amazing night it was 25 people, but it was nice and intimate. It was great to actually get to see people and share experiences of live music.“

It’s an exciting time for N.O.A.H. The band have signed with Natasha Bents’ newly founded Mother Artists Live Agency (Foster The People, Idles, CMAT) and made their first TV appearance on RTÉ Six One News to talk about their story and quick rise within the industry. 

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. We’re very lucky to have all them experiences over the past year. It doesn’t fit the narrative of a lot of other musicians. We know we are quite lucky. Mother Artists, when we got that sort of lined up, that was a shock to all of us. We’re just happy that they saw something in us. We have a few announcements coming at the end of the summer too in line with them for 2022. But it’s pretty amazing even to be on television, it was great.”

N.O.A.H’s debut EP is set for release this October, and Adam told me what we could expect from the eagerly anticipated EP.

“There’s gonna be a few collaborations on it. Few more than what people have heard. It’s gonna be a long enough EP it’s not a short one. You can get it on vinyl. We’re delighted with it. We’re just in the last few finishing stages of it now. So it should be ready to go in the next week.”

N.O.A.H are an extremely talented band that strive to create diverse, richly textured and energetic tunes. They are crafting their sound superbly, providing a new and tantalizing listening experience with each release, ‘Hands Up’ is the perfect example of this. The song’s soundscape is filled with intricate guitar embellishments and lush electronics while the drum grooves and pulsing bass lines create a heart-fluttering sun-kissed element throughout. ‘Hands Up’ is an exciting teaser for the band’s upcoming EP.

Stream ‘Hands Up’ below


Author: Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With:The Academic

The Academic have released the video for their new single, ‘Not Your Summer’. The track is lifted from the band’s new ‘Community Spirit’ EP, which was released in July. I caught up with Craig Fitzgerald and Stephen Murtagh to talk about the new EP, the inspiration behind their new video, and fun facts about their song ‘Smart Mouth’ as well as how ageing can make you less fearless and more self-critical.  

‘Community Spirit’ marks the band’s debut as a producer. The pandemic and lockdown gave the band the opportunity to try their hand at producing. Stephen and Craig told me how they found the process.

Stephen: “So the first thing to say I guess is that it wasn’t planned. It was brought about by the times that we live in and the lack of opportunity to travel and collaborate with producers and invite outside people into our bubble. Basically, in order to stay safe and follow the rules we ended up stepping into, and Craig especially stepped into the producer role. “

Craig: “It was daunting enough having to do it. We spend a lot of time demoing and we all have knowledge of trying to get music together but we were lucky we’ve worked with really great producers like Tim Pagnotta and Nick Hodgson along the way, and I’ve always had an interest in it so I picked up a lot of tips and tricks on what some of the pros do and I think that’s a privileged situation to be in which was great. But in terms of it [Self-producing], it was very DIY. We weren’t following any rules”

Stephen: “We were just trusting our ears and going, “oh that’s starting to sound like us, that’s good”, not necessarily that it was the correct way. I’m sure, if you gave our homemade EP ‘Community Spirit’ to a pro of forty years they’d probably laugh and throw it back at us, but it sounds good to us so it’s fine.”

The Academic released ‘Acting My Age’ EP and ‘Community Spirit’ EP in a time of chaos surrounding the pandemic. Releasing music has been a difficult decision for artists, especially because they cannot tour, and for the band, these releases were a way of keeping themselves sane during this time by creating something for them and their fans.

Stephen: “Yeah, it’s so funny, the first EP ‘Acting My Age’ was, I guess, we’ll just continue to do what we’ve always done and released music. Then there was a gap of nearly a year between the EP’s, and yeah the second one ‘Community Spirit’ was very much for our sanity, for our mental health just to kind of reclaim that lifestyle that we knew before the pandemic of what it’s like to write, record, release. Usually, the next step is tour but obviously, we couldn’t do that step of the cycle.“

Craig: “We were more aware of it on ‘Community Spirit’. ‘Acting My Age’ we had prepared to tour and we had big plans for live shows, and that got ripped from underneath us. There’s nothing anybody could have done about it but this time we were fully aware we weren’t going to be touring it – it was very much for our fans but also for our mental health so we didn’t go crazy in the meantime.”

‘Community Spirit’ is a five-track EP of vibrant hook-filled tunes. Each song is superbly crafted and flows into the next with ease. The pair told me choosing the songs for the EP wasn’t easy.

Stephen: “Yeah there was big playlists, and these five just seem to work together”

Craig: “ Yeah we have album two very much in our sights but, these five tracks didn’t feel in any way where we’ll go with the album. This felt like another experimentation “

Stephen: “Yeah like a bridge between. We did think that ‘Acting My Age’ would be the bridge between the two albums but then the pandemic happened and we were like okay maybe there should be another step in between the last album and our next album. So that’s where these five tracks came from. It just seemed to suit the vibe of ‘Community Spirit’, and what we’re doing, and the idea of like homecoming and self-production. These seem to be the five songs for us to bring our band in that direction.”

‘Not Your Summer’ kicks off the Community Spirit EP. It’s the perfect opening track. With a twangy guitar hook and nostalgic chorus, it’s a proper anthem that captures the tone of the EP and the band’s sound spectacularly.

Stephen: “ If we had to pick one song that sums up the sound and the spirit of the EP it probably would be ‘Not Your Summer’. I think it might be a little bit more mature maybe than anything we’ve released in the past, and a bit more self-reflective and melancholic. If you have to pick one song to be like the true representation of where the band’s at now and what we were trying to say with ‘Community Spirit’ – yeah that’s the reason ‘Not Your Summer’ found itself at the top. Hopefully, if fans sat down to listen to the EP when it came out and they heard that song first, I’d like to think that they would see what we were getting at”

The Academic have released a video for ‘Not Your Summer’. The video was directed by Hope Kemp and Ronan Corrigan from Tearjerker Films, who have worked with The Academic on previous singles Kids (Don’t End Up Like Me), Acting My Age, and Anything Could Happen. It was shot at the derelict Waterworld in Portrush, Northern Ireland. The video depicts the band in various parts of Waterworld which was once bursting with life and energy and now is deserted and empty, capturing a lot of peoples feelings at the moment as holidays and summer plans are limited. 

Stephen: “It definitely wasn’t always the idea for the video but we collaborate with two incredible directors called Hope Kemp and Ronan Corrigan, and we shot our last two music videos with them. We wanted to capture how cinematic we felt the songs were and we were talking about influences – we were basically trying to get like a Richard Linklater meets David Lynch kind of style. We wanted it to be weird and kind of off-kilter and stuff but we also wanted to have that, coming of age angsty feel to it as well, and then in the ‘Not Your Summer’ video with all the stock footage of Irish holidays, all the old school stuff that plays into the whole ‘Community Spirit’ and the idea of all these small villages that we grew up in and kind of the old Ireland and stuff”

Craig: “And obviously the metaphor of being in what was once a fun place for families to go, and we’re in it and it’s completely derelict and rundown and you know people are sleeping in there in sleeping bags, it was pretty dark. That suited the darkness of the song even though there’s darkness masked with very summery bright sounding music I think.”

The Academic are known for creating catchy earworm melodies. But their ability to pen sharp, thought-provoking lyrics is perhaps one reason the band relate so well with their audience. Within ‘Community Spirit’ The Academic capture life as a twenty-something perfectly. The lyrics seem as if they are an overspill of spontaneous thought or an honest attempt to digest personal emotions.

Craig: “Completely what I was going through at the time. I was really struggling for any new songs, and it was January just gone, and Ireland had slipped back into complete lockdown and we couldn’t go anywhere. That was the first song and I started feeling down, and bad for everybody – everybody was meant to be doing things, people were finishing college and not getting to experience that type of stuff. Especially my little sister, that’s what kind of birthed the song like the title, ‘Not Your Summer’. It was just very much in my head that it was like we’re being forced to live with ourselves and when you want to get away from that and you can’t, it’s quite difficult. It was actually an easy song lyrically to write.”

Stephen: “A big thing for us, we never try and force a subject matter if it’s not coming naturally to us, we won’t sit down and be like, let’s write a political anarchist masterpiece. A saying that I always come back to is ‘write what you know’. I think you won’t go wrong if you just write what you know.”

Interesting turn of phrases are commonplace within the bands’ songs and this has become more prominent as they have progressed. The synth-laced nostalgic gem ‘Smart Mouth’ has an intriguing comparison between relationships and tennis with the use of a quirky lyrical reference “It’s love fifteen to you”.

Craig: “Yeah fun fact about that song there was a different song and it had the love fifteen thing. But I listened to it and I probably showed people and it actually was just a song about tennis, basically, with a slight relationship metaphor inside it and I always liked the idea but, every time I listened to it I was like, this just sounds like I’m trying to get on Wimbledon “

Stephen: “Yeah too tennis heavy”  

Craig: “Way too tennis heavy” 

Stephen: “You need to get the balance right. They are very comparable [relationships and tennis] you get a lot of back and forth.”

Craig: “But if it’s too on the nose you sound like an idiot, you know, “

Stephen: “I think we got it right.”

‘I Don’t See Good’ is a darker song compared to the rest on the EP. It’s probably my favourite tune on ‘Community Spirit’. The band perfectly balances dark sultry moments of pulsing bass and smoky synths with a sense of confusion and turmoil – these musical elements, teamed with a shredding guitar solo, make the track a delight on the ears.

Craig: “ It’s a really old song. It’s one of the first. We were a band way back and I wasn’t the singer and then we kind of took a little break, and I started demoing songs on a laptop, and we got back together as what would be The Academics for the first time and we used to play that. I always liked the idea of the song, and it just took years and years to get it into that place and it actually just took demoing it with just an acoustic guitar and a little drum machine doing a kick and snare”

Stephen: “ Yeah, kind of bringing it back to basics “

Craig: “Literally the very basics and it then became completely bass-heavy, and in a much darker way. I think that was the one where we didn’t record that first, that was kind of in the middle of it all. We got around to it and we were in our comfort zones and we started just really serving the song rather than trying to fill it up with too much stuff and keep the tenderness of the lyrics and that kind of forbidden romance that you can have at a younger age. Again it was quite reflective because we look back on it as older guys now, and the lyrics didn’t change too much, it still had that naivety to it and the guitar solo wasn’t written in total, we played a bunch of solos and chopped it all up “

Stephen: “And then put it together to create, like a Frankenstein’s monster. “

Craig: “ But Matt’s [Murtagh] physically able to play it live so fair play to him”

The Academic aren’t afraid to revisit old songs. In fact, they have proven that reimagining a song written years ago can result in a refined and more mature tune. Some artists cringe at their older lyrics and find the thought of approaching old scribbles on a paper or notebook from their youth embarrassing, but the pair told me it’s an important part of songwriting.

Craig: “ I think it’s important because when you’re younger, like we were fearless as kids. I think the older you get – I get more paranoid about stuff now and I second-guess lyrics way longer and notebooks become longer and scribbles become larger, and it’s just like, I don’t know what that is, is that anxiety I don’t know”

Stephen: “You can look back at lyrics that we have from when we were teenagers and weirdly they make more sense now than they did back then. Yeah, it’s more of a stream of consciousness when you’re younger. “

Craig: “Yeah, and there’s something great about it and I think because we’ve been a band for so long, anytime we put up anything online and go oh what song should we play? There are fans that would say songs that we used to play that have never been released and they are like oh play this song from when we played one gig in like a truck in the middle of nowhere. Then one random day you might find that file on your phone or something, and you listen to it and you kinda go, oh we weren’t bad back then you know, there might be something in that“

Stephen: “We did a thing on our Instagram yesterday. We were trying to get fans to suggest what songs they think should go on the setlist and someone said a song called ‘Werewolf’, which was a YouTube video we did I want to say sometime in 2014 maybe, no, it was 2013 and an interesting thing is, that song Werewolf we have nicked a line from that and put it in our single ‘Different’”

Craig: “yeah it’s like the last bit of ‘Different’ so we’ve been doing it all the time. It’s just the pandemic’s made us do it a little bit more this time round.”

The Academic are set to return to the stage later this summer. The return of shows is an exciting prospect for all artists and The Academic have jumped right into the deep end with their first show, a spot on the main stage at this year’s Reading & Leads Festival ahead of their own full tour in Spring 2022.

Stephen: “Yeah it’s weird. Our first gig back in front of a crowd will be Reading and Leeds. We’ll be really nervous for that one. We’re opening the mainstage as well both days…. nervous, excited, live music is what we missed the most and not just the performance, the whole lifestyle that goes along with it. The whole spirit of jumping in the back of a van with your pals and the crew that we love so much.“

Craig: “ Seeing other bands we know and everything.”

Stephen: “The whole backstage atmosphere, the pre-show nerves, the post-show breakdowns, all of it, we miss every single bit of it. Can’t wait to get it back.”

Before we finished our interview Stephen and Craig gave some wise words of advice for anyone who is starting a band or a career in music.

Craig: “Well, hang in there at the minute.”

Stephen: “I would say trust your gut, no one knows the type of artist that you want to be more than you do, and there’s no point in fighting for someone else’s vision, I’d say trust your gut, follow your instincts.”

‘Community Spirit’ is bursting from the seams with melodious musical gems. The Academic have an awe-inspiring ability to create hook-filled melodies that ooze charm and beckon repeat plays. However, when you dig a little deeper, you will find their lyrics speak of angst, conflicting emotions and deeper, sometimes darker subject matters than their bight indie sound displays. These guys are growing their sound and deft songwriting superbly, and ‘Community Spirit’ is a first-rate example of this. For the band’s debut at producing, it’s a triumph, and as a body of work, it’s an absolute joy to the ears. 

Stream ‘Community Spirit’ EP below 


Author: Danu

A Chat With, Indie, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With: Four in the Morning

Four in the Morning have released their new single ‘Keep It Together’. Irish singer-songwriter Kevin Dolan leads the band with Kiran Srinivasan, Dan Walwyn and Alex Lees completing the eclectic genre-defying line-up.

I caught up with Kevin, who is living in Australia, to chat about the new single, how the band craft their dreamy, musically dense tunes, and how he hasn’t been able to return to Ireland due to the pandemic. 

‘Keep It Together’ is an atmospheric tune that ebbs and flows with brooding and evocative instrumentation. Kevin explained to me how the pandemic influenced the song.

“ I guess the first line of the song is – ” I haven’t been sleeping again. It’s been a while since that’s been a thing ” – and that was just a truism I guess. When lockdown hit, as for everyone and it’s pretty boring to hear me talk about it but it was a lot of stress, it was a lot of you didn’t know what was going on, we still don’t know what’s going on. We’re back in lockdown now so it’s just been uncertainty and I think everyone has been going through this weird joint psychological roller coaster and for me, that manifested itself. I’ve always been terrible at sleeping, and just before lockdown started I had bought this new record player, and these speaker setups, and they weren’t working. I had all this time stuck at home and I wasted a lot of it just trying to figure out how to make these bloody speakers work. So I realised that I was putting all of this stress, angst and worry into fixing these bloody speakers, and the song, kind of stemmed from that I guess – that and… I was listening to I think it was this New York Times radio podcast, where they were just playing moments from all over the States and all over the world of people dealing with COVID and lockdown. It was amazing to me to get all of these people’s brains just sort of fed into my head and that’s probably what was keeping me up. The song then came with a jumble of all of that, this idea of trying to keep yourself together and probably doing a very bad job of it.”

‘Keep It Together’ is the perfect example of each band members musical prowess as they intricately weave multiple layers and textures into the song to create a gripping listening experience that lingers in the listener’s mind for days.

“ I always joke that I’m a real lyric person and I’ll sit down at a piano and a guitar and write a song with lyrics and that’s how this song started, but the band I play with, these amazing musicians Dan [Walwyn] on bass, Kiran [Srinivasan] on guitar and piano and drums and Alex [Lees] on guitar, and I’m a real folk lyric nerd, but they’re like jazz nuts into prog. [ Progressive rock] and they’re a million times better than I am. We always joke that they take a song and just shift it and play with it until it breaks. I don’t have a big musical background so I just describe what’s in my head for a song and I think for this one it was the sound of a radio breaking and someone fluttering in and out of consciousness or whatever, and they ran with that and create this sound around the story. Interestingly for this one, because we sat with it so long over lockdown, it was made in a bunch of different directions. It started as a real driving kind of indie banger, just simple rock song, and that didn’t feel right. Then we took it away and we were just sending files back and forth to each other because we were in lockdown and Kiran created this drum loop and slowed the song down and that’s when we were like, this is the vibe for this one. Then finally, we got to record it in the studio, I’d say maybe six months, nine months after I’d started writing it, and we hadn’t played it live, at any point. So we went into the studio and we just kind of reinvented it again. It was really organic. The parts weren’t written on their own, we just played it in a room together which is the coolest way to play any music, and then just kept layering stuff on top of it until it felt right.”

The drum loop pulses through the song with a heartbeat-like effect, becoming the element within the track that exudes tension while an icy piano melody and synth embellishments create an ethereal expansive soundscape.

“Yeah, that drum loop was on the demo from way back and we again, couldn’t play in a room with drums and we couldn’t record in a room with drums in lockdown. We haven’t used samples or stuff before, but we had this drum loop that we loved, and that became almost the linchpin of the song. I always say there’s glass and there’s clay. Clay is the thing that you can mould and glass is the thing that you mess with, it breaks and for this one, it was the piano and it was the drums that were the glass of it. We actually tried to recreate that drum loop in the studio, and our producer Jono Steer was amazing, he is an amazing person. He was just like, ‘nah, just keep this’, and we ended up building more drums around it but keeping that. I think it goes through the whole song.“

The lyrics discuss putting on a good face and trying to convince those around you that you have it all together, which is a relatable theme even without the looming pandemic. Through his lyrics, Kevin perfectly captures a sense of loneliness while masking that hollow feeling through the metaphor of the broken record player. “I took it apart just to see what makes you sing. It was nothing but blue wires and the space between”. 

“I wish I could say, I spent ages, meticulously crafting these words. But honestly, I actually don’t think I wrote them down. We were uploading them all to Spotify and all the things, and you have to put in the lyrics and I realised I hadn’t saved lyrics anywhere. Kiran our drummer, he’s a real organised brain, that I’m not. So I jotted down the lyrics, and he’s like ‘Kevin, these are not what you’re singing’, and he fixed them up. So it was a really weird one, I guess you get really lucky, sometimes with songs and there’s definitely songs that I sit down and I really write, but this one I don’t remember writing it and I couldn’t find notes where I had pieced together the lyrics, it kind of just all, fell out of me I guess”

‘Keep It Together’ feels like it lives in a dream state, or the in-between dreaming and awake. Kevin’s unconscious writing of the lyrics adds to the mystique of the track, while the cinematic instrumentation creates an awe-inspiring sense of elation. 

“ I love when you mentioned cinematic, It’s such a compliment. I love images in songs and creating little postcards of images throughout songs and I’ve worked really hard at that, throughout writing lots of other songs. If the song hadn’t had those, I think I would have just thrown it away and forgotten about it, which I’ve done with 100 other songs that I wrote at the same time.”

Four in the Morning maintain a dreamy, night-time chilled atmosphere throughout the song, even when the background synths and elements of distortion create a tense and heavy soundscape towards the crescendo. The vocals are hushed and sombre, adding a haunting or deep sadness to the song. It’s as if Kevin is quietly revealing the lyrics as if it’s too difficult to say aloud. This is the first time we hear Kevin display his voice in this melancholic and earnest manner. His vocals walk a fine line between nonchalance and despair throughout.

“Yeah, it’s a really good point. We play a lot of bars and loud rooms and I love it …and the trick was always could you have a few people at the bar stop talking, if they stopped talking and looked at you, you knew you were doing something right. I love Glen Hansard, and those people who can really belt out a song, but this one because it was written in lockdown and again not played live it had a little bit of a different vibe and again, our producer really wanted to honour that for want of the better term, in the studio. I remember he asked us and I was like ‘I don’t know how to do the chorus should I be giving the chorus more than I currently am’, and he’s like, ‘well do it how you sing it live’ and I was like, ‘we’ve never sung it live, you [Jono Steer] were the first person we sang it in front of’, he’s like, ‘oh cool, just do it, how you’ve been doing it’. So I think in a way that hopefully does fit the song”

The song was produced, recorded and mixed by Jono Steer (Angie McMahon, Ainslie Wills, Leif Vollebekk, Julia Wallace) at The Perch Recording Studio in Castlemaine in rural Australia. I wondered what it was like working with Jono.

“I think Jono is an amazing talent to be able to come into a room and listen to the stuff that the band is playing and [hear] what’s important. So the way we work with Jono was. He came to a rehearsal of ours and he just sat and we played all the songs to him, and it was literally the first time we’d ever played the songs to anyone. We were like, oh wow this is like a little gig, and he kind of took that away with him, and he didn’t really say much. Jono is a really quiet dude, but he didn’t really say much at that rehearsal. But when we got to the studio then, I think he’d really inhabited the songs and knew the most important bits of all the songs and he set us up in a way that we were just playing in a little sitting room, basically together. He knew that’s how we practice and how we played together. He just took the best bits of the song and just really dialled them up in ways that capture the song and sounds that I hadn’t been expecting for the songs or I hadn’t really imagined could go there, and it was great. It was so cool.”

‘Keep It Together,’ is part of a series of songs the band have written for an EP called ‘Stress Dreams’. Kevin explained what we can expect from the EP.

“So, the EP. It’s great that you talk about dreams and this space between awake and asleep because the EP is called ‘Stress Dreams’, and we played with a lot of names, but I realised after listening back to it, that there was all these references to dreams and sleeping and I guess even, we’re bloody well called Four in the Morning. I realised these songs were all ways of dealing with the world in a way that dreams do. A lot of stuff happens to you during the day, you go to sleep, your brain spits out a dream at you. I love dreams, they’re amazing, and I think songs are very similar. They’re your unconscious thinking about what’s going on in your life, and that’s what these songs feel like they are, and in a similar way musically, it’s hopefully quite atmospheric, it’s quite lyrical but in a little bit of an interesting twist. In terms of themes and stuff, it’s a lot about missing home, like not being able to get home at the moment and missing friends as well as just dealing with the minutiae of daily life and ruminating on that,”

Kevin has been living in Australia ( currently in lockdown ) and has found the pandemic particularly difficult because he couldn’t get home at all to see his family. 

“ I haven’t been home in four years. Usually, I go home every two years, every second Christmas. I was scheduled to go home, Christmas of 2019, but I said, you know what I’m sick of going home in the middle of winter. I’m going to wait for a nice Irish summer I want long twilight evenings, walking on the beach in Lahinch. So I decided to go home July, 2020, being like, what’s the worst that can happen. It’s a cliche but you don’t really realise what you’re missing until you’re gone and I think that’s seeped itself into the songs in a huge way. I’m really looking forward to getting home and playing some of these songs to people at home.”

“It was really scary for me and my girlfriend. It was really scary for us because rightly or wrongly…we grew up as this generation of what’s a border, what’s a country, we’re global citizens all that kind of thing…It was a real stress and I guess it’s still kind of is. It’s tough, not getting home to my family…but yeah I’m really looking forward to going home. One of the songs on the EP, the opening track is called ‘Home Home’. It’s I guess about that joke, that idea in Ireland, you know, you’ve got your home, where you’re living, but you’ve got your home home, where your parents live or you go home to at the weekend or whatever.”

When Four in the Morning finally get to perform live in Ireland it will be a big deal for the band, and Kevin told me what he is looking forward to the most.

“The dream plan at the moment, is a realistic plan I guess, to head back around April next year. I don’t think we’ll get back for Christmas unfortunately but I think sort of April, March, May hopefully, we’ll start opening up again and yeah I’d love to get home and play these songs. It’s funny, I haven’t seen Fontaine’s DC live, I haven’t seen Pillow Queens live I haven’t seen all these great Irish bands that I love and I’ve been following from over here, whatever about me getting to play songs at home, I would love that and I really look forward to doing that. But yeah, just getting to some good Irish gigs will be exciting as well.”

Four in the Morning are a talented band. Their proficient musicianship crafts time stopping tunes laden in depth and meaning. ‘Keep It Together’ displays this superbly through beautiful melodies, eloquent songwriting and rich instrumentation. Looking forward to the EP.

Stream ‘Keep It Together’ below 


Author: Danu

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

A Chat With: Paddy Casey

Paddy Casey is set to release his fifth album ‘Turn This Ship Around’. The double album is set for release on 6th of August 2021. I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about the album and the return of shows, the prospect which has been giving the artist dreams about getting up on stage and forgetting his songs.

“Well, for me, I had a lot of songs that I didn’t think they really fit but, I haven’t released an album in a few years, so I didn’t want to wait a few years more, I suppose. I had these songs and I really liked them, and I know that sounds naff, saying that about your own songs, but I did. Some of the songs, I didn’t think they fit together but I thought they were strong songs, so I decided because it’s been so long, to just split them in two and make one side kind of folky, stringy and piano-y or whatever and then the other side would be more full-on and upbeat.”

The first half of ‘Turn This Ship Around’ is energetic and lively while the second half of the album is a lot more laid-back and boasts wonderful use of elegant piano and strings or guitar and strings. Through the use of lush melodies and rich instrumentation, both sides flow into each other perfectly while allowing each track to maintain its own identity.

“Oh yeah completely. One song,’ You Are The One’, I really liked but I just didn’t feel like it belongs there at all. I played it to a couple of people, my daughter heard it and I know you can’t really ask your family but, she seemed to think it was great and then a couple of other people thought it should have even been a single. I really liked the sound but I didn’t think it fit but then I went.. do you know what, I don’t know where to put the song, so I’m just gonna plonk it in the middle. Honest to God, I didn’t know where to put it and I just went, well there’s no place it belongs, so I’ll just stick it there.“

“Honestly, I don’t have a plan when I write an album, I really don’t. I write the songs and then I just kind of go, well there’s some songs that I think people will like. I don’t do concepts, the only concept is, maybe like another thing I’m working on is a disco album, but there has to be only three instruments in every song. I know that sounds stupid but you know, it’s fun if you give yourself rules like that sometimes. You’re right, the songs, they all grew in their own little worlds. It’s me on different days, you know, everyone has their weird days and they’re up and down days.”

The album begins with energetic tunes ‘Won’t Take Much’ and ‘This World Is Stranger’ which are absolute bangers. Not only does the singer-songwriter lace the tracks in catchy melodies but in a true Paddy Casey style, thought-provoking lyrics resound throughout. A perfect example of this is in ‘This World Is Stranger’, where Casey croons over a bouncy melody “ I know some people say we’ve never been up to the moon. What difference does that make to me if that thing has no gravity or if it’s all technology that someone left for us to see What difference does it really make to me”. Casey hits the nail on the head with social and political topics taking a relatable and light-hearted stance that is charming and witty.

“I don’t really care either way politically. I mean I think it’s all nonsense, most of the time, what matters is the way people feel at the end of it, how they feel about themselves and how they look at themselves. When all that bullsh*t is gone, all that’s really left is how we treat each other. It sounds slightly pretentious but, I think at the core of everything, maybe for that song, ‘This World Is Stranger’, that’s all I’m really talking about, none of this bullsh*t matters. The world isn’t such a small place you know. Let yourself feel the things that you naturally felt as a kid, that you might have pushed aside. It’s not something, we all don’t know. I think sometimes musicians, point out the obvious, sometimes you need to hear the obvious. But yeah, for me it’s like, there’s enough people in the world trying to make it smaller for you without doing it to yourself.“

There are plenty of musical gems on this album. ‘Turn This Ship Around’ in particular exudes a cinematic atmosphere filled with synths, strings, piano and ethereal soundscapes that keep subtly building throughout. The song sounds as if it was written for a movie. 

“I can’t remember, that’s a few years old now, I actually don’t remember how I started it. I think I just started with a piano. It’s a breakup song. I mean if I haven’t written it in the lyrics, I’m not really doing a good job, I suppose you find yourself out on that abyss, or like this kind of no man’s land and you know you’re hanging on to something that’s not really coming back, and you’re missing out on everything else because you’re doing that. I wanted that to happen in the chorus, that decision to happen. So it [the chorus] had to be big and it had to be like, f*ck it, let’s do this, let’s do something else, let’s go for another world. I’m not great at explaining my songs but there definitely had to be two different worlds, there was the guy who was, out there lost, and then there’s the guy who was like, I could spend the rest of my days looking for something.”

Casey blends an array of lush sounds that create subtle bursts of musical euphoria throughout his songs. From the electronic pulses and swaggering guitars in ‘Ready For The Good Times’ and the sugar pop rhythmic bop of ‘You Are The One’, each track is a delight to listeners ears. I wondered does he ever get overwhelmed discovering these perfect musical blends and moments of inspiration when creating his songs.

“I think this is the first time I’ve ever said this, but when I’m writing a song, I will sometimes start, and just sit there and actually sing the song line by line like when I’m recording it, and I won’t have any lyrics in my head beforehand bar, the first line. I’ll know where I want it to go. Sometimes I write like that and sometimes, the next line just feeds, how I want the music to feel if that makes sense. Sometimes I play it line by line because sometimes I literally don’t know what I’m gonna do. I know in my heart what I want the song to say, but I haven’t written the words if you know what I mean. So I will just sing it and I’ll know the line feels right, I’ll know it’s not perfect but it’s pure heart.”

“ I don’t know what people think about my songs. I know they love certain songs, and I don’t understand why they love them. It’s not a problem, but it used to get me. I was like, why don’t I get what they get off that song or why don’t I understand it or whatever. Now I’m just grateful that they do. You know, that’s their world and that’s the way they feel and I know why I wrote the song, but I always feel like maybe, I shy away from emotions a little bit sometimes. I’m not really great saying how I feel, I suppose. Maybe that’s what makes me kind of weird and uncomfortable about it.”

“I have songs that I wrote when I was a kid that people love and for me, it’s like if somebody read your copybook when you were in school or wherever, all the sh*t you’d written you know, to me it’s a little bit like that. But I put it out into the world so I should be able to accept that.”

I wondered if Casey often looks back at his older songs and thinks, if he could do it again, he would change them.

”Yeah, the first album [Amen (So Be It)], we literally went in and banged it out. I just picked up whatever instruments were in the studio. We had two days, it was supposed to be demos. So, it was just literally me just having fun for a couple of days doing demos, but that’s what I thought it was. So, there’s definitely a few things on that I’d love another go at but I’d ruin it for people if I recorded them”

‘There Will Be Love’ begins the second half of the album – radiating a mystical atmosphere and a captivating cello arrangement, Casey blends folk tones with warm guitar, ethereal soundscapes and Traditional Japanese undertones to create a timeless and beautiful tune that is simply divine. 

“There is a Japanese girl playing on that and you can kind of hear the bit of a Japanese vibe and there is a girl playing cello as well so there is two string players on that one.”

“She was singing with us because she’s a friend of my daughter’s and she gigs with my daughter, So yeah, I’ll rope in anyone who’s around but they were doing gigs with me and so I was dragging her on stage in my set or whatever and she’d just jam in. She’s a great, great violin player and the cello player I’ve been playing with for years so I drag her away from her kids for a day or two, as often as I can, just to record stuff.“

Casey is hoping to do live shows soon to accompany the release of the album. However, the absence of gigging due to the pandemic has caused a sense of anxiety and nerves for the singer-songwriter as he anticipates the return of live shows.

“That’s the plan, It depends on what the government say, in their next rollout. I can live a little bit longer but they want to get it together soon. Even if it’s just outside, anything you know. It’s a long time to leave us in the lurch”

“I’m sh**ting it, excuse the language. I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I walk on the stage, I mean, it’s the stuff of nightmares. Gigging, for me, it’s like, I don’t think about what I’m doing before I walk on the stage, and somehow it just, comes together, like the first few songs I might be a little bit nervous but it kind of kicks in, I’m kind of hoping that the muscle memory, still kind of works, you know. I should practice because my voice is definitely not up for doing a few gigs in a row. I’d say I’ll have to sing a bit every day now before I start. I get hangovers from gigs, like the next day. I don’t know maybe it’s the breathing, I’ve always tried to figure out what it is but maybe it’s because you’re breathing, you’re singing and you’re breathing so fast, or something. Yeah, you’re breathing differently than you do normally. It could be just pure adrenaline for that long, maybe makes you feel a bit sore, I’m not complaining but I definitely get a weird hangover off gigging. I think you just give an energy that you don’t really use every day in your life, [ it ] sounds stupid because you don’t get a hangover from running around the block. But yeah, I’m nervous and I’m slightly anxious of doing a gig. I’ve definitely dreamt about getting up on stage and forgetting songs or not being able to sing a song or get through a song, and then the crowd just walking out and things like that, just weird things. There’s a certain degree of the unknown and fear factor when I walk on a stage. I think it’s a good thing to have it. If you walk on stage with no feeling at all, you might as well be sitting in your sitting room watching telly. You have to feel something. As soon as I start walking on stage, and I’m not a bit freaked out, then maybe it’s time to stop. “

The musician has been at the forefront of the Irish music scene since his multi-platinum-selling debut album ‘Amen (So Be It)’, His career has taken him all over the globe touring with acts such as The Pretenders, R.E.M, Ian Brown, Blondie and Tracy Chapman to name a few. He has played all over Ireland, including a record-breaking week-long run in The Olympia Theatre, alongside special guest spots with U2, Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan and more. His successful debut album ‘Amen (So Be It)’ achieved many international highlights including tracks being featured in hit television shows such as ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘Roswell’ alongside extensive American and European tours. Further establishing himself as one of the country’s most successful artists, his second album ‘Living’ went on to become one of the biggest ever selling albums in Ireland (approximately 15 times platinum). I asked Casey if he had any advice for anyone who is embarking on a career in music.

“I think it’s different now. I don’t think you need a record label now. If you’re really good at pushing yourself online you can do as well as anyone. So it’s a different world. For me, the only rule, I had at the time was, just play everywhere and play to as many people as you can in the beginning. Don’t be a snob about gigs, don’t be a snob about anything because people are people and it doesn’t matter where they see you, you know, where you see them. I think the best thing to do is just put yourself out there in front of people because that’s where you learn everything when you’re standing there. You don’t learn it sitting in your room. You learn it forged in the fire. The truth is you really learn everything while you’re doing it and no amount of pontification is going to help you. I think the kids are brilliant now, lyrically people have come a long way. Maybe people are better at their feelings now or something I don’t know but it’s a good thing”

“They don’t rhyme anymore. Everything needed to rhyme when we were starting. Nobody gives a sh*t about rhyming anymore and it’s cool, it works. I still rhyme all the time. I don’t know are kids smarter, smarter in some ways, you know, the internet, Spotify as much as I hate it and it killed the business, it’s great for getting music out there because people don’t necessarily want to spend money but they want to hear your music, you know,”

Casey isn’t one to sit still. He is writing music all the time and even has a musical in the works.

“ I’m always writing songs. I’m writing some great songs at the minute. As soon as I release the album I’ll sit down and I’ll try and finish off a bunch of new songs. I’m gonna try and get a new album out by next year and even if it’s not an album, because they say you shouldn’t even bother releasing albums anymore. I mean even just EP’s or whatever, you know, people only want songs now. I always love albums and I love what people are trying to do with albums. I don’t necessarily do it myself, like I was saying earlier, my album is kind of a bit Higgledy Piggledy or whatever but I love when somebody gets together and the whole vibe of the album feels cohesive. But I am a Prince fan and Prince did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. In the beginning, when I make it [an album], I want to make myself happy with it. I want to feel that excitement of a song, whether it’s the emotion or whether it’s the style, it has to be in there somewhere. Once I get that I’m like, Okay, I hope other people get that too or something. I don’t really know what I’m doing and that’s the truth. You’re not making the chair, you know, if all you had to do was somebody would sit and it was comfortable and it didn’t break, at least you know that’s what an album should be but it’s not like that. There’s no rule. Most of my favourite music is random. I love Parliament but, you know, from one album to the next, they’re a completely different band and that rubbed off a bit. You don’t want to write the same song again ever. I’m doing a musical and the best thing about the musical is I can write a love song. It’s not necessarily me, you know what I mean, I know that sounds stupid but I don’t want to write ‘Saints And Sinners’, again, or I don’t want to rewrite ‘Sweet Suburban Sky’ even though I think I could write it better now. I’ve just been doing it [the musical] in my head for years anyway. It’s only because of lockdown I kind of, consciously set out to do it.  I’ve been writing and a guy I’ve been working with over the years he mixed one side of this album and he always thought I was writing a musical from the day we met. That’ll be two years at least. That will take a while, it’s actual work.“

‘Turn This Ship Around’ is a sublime collection of songs that showcase Casey’s deft musical prowess. Each tracks intricate instrumentation and emotive lyrical content are a fine display of beautiful musicianship. This double album is a real treat for listeners to indulge in again and again.

‘Turn This Ship Around’ will be released on the 6th of August for more you can follow Paddy Casey on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/PaddyCaseyOFFICIAL/

Stream the single, ‘Won’t Take Much’, taken from the album below


Author: Danu

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

A Chat With: Inhaler

Dublin band Inhaler have released their highly-anticipated debut album ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’, through Polydor. This swaggering indie rock album is a triumphant debut brimming with exhilarating soundscapes and eloquent lyrical content while showcasing the musical expertise of each member of the band.

I caught up with singer and guitarist Eli Hewson, bassist Robert Keating, guitarist Josh Jenkinson and drummer Ryan McMahon a little while ago to talk about the album, their musical growth and how guidance from producer Antony Genn brought out the best in the band.

There is no denying the depth of musical talent Inhaler possesses. Within ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’, the listener is invited to delve deep into the album, explore and indulge in the band’s exhilarating sound through engaging and catchy songwriting and compelling musicianship. The beaming faces of the four-piece were enough to express their delight in finally being able to release their debut.

Eli: “Yeah it’s been a long time coming, it feels it was like 10 years in the making to be honest because we’ve been writing songs since we were teenagers. I think some of the first songs we wrote made it onto the album so it feels like, definitely, yeah, it’s about time.”

Covid and the lockdowns hit the band hard, considering they were gearing up for a big year ahead in 2020 and everything shut down. However, Inhaler took the time to hone and perfect the album writing five new songs and rethinking how they were going to create this debut album. The result is a cohesive, mature and sonically dense collection of tracks that moves through genres of disco, indie and rock. 

Ryan: “The album that we were going to write and then record previously, before the pandemic happened, it was totally different and the songs that were written in the first lockdown that have now made it onto the album have just made it 100% better. So we’re really proud of what we have produced now and we’re also kind of glad that we did actually have all that time off to focus in on it more because if we had just gone in to record it straight after coming off tour, we would have been burned out, we wouldn’t have had the songs fully formed or ready to go. So we’re really happy with how it’s turned out in the end.”

The band pack in a plethora of glorious guitar moments within the album. In fact, the guitar melodies and solo’s have always been an enticing aspect within Inhalers music. The four-piece venture into many styles with the guitar from desert, indie, 80’s rock to psychedelic and more. ‘A Night On The Floor’ displays this spectacularly. A slinky bass, grooves atop funky beats and sultry drum progressions as the band create a sleek tune that subtly pivots around magnificent and expressive psychedelic guitar pines and simmering adornments.

When I enquired about who creates these wonderful guitar arrangements all of the band members gesture to the shying guitar virtuoso himself, Josh Jenkinson.

Robert: “ I think all the bands we’ve ever loved as a group have always played guitar and played it in different ways and in great ways and worse ways but usually always have a good time.”

Eli: “Yeah, and we just have so many different influences, so many different favourite guitar players. We love The Smiths, we love Johnny Marr, we love The Stone Roses, The Strokes. Pixies, these are all the best guitar bands, and that’s what inspired us to be in a band in the first place. We can’t help want to put that feeling in our music, and I also feel like there aint a great amount of that type of music around right now so it’s nice to be able to do that.”

Ryan: “And as kids, we grew up loving guitar music as well and so that was the first thing that we kind of gravitate towards one another over, was just the love for that. Not a lot of kids our age when we were 12 or 13 were really into [ it ] so we became friends.”

The rhythm section is another factor that sets the band apart especially within ‘Who’s Your Money On’. The intricate disco rhythms create a dazzling dance-infused tempo that fluctuates and chops through the shimmering disco ball synths, lifting the songs entire dynamic. 

Josh: “That was, all chopped up on the sample pad, we made that song as a dance track, and then put actual instruments on it instead which was kind of cool.”

Eli: “We did it in a way where I think it was a recording of a song that we were trying to form a year and a half ago and towards the end of the album process, we were seeing, is there anything that we could dig up to give it a chance to be on the album. Our producer was like, oh yeah we’ve got that, that one kind of jam that we did a while ago on November 16 at 4pm or whatever. We were like, Okay, that’s gonna be really good. Then he took it and he cut up all the different instrument parts and put them on a keyboard and we started playing it like that and it gave it this weird stagnated feel, and it feels really choppy, and that’s actually how we wrote that one and [gave] it’s unique rhythm feel. That was a fun one to make and probably one of the most gratifying again.”

The band fill out their tracks with synths and experiment with different sounds on the album to create a refreshing and rich body of work. This resulted in multiple versions of each of the songs as they figured out what way each song would sound best.

All: “Yeah too many”

Ryan: “They’re locked in a vault, never to be reopened”

Robert: “ There’s always at least 10 demos for every song.”

Ryan: “ ‘ Cheer Up Baby’ is a song that’s only three and a half minutes long or something but it took us about three and a half years to get it right and what’s strange is how the final version of the song turned out pretty similar to the first version we ever did of it. That was a song that, we want to, I suppose, take our time with a little bit because it was the first song that our fans had really ever fallen in love with. So it was really important for us that we got it sounding and feeling the best that it possibly could. With songs like ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ its the same story, that was one of the first songs that we ever wrote and was our first single as well – what other songs are there that just have so many different formations?”

Josh: ‘‘A Night On The Floor’,

Ryan: “ ‘A Night On The Floor’, yeah. ‘My King Will Be Kind’ yeah, there’s so many different versions of them that, maybe 20 years from now we’ll be curious to hear, but right now, I’m really enjoying the album and how it sounds now in its finished form. Finally” 

I wondered if they felt like they were going crazy listening to multiple versions of the same song.

All: “Yeah.”

Ryan: “ I was on the couch in the studio one day with my head back going, we’re never gonna finish this album.”

The band’s knack with melodies never falters throughout the album. Songs such as ‘When It Breaks’ and ‘Cheer Up Baby’ boast Inhaler’s signature earworm melodies. Interspersed throughout these catchy melodies are powerful, mature and thought-provoking lyrics that leave the listener craving to hear more.

Eli: “ It just flows. Flows like manna” 

Josh: “I wish we had the recipe because we’d be able to just do it whenever we want” 

Ryan: “Yeah then we would be able to do it with the second record.”

Eli: “I don’t know, we were just really lucky. I think you don’t write songs, I think songs just appear or they don’t appear, and we’re just lucky to have found these songs. I think that the songwriting on the album is really ahead of our age group. We are quite young to be producing songs like this, we’re just really proud of it. But if there’s a recipe, tell me what it is.”

Ryan: “It came to a point where we were so proud of the songs that are now on the album we’ve kind of, just had to slowly detach away from it and put our attention towards writing the second album. All we can do now is hope that people love it as much as we do and that it resonates with as many people as possible. We’re really excited for people to hear them. More importantly, we’re excited to play them live when gigs come back. It’s weird we always tested how good a song was by playing it live. So with a lot of these new songs we had to trust our gut instinct on whether we thought they were good or not and how they would go down live and that was difficult for us to adapt to, but in the end, I think it’s worked”

With lockdowns and the pandemic putting a halt on gigs for a while. The band didn’t have many opportunities to perform with each other. The only opportunity to perform was recording the songs for the album

Josh: “We’ve been rehearsing a lot, recently”

Robert: “yeah only in the last maybe two months. Prior to that we hadn’t really played at all, we weren’t even really seeing each other, “

Josh: “And we didn’t have our instruments, that’s the other thing as well”

Robert: “Yeah that was in the UK so it’s been very strange for us… we just met up together to record and that’s why the album process, it was a weird one because we had to both catch up as friends but also work pretty hard with a lot of focus [and] not much time on our hands.”

Eli: “No time off really either. I think it was interesting being in London because we were really trying not to get corona.“

Josh: “Yeah, that was like the main goal everyday”

Eli: “So we just went from the studio. We walked every day, to and from the studio to our place, and it was just work, work, write, write, write, work, work, work. It was intense, going from like three months of just doing absolutely nothing to all of a sudden just going alright here it is, But I think we were really driven”

Although it might not appear at first, but performing live can be tough on the body. Especially if you haven’t been gigging in a while. I wondered if the band felt that the first few shows back will be a shock to the system

Robert: “It’s gonna hit us like a train. I can tell you that now we will be absolutely fecked”

Ryan: “I’ll happily be fecked after that”

Robert: “I don’t know, if we can’t handle rehearsal in here, it’s gonna be tough to handle full tours. We’re gonna have to look after our bodies and take it seriously, for sure. I think, every band is gonna have to though, because not only have we not been playing together, people are out of shape. Actually, some people are in shape from lockdown” 

Eli: “You go one way or the other.” 

Robert: ”I think we went the other”.

Inhaler have released a fun video for their single ‘Cheer Up Baby’ where the band are covered in paint and spattering it around. It’s an anthemic and bright tune that is sure to be a pick me up on a dull day and the video subtly mirrors this.

Eli: “ A director called Joe Connor, really great, smart guy from Manchester and I think when we read his brief, we just really enjoyed the visual style that he was going to have. We liked the idea of the paint because it felt quite innocent and positive, it’s not like a dark video, I mean the song’s not dark but we just wanted to have a colourful vibrant thing because that’s what our music sounds like..”

The album is laced in evocative lyrics that ooze uplifting emotion while at the same time embraces a sense of sadness and longing. Lyrics in the aforementioned, ‘Cheer Up Baby’ are a fine example of this, “oh, how to kill these February blues.” …“When I think of all the things, I didn’t do, Oh, I can’t help but blame it on you…..cheer up baby you’re not on your own”. Perfecting lyrical flow and crafting lyrics that can relate to many people all at once isn’t an easy task but the band are doing an impressive job. 

Eli: “ The lyrics are just about things that resonate with kids our age because they’re just about experiences, and, there’s this weird period in your life where you’re not an adult, you’re not teenager and you’re in the middle. That’s what most of the songs are about it’s that transitionary period but we wanted to make a really optimistic record because it’s such a horrible time, I don’t think we want to write sad stuff. A lot of it is just about experiences that we’ve had, or our friends have had during this kind of weird transitionary time. I think before COVID happened, the lyrics were maybe a little less serious and they’re more just like fun and kind of teenage stuff. After the pandemic happened it definitely forced us to write about broader subjects and naturally just wrote things that resonated with other kids our age.”

Eli has a distinctive vocal. Throughout the album, he shows he can croon with tenderness like the best of them in ‘Slide Out The Window’ and howl with impressive, swaggered rock bravado when the song demands, such as in the chorus of ‘When It Breaks’. 

Eli: “I didn’t even know I was the singer until yesterday.” 

Josh: “He considers himself more of a guitar player.” 

Eli: “Yeah, literally, I don’t know why I ended up as a singer, but like I am, and I couldn’t sing for ages…I still find it quite hard. I have to force myself into doing it, and really like, find a voice.. because for a long time [ I ] didn’t have one.”

Eli: ”Yeah I definitely do consider myself more of, just a guitar player,”

Robert: “He practised”

Josh: “When we start doing shows again, I think you’ll [Elijah] find it a lot easier being the singer because you’ll be there in the moment.”

Eli: “I definitely enjoy it.”

I wondered what advice the band would give a shy aspiring musician

Eli: “Honestly, the best way to do it is just to throw yourself in the deep end, see how you swim, because that’s what we had to do you. We certainly weren’t ready to go out and play gigs when we did but we did it and I think you learn more in one gig, than you will in 100 rehearsals, it’s just a different animal. The only way to build your confidence is just, get out there and put yourself in front of people and, really just try and figure it out that way”

Ryan: “Comfort zones are dangerous.” 

‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ was recorded with long-term collaborator and producer Antony Genn at London’s Narcissus Studios and the band discussed how vital Genn was with regards to bringing out the best in them.

Ryan: “I think a producer is half the album, you know. We have to come with the songs and play them but the producer is essentially what brings life into the, like, the sonic aspects of the album. We were very lucky with our producer who is not only just a producer for us but also a great friend, Mr. Antony Genn, who’s taught us loads, not only about how to become better musicians or songwriters but also just better people as well, so he’s a very, good coach to have in our camp”

Robert: “it depends on the band too. There’s some bands who probably don’t even need a producer and they just get someone to help them record the album. For us, in a sense he’s part of the band because he really is vocal and helps us find parts of songs that sometimes you wouldn’t be able to find, so it depends. But for us, we think the producer is an important part of making the record for sure.”

Robert: “It’s easy to get caught up…when you’re in a studio, everything sounds good, you forget that you still need to finish a song that people are going to listen to, and you know, the average person isn’t going to care about the four or five keyboards you put on a song. Even though we care about it. So you have to sometimes turn off the fun creative side, and be serious because you can literally, and we’ve done it, where you work for days on something that you end up just going okay, that was a lot of fun but we don’t need any of that stuff. So I guess it’s a balancing act.”

Ryan: “There were certainly periods where we ended up bogged down or overwhelmed during the recording of the album, times where we were not feeling very motivated or anything or the vibe was a bit down. Ant [Antony Genn] was always there to pick us back up and, not only breathe life back into the songs but us whenever we needed it as well. So a lot of what people are hearing on this album, should be credited to him and the hard work that he put into the record as well I think.”

The band compiled their most catchy, genre-bending and boundary-pushing songs to date for this album. They have not compromised on the enjoyment and listening experience either, The order in which each song is placed is precise and creates an energising mood that fluidly flows to the end. The four-piece admitted choosing what tracks made the cut was difficult.

Robert; “Yeah, it was, I think there was some questions we had about some singles that didn’t make it on the record but at the end of the day it was important for us to have the songs that we love as a band and that our fans love but also give way to new songs. We wrote so many good new songs over the lockdown and songs that are kind of the now, as opposed to songs that might not relate to people as much at the moment so we took that into account and made, I think the right decision.” 

Eli: “Made it to feel like a gig too. We wanted it to feel like you were at a show when you listened to it”

Inhaler have displayed immense musical and lyrical prowess within ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’. For a debut, these guys are setting the standard very high. The rich and utterly lush production on the tracks is something to be admired and the dynamic energy within each song is irresistible. Each track warrants its place on the album creating a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable body of work ready for repeat plays.

Stream ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ Below 


Author: Danu

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

A Chat With: Sion Hill and MYXE

Sion Hill (Nate Johnston) and Norwegian DJ/Producer MYXE (Rune Eie) have recently released their new house-pop single, ‘No Way Back From Your Love’. The track is laced in vibrant tones, crisp production and luscious pop melodies to create the perfect summer bop.

I caught up with Nate and Rune to chat about the new single, how an inspired hungover moment brought about the songs lyrics, gigging again as well as how the duo’s collaboration came about. At the time of our chat Rune was about to embark on a boat party to perform, the prospect of which seemed like finding El Dorado to me, here in Ireland and Nate in The U.K due to the pandemic restrictions.

Rune: “It’s on Saturday so I’m really looking forward to that. Well, they are getting a bit stricter here with the stuff, so hopefully, it will go through. I think it’s 120 [people]. I think it will go on because it’s sailing so it’s a sport, they call it, then.” 

Nate: “Are you sailing anywhere close to London?. I don’t know what I would give for a boating party on Saturday, probably my left baby toe I would sacrifice.”

‘No Way Back From Your Love’ was originally written in London in 2020 by Nate and songwriter Louis Ryan for piano and voice and was actually intended for someone else to sing, but when Rune heard Nate’s vocal, he loved it so much that he decided to keep it in.

Rune: “We kind of got connected through a guy called Louis, that I met online. He told me about Nate, and said that he might have some vocals laying around that I could try and work with so that’s kind of how we got in touch, and, yeah, Nate sent over the vocals for ‘No Way Back From Your Love’ and I did an instrumental behind it”

Nate: “ I think this one is really a product of the lockdown. I see it as that. It’s a lovely thing because I wrote it together with Louis Ryan. He’s an Irish guy from Dublin, a great songwriter, and really great keyboard player. We just wrote some songs together a few times and then there was this moment, I think they opened up the studios for like a week or so, do you remember after the first lockdown there was this little mini lockdown for like a month, and that was how it was in the UK. I think we got into the studio, like, a day before that happened, so we actually got to use a recording studio, which is quite cool and then everything closed down. So we wrote that song and then yeah, he [Louis Ryan] connected with you [ Rune Eie], but we did everything virtually and I think that’s cool.”

Rune: “ I think the first time we spoke on the phone that was after the release actually. “

Nate: “Yeah. I’m just praying that next time you’re playing the tune at a boat party I got the invite.”

Rune: “Yeah for sure”

I wondered if the pair found the remote collaboration more awkward or difficult to communicate and express ideas through.

Rune: “It’s obviously not the same as meeting in person. But we had a good start on email and we both knew what we wanted. I really loved what Nate did with the vocals and yeah I think he found the instrumental, okay as well.”

Nate: “I don’t think that was too difficult doing it online. I didn’t really know what was going on because this song when we wrote it was a bit of fun. I wasn’t really intending on anything happening with the tune. I kind of forgot about it, and then all of a sudden I get this message from Louis being like, Oh yeah, MYXE this DJ has been working on the track with me and I’m like Okay, send me something. Then I got this 30-second clip. It was just the first verse and he was like just ignore the drop it’s not ready yet. You [refering to MYXE] said something you’re like oh no I’m not happy with that drop leave that off. Yeah. The next version I got was almost finished and it was quite cool. I like that collaborative process and you can do everything online now and there’s been so many songs, recordings and albums over the last year and a half, that have been done actually on Zoom and whatever.”

Rune: “Yeah, I think in the past it was a bit more awkward to do writing sessions or whatever through Zoom or Skype, because not everyone was doing it, but nowadays, it’s more the norm now, at least in my world. “

Nate: “Yeah, for sure. I think when we were using this technology during the last lockdown, we came across this thing where there is no latency, there was no lag between recording. Normally, the reason it was so difficult is, you’d try to write a song together and I play a chord and then you try to sing and obviously the timing doesn’t match. It’s always gonna be difficult and you can’t rehearse live together as a band over Zoom because there is this latency problem, but we found this one piece of software that fixes that. I think like Jay Z and some of the big boys and big girls in that world have been using that. I don’t know how we got our hands on it but even having things where we can actually sing a song together, over the Internet, and there’s no lag, that’s insane. So yeah, I think technology has made it easier but it’s not really that different, we’ve all been WhatsApp and phone calling each other for quite a while now”

When Rune heard Nate’s demo of the song he loved its rawness and decided to work with it. The demo was minimalist but highlighted the melody and the potential of the song. 

Nate: “I think it was just keys and vocals actually that we did and this was one of those songs where I didn’t record. I think generally with House tracks and pop music, you sort of record it line by line, you know the vocals anyway, sometimes even, you might record just one word, just to get it perfect. So, yeah, I think that vocal take was actually meant to be just a demo take and you [Rune] used it, I liked that, that you took the original recording”

Rune: “Yeah the take, I really liked it because it was good, but still had that raw element to it and I just really liked it and normally I don’t do that, but I felt that it suited the vocal sounds.“

Rune: “If I like it, if I get a good vibe from it, then I’ll work with it. It doesn’t have to be techno or house or pop. It’s more the vocal itself, if it’s good, it’s good. I think.”

The lyrics for ‘No Way Back From Your Love’ were inspired by the Beatles’ –  ‘All You Need Is Love,’ by playing on the idea of – if you can envision something, then it is not impossible. Nate explained how the lyrics came to fruition.

Nate: “It was an easy flow, I think. We made this little hook melody “Ooooh, oooooh”. I think that’s what Rune is saying there as well, it has this rawness to it because the night before, I’d been out quite late and I was just not really in the singing mood, but I felt kind of creative. I don’t know if you ever feel like this, when you’re hungover sometimes you are quite creative and come up with things. I came up with this idea. I love that simplicity of that song, The Beatles track, All You Need Is Love, and it’s, “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung”. This idea, it’s really simple but I wanted to follow along that sort of idea so yeah it’s not really the same thing but it was sort of the inspiration. Then, at the time I was in this relationship and it was happening really fast so I realised that when you meet someone’s friends and their family and when it all happens really quick, I’m like there’s no way back from your love, that was the idea. It wasn’t necessarily Beatles inspired, I just liked that idea of, there’s nothing you can say that can’t be sung and so on. An inspired hungover moment, I think”

The track is built superbly around the melody and Nathan’s voice, creating a light, fun atmosphere filled with driving beats, lush synths and even a whistle-like feature. This arrangement is the perfect example of Rune’s exceptional production skills.

Rune: “I think, for me as I speak from a production point of view, I tend to do that a lot. I’ve heard that I let the vocal get its place but sometimes maybe too much so the vocals a bit too much in the front but I think here, it turned out really well, but yeah I think that’s important. I really love vocals – so let them shine a bit.”

Nate: “Yeah, I think it’s hard to find that balance isn’t it sometimes?. I think you [Rune] blend the production really well and some producers, the vocal either gets lost or it’s way out, and I kind of get annoyed by that because I like to have a bit of both, you know,”

I wondered if the pair plan on releasing a summer-themed music video for the song.

Nate: “We didn’t do a video actually no. Maybe on the boat. Maybe at the boat party.”

Rune:”Yeah, maybe we could do some iPhone videos”

Nate: “Some decent iPhone videos at the boat party and some candid shots of people. I did actually have an idea of going down to Brighton with my cousin who’s a filmmaker and shooting something on a boat because it’s quite a summery little bopper this song and it’s got the little whistle and everything. I thought it would be cool just to film some girl on a boat, driving around the place. That was the idea but yeah never happened. 

Rune:” That would be cool.”

Nate: “ Yeah, I think we just got to the beach and then we got in the water and it was too cold. You realise you’re in the UK. It’s raining, it’s not quite the Ibiza sort of vibe that we’re looking for, but I don’t know it would have been cool to see a video but we’ve actually been working on some other tracks so possibly down the line we will do that.”

With things slowly opening up both Nate and Rune have got a chance to get back performing. We discussed the nerves and surreal experience of doing live gigs after all this time.

Nate: “ I was Yeah” [nervous]

MYXE: “Same here”

Nate:  “The first gig I did back, I played guitar for this singer, so I didn’t actually do my own show, and I was a little bit nervous because it was her thing and I was backing her up. I wasn’t necessarily nervous about the crowd but it is a strange feeling, getting back on a stage after a long period.”

Rune: “You can also tell, the people in the crowd they also think it’s been a bit weird, you know people dancing and being close and you can’t really keep one and a half metres on the dance floor.”

Nate: “I’ve done a few sit down gigs where people are separated but after just 15 minutes everyone’s up and dancing on the tables. It’s too hard to stop it. But we make our choices and if you decide to go to a concert, if you want to be there, there’s a risk you’re going to get COVID. So, maybe you have to isolate after the concert for a couple of days.”

Rune: “It’s a bit weird, to be honest, but here in Holland they’ve closed basically everything. It’s obviously nice to be able to play a little bit again and see some people, that’s good, but it’s still a bit weird. We have been so long without it now.”

Nate: “It’s crazy. I’ve lived in London so it’s almost back to normal. I don’t know if you saw the Euros, the finals like Wembley was pretty packed, the streets, it’s crazy but there’s kind of a spike again in cases so that scares me you know, events are coming back but are they gonna stay. What’s nerve-racking about it for me, is actually booking shows and having to cancel them because I’ve had to do it twice now, I’ve cancelled two tours. We’re booking a tour at the moment and if something happens again we got to cancel it again, reissue tickets, it’s a nightmare, but also it’s exciting, getting back out on stages. I’m playing a gig next weekend in my town in Mullingar. They’re doing a charity event, and it’s gonna be streamed live but there’s a small crowd there so even if it’s only like 25 people or something that are allowed to be at the event, it’s still nice to get to play for a few people. Although here I’ve been doing open jam sessions. I’ve been to concerts in London so it’s quite unusual that Ireland is a little bit behind, but maybe they’re doing the right thing, who knows.”

Both Nate and Rune have new music in the works for the rest of this year and they told me what they are looking forward to the most.

Rune: “Releasing music and hopefully get some gigs outdoors in winter and, yeah, travel a little bit again. “

Nate: “I’m actually releasing an EP, and an album. We’re trying to do it this year but it’s looking like it’s gonna be next January. But I’ve got a five-track EP coming at the end of August and, the album will be next year so it’ll be a few singles coming out before that, I have a few videos done. Then I’m booking a tour for 2022. “

‘No Way Back From Your Love’ is an infectious tune that is perfect to enjoy in the sweltering heat of summer. Both Nate and Rune display their refined musical prowess within the track and the result is a luscious pop banger that beckons repeat plays. 

Stream ‘No Way Back From Your Love’ below 


Author: Danu

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

A Chat With: Jonnie Wallace

Edinburgh singer-songwriter Jonnie Wallace has released his new single ‘Milk and Flowers’. It’s a catchy tune that shows a more angsty side to the singer. I caught up with Wallace to chat about the new single and what he has planned in the coming months.

“The song came to be from events that happened during lockdown. Being treated as a lesser priority after putting in so much effort with someone was really getting to me, and this song was my way of getting that anger out.”

Wallace has a wonderful knack for storytelling within his songs and ‘Milk and Flowers’ is an excellent example of his witty lyrics and compelling storytelling.‘Milk and Flowers’ is a great title with an interesting lyric, “I brought you milk and flowers to say I love you”. The flowers make sense, but I wondered why he brought the milk.

“I genuinely picked up the lyrics when my mum was saying her shopping list underneath her breath! This usually happens, titles pop out from nowhere and I run with them!”

“All of my songs are written from my own life experiences! There is no song I have written that didn’t directly happen to me. This makes it very easy as I am telling a story that I know inside and out!”

The B side track ‘Not Tonight Honey (skit)’ is cringey but very funny. It gives a vivid insight into the narrative behind ‘Milk and Flowers’.

“Yeah I wanted to mimic a one-sided phone call, where one person is trying their hardest and the other is just not interested. Based on true phone calls I have had, of course!”

The stomping rhythm and woodblock element give an edgy quality to ‘Milk And Flowers’. I wondered if Wallace has an idea of how he will fill out his songs when he is writing them, or does that come when in the studio.

“I really put a lot of effort into the drum arrangement for this. Being a drummer first and foremost, I always like to take time crafting the right groove!
As for the rest of the instrumentation, I always hear in my head what the finished article is going to sound like, and with the help of my producer Cam Hunter, we bring it to life with added extras that we discuss in studio.”

“I have always played everything on my records, and my own parts to all instruments. There have been a few exceptions of course; My good friend and percussionist Jordan Ferguson featured on the demo of ‘Jane’, and the bass line for ‘I Talk Too Much’ was inspired by a bass line that my bassist, Lukas Christie, played while we were jamming through the tune!”

Wallace has a distinct smooth vocal delivery, which he has honed over the years through gigging. I wondered if he was always a confident singer.

“I started my solo career almost 3 years ago to the date of my writing this. Before that point I used to play pub gigs but I would mostly play cajon and maybe do two or three songs, but I was shaking with nerves when I did!
I think doing more of those pub gigs by myself and gigging more with my solo project got my vocals to where they are today, my voice definitely didn’t sound like it does now 3 years ago!”

Melodies are something Wallace has proven to be proficient at creating. Tracks such as ‘Aftershave’ and ‘Cherry Baby’ have infectious choruses and vibrant melodies that are difficult not to sing along to and highlight just how talented Wallace is at creating earworms.

“With ‘Cherry Baby’ that melody did just come to me, but I changed my method for a while; I would get my chords and then write a riff on the guitar over it and then transfer lyrics into that melody, I just found it easier to write melodies on guitar at the time. Right now its kind of a mix of both!”

The lull in shows due to the pandemic and lockdowns has resulted in many artists writing a bucket load of songs and some struggling to find inspiration to write anything. I wondered did Wallace find he was writing a lot during the lockdowns and if he has any shows lined up in the coming months.

“I have actually been writing less because of lockdown. Lack of experience is lack of writing material for me. I didn’t write a lockdown song, I don’t agree with them. Everyone went through lockdown, and a lot of people used music as a kind of escape to forget it all, so I never understood why people would write a song about the one thing that people want to get away from. But that’s just my opinion!”

“Other areas of my music life are taking precedence at the moment, so I don’t have any shows in the diary right now, but I’m okay with that! I am very happy where I am musically just now, everything seems to just be falling into place!”

I wondered if ‘Milk And Flowers’ is the first taste of an EP or album from Wallace and what he has planned for the coming months.

“I can’t promise anything but I’m building up material for an album, but I am in no rush to get it done, I also don’t have the funds for it!”

“More releases! I’m loving the creative process just now and I want to get more stuff out soon!”

Jonnie Wallace is a talented artist who creates vibrant, witty tunes brimming with passion and infectious melodies. His relatable storytelling and deft musical prowess make his songs a joy to listen to. I’m looking forward to seeing what Wallace has in store for us in the future.

Stream ‘Milk And Flowers’ below


Author: Danu

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

A Chat With :Shayne Ward

Multi-platinum recording artist/award-winning actor Shayne Ward has released his first original single in six years, ‘Crazy In Love’. I caught up with the singer to chat about the new single, working with Swedish DJ, Record Producer, and Grammy Nominated Artist StoneBridge as well as what he has planned for the coming months.

“I just wanted to create something that makes people smile and, you know, just that love is love. You should be allowed to love who you want, when you want, and that it’s [love] out there for you and when you get it, just embrace it and go crazy with it. I was really pleased when I collaborated with producer StoneBridge. How he just completely brought it to life and it’s been received so well by my fans. I’m pretty pleased with it.”

“I’m a big fan of StoneBridge, from the early 90s, and I think in this game now, one of the great things or the positives that you can take from social media is that you can reach out to people directly in DM’s and things like that and, as long as you’re not afraid of getting the answer no, which, I’m not afraid of, you know, I’m okay with no’s. But you just reach out to them and, I said I’d love to collaborate and do something and he was all for it. He’s been great ever since and he’s now a mate. So we’ve been working together for quite some time now so we’ve written quite a few songs. We’re just pleased with this one. I’m just happy to have something out for the summertime and something new for myself, like you said it’s been six years since I’ve had an original song out”

It’s difficult to not let the fear of rejection affect you. Especially when you are an artist and you have poured your soul into a song. It’s a very personal thing, and people in general automatically fear rejection. It takes a thick skin to put yourself out there. 

“ At the end of the day you’re gonna get a handful of no’s.You will get a few yeses, and you just have to keep persevering and don’t take it too personally. It’s nothing to do with your talent. It just might not be right for that person you’ve approached, they might not want to do something with you or they might be working on a different project, which is absolutely fine. I believe that everything comes full circle and if you really want to work with somebody, you try them again at a later time. But yeah, I mean in my life now, I’m 36. I’ve been working on new material since last year writing and pitching things for films and I feel in a really good place and I felt in the right place now to just start releasing new music again, especially for my fans who have been so loyal to me over the years.”

As Ward drove down by the coast in Cornwall, we discussed how he wrote ‘Crazy in Love’ and the catchy trumpet hook that features in the song

“Yeah, it came quickly. It’s quite wordy but it came quickly once I knew what the concept was, what it was about. I’m pretty good with lyrics in general so it was quite a quick process. I just recorded the vocals in my studio, sent the demo over to StoneBridge and yeah like I said he just completely brought it to life and before we knew it we had the track and then I set about getting the video made.”

“I always wanted to do something with a trumpet, it just reminds me of summer. There’s so many great songs out there with the trumpet. So when I was creating this demo for this song. I was looking at what samples I had on the music programs themselves like Logic, and I found this one or two great little samples, I kind of chopped it up, and made it sound the way that it did and put it on the track and StoneBridge put it in great places and before we knew it, it was like wow this is actually really cool”

The creation and layering of a track is a fun and fascinating part of creating music. I wondered if Ward found it overwhelming when he got to the studio and saw all the different sounds you can bring to the song.

“ I think more than anything, you’ve got to be willing, unless there’s a certain way you want a song to sound. Then you go out all guns blazing and you have a chat with the producer and say look this is how I want it to sound, just bring it to life like this. Or, you basically trust in the process which is, look, I know what you can do, this is what I can do. Show me what you’ve got. I sent StoneBridge the demo. What he sent back is not too far away from the actual original demo in terms of a lot of the sounds and the trumpet. I think at the end of the day, you’ve got to let someone else’s creativity become part of the project and then, that’s when the magic happens, But if you feel like you’ve already created the magic then you know, as long as you get the right producer on board he’ll produce it for you exactly how you want it to sound and I always like to find inspiration from elsewhere as well, that’s what helps my songs grow.”

‘Crazy In Love’ is an exciting new release, especially for fans who have been eagerly waiting for Ward to release music. We discussed whether an EP or album was in the works to follow the single.

“No, not at all I mean for me personally it was just about getting something out, I think realistically in this day and age in terms of the big numbers that a lot of the big stars do now you can’t really compete, you’re not gonna compete with the numbers of The Weeknd or [Lady] Gaga or Ariana Grande or [Justin] Bieber. So for me it was like, it’s been six years. It feels nice now because we’ve all fallen into this situation which is the pandemic. Where we’re all housebound so it felt right for me to start writing again. I just want to keep releasing music, I am working to hopefully complete a brand new album, which is exciting, and maybe early next year, that would be awesome to release it, but for right now I’ve got a good few other sideline projects that I’m involved with. Fans can just keep checking my socials as normal, and yeah, I’ll be updating them.”

Like many artists, the pandemic put a halt in Ward’s days due to lockdowns and such. This downtime sparked his decision to potter about in the studio and see where his creative thoughts took him.

“Yeah so the songwriting had stopped because I was just so focused on the acting in general. I didn’t feel like I had the mind capacity to try and think of anything new lyrical wise for a song because I was so engrossed in the storylines that I was doing. But yeah, naturally because of the pandemic it threw me back into the studio which I’m sure it did to a lot of people because you can’t go out and act anyway. So yeah, it was a perfect opportunity where I was like okay, let me relax, let me see how my creativity feels right now and it did. Once I turned on the computer and set everything up, microphone turned on I was away and I’ve been writing since last year so I’ve got a lot of great songs and I’m just so excited and stoked to get out there.”

2021 marks the 15th anniversary of Ward’s multi-platinum self-titled album. I wondered if he had any plans to celebrate the occasion.

“Well it kind of reminds me that I’m getting older. It’s 15 years. But, I think it’s such an achievement, to say that I’ve had, the amount of albums I have had, I’m just delighted, yes. I think unless I can get out and have a nice Guinness in a pub, I think it would just be a cup of tea and I’ll just say cheers to myself.”

Ward has had a diverse and successful career so far; an award-winning role as Aidan Connor on Coronation Street, winner of the second series of The X Factor, selling over three million records worldwide,15 global platinum albums and number one in nine countries. Ward has also had success on the theatre stage in the production of “Rock of Ages” as Stacee Jaxx in London’s West End as well as the touring productions of “The War of the Worlds” and “Band of Gold” and has also starred in the Tom Paton directed feature film “The Ascent”. I wondered with a diverse and well-rounded career so far, if he has any advice for aspiring musicians and actors.

“More than anything, it’s just trust your gut. I think the hardest thing as well is, a lot of people can’t take criticism and that’s not a fault. It’s not. You’ve just got to be willing to grow and be willing to listen and ask questions, and that covers both the acting and the singing side. If you want to progress in this industry, whether it’s acting or singing, trust your gut, believe in yourself. Don’t be afraid to say no if you don’t feel that something’s right, trust your instincts, but also be willing to learn.That’s one of the most important things, is to be willing to learn and let people see that you’re there to learn as well.”

With everything slowly opening up and live shows potentially coming back. Ward tells me about his hope to go on tour and what he has planned for the coming months.

“Oh yeah, I really want to. I’ve seen so many people’s shows being announced and then being postponed. I think we all want to get back doing shows. I think what’s great now is I have a new song out there and more stuff that’s gonna be coming out hopefully before the end of the year and, yeah, I can get myself a show over in Ireland, and you know that’s down to my fans over there just enjoying the song, download and streaming it and that’s actually what gets me over to Ireland, so fingers crossed.”

‘Crazy in Love’ is an upbeat summer bop laced in intricate soundscapes, biting electronics and glorious melodies. It’s a fantastic return from Shayne Ward and provides a glimpse into the tunes Ward will release next. 

Stream ‘Crazy in Love’ below 


Author : Danu

A Chat With, Alt Rock, Interviews, New Music

A Chat With :Jack McLeod of The Rah’s

Scottish band, The Rah’s, have released a new double single ‘Our Design’ / ‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know). This comes hot off the heels of the band’s fantastic debut album ‘When Does It Become Real?’. The Rah’s create intoxicating tunes bursting from the seams with alternative rock bravado. Blood, sweat, and tears go into every song to make the powerful sound we have come to love from the band and watching them blossom over the years up to the release of their fantastic debut album has been a joy.

I caught up with singer Jack McLeod to talk about the new release, touring and how Jordan McIntrye’s incredible guitar playing elevates the band’s songs.

“It was always our intention to release ‘Our Design’ as one of the final singles from that album but PR thought we’d be a bit cheeky and release a double A-side. The benefit of a double A-side is basically, if a radio station doesn’t fancy side A then they can go to side A two. So, it’s a cheeky way we can get either or played. If they don’t like the heavier one then they could go for the more majestic and melodic one, that’s the thought behind that, so hopefully, it pays off.”

The Rah’s have become known for their arena-sized rock and these new singles pack a serious punch. Not only can the five-piece provide sleek melodious tunes that pivot around a gritty alternative rock sound the tracks also boast lyrical depth and have an emotional aspect to them aswell.

“I think it is probably just who we were influenced by. We’ve got quite a wide variety of influences and genres that we listen to collectively as a band. We’ve all got personal tastes, I can be listening to disco one day and then pop the next day it’s just sporadic really, and it’s the same for everybody in the band. But the majority of the songs that we listen to are all from rock, alternative rock, indie that kind of bands. It’s just been created over a number of years. Started off way back playing covers of Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes. So we’ve always had that channel to go down and that’s the music we like playing. That’s the main reason, it’s because we enjoy playing it.”

The instrumentation within The Rah’s tracks is breathtaking. ‘Our Design’ in particular is a fine example of this. The soundscape boasts shredding guitars and a punchy rhythmic backbone, it is an impressive display of musicianship. The band teamed with the sublime talent of James Darkin to help craft the impactful sound the band had envisioned for the song.

“The swagger is listening to too much Oasis. The song was one of the last created for the record. It was in the last batch of songs, and when our guitarist Jordan [McIntrye], was playing the riff in the band room, just a kind of acoustic intro riff, instantly we thought there is something there. So we worked away on it. As I say it was one of the last songs written, so I thought it’d be a good idea to write the song, based on our journey throughout the time being in the band – the ups and downs of being a band, basically, it’s a song for the band lyrically. As soon as we heard Jordan playing it, we knew there was something there. Then we took it into the studio with James Darkin and he just took it to a whole different level. He’s got an outside point of view which really helps. Once you take it into the studio and actually get it into audio form and listen back to it, you realise what kind of track it is. That’s pretty much the process of the creation of that track. I think it finished off at the tail end of 2019. So yeah, it’s been a long time coming.”

One reliable aspect of The Rah’s sound is the awe-inspiring guitar solos. They are proper air guitar worthy moments created through the genius that is Jordan McIntrye.

“Jordan was brought up with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and stuff playing, and he’s played guitar since he was about seven years old. When we first started the band we used to dare him to play like a full Red Hot Chili Peppers song behind his neck. So he’d have the guitar behind his head and that like, no word of a lie that’s how good he is on guitar. So with the inspiration of Jimi Hendrix, John Frusciante and people like that, that’s exactly what brings it out in him. It’s phenomenal. The solo in ‘Our Design’, he [Jordan] was tinkering about a bit and we all knew in the studio that there was more that he could offer and then there’s this pedal, it’s like a fat fuzz pedal. You can hear it in the track, it’s absolutely incredible and as soon as he hit that, it’s like he unleashes a new beast in him.It was music to our ears when he was playing it. Instantly again we’re just like that is definitely the take, he didn’t actually like the last part yet, but we were all just standing in awe listening to him bend these strings on the neck of the guitar so yeah it worked really well.”

‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know)’ is my favourite track on the album. The buzzing intensity and euphoric melodies within the track are just spectacular. I was excited to see it as part of this double single and McLeod told me how the band crafted the song.

‘That’s one of the older songs on the album, we actually released an early version of that in like 2015 so that song has been about for a while. Once again, it was picking it to bits after all those years of playing it and when the album came around to recording sessions we had that track already prepared, but taking it into the studio with James Darkin again just took it to another level. Originally, I was listening to a lot of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the time and they covered a song by The Call, ‘Let The Day Begin’ which is an incredible song and it was inspired by that song because I was listening to a lot of that at the time. The original version [of ‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know)’] was actually played a couple of notes slower. So, again, us bringing it back matured and taking it up two notes just gave it a whole new lease of life, it was quite hard on my vocals but we worked it out.”

Seen as ‘When Does It Become Real?’ is The Rah’s debut album. I wondered if the band had been refining the songs for a long time and if there were multiple versions of each track.

“Yeah there are versions that I’ll probably never want to listen to again. There’s really early versions, ‘The Time Is Now’ is the oldest song that was written, probably in 2012/ 2013. That’s incredible to say that it has been that long. We’ve been playing that song first or last in the set ever since. But again that track has just got a whole new lease of life, every single time we have revisited it, and honestly, we’d never thought that it gained enough traction, the first time of the release. Then the second time and then the third time was, within the first, like 48, hours, of it being released into the PR world which just shows you don’t give up hope. If you believe in the track, which we did, you need the right people behind you to get the track where it needs to be. We were lucky that we’re in that position last year when we released it and it got instant Radio 1 [BBC] plays and Radio X plays”

The Rah’s highly anticipated debut album has been a long-time coming. It’s already racked up tens of thousands of plays and the band have received heavy support from Huw Stephens, Gemma Bradley, Gordon Smart and Jack Saunders. 

“Yeah because of the hard work that you’ve put in, like the names that you have just said there, even to hear them say The Rah’s from Prestonpans is just surreal. We’re just boys from a wee town in Scotland, we never ever thought of being played on Radio 1. But yeah, amazing, absolutely incredible and Jack Saunders, rather than just play the song, mention the band, say good song, next track – he actually got his producer to extend the outro of the track, and kept on talking over it. Honestly it was so surreal. It was an amazing experience”.

Their debut album ‘When Does It Become Real?’ was released this year. I’m sure the conditions they expected for the debut album never included a pandemic and McLeod told me how the pandemic helped them plan for a successful release.

“I guess it took our foot off the gas a little bit. We did benefit but at the same time, we had these tracks prepared for, some of them have been prepared for years. The final, ‘The Time Is Now’ recording was actually recorded in 2017, so that’s how long that audio has been ready. Obviously, we mastered it and did chops and changes but that’s how long that track has been there…. to be fair the pandemic in a weird way probably helped us get the album released in the way that we wanted to, because we’ve done our Kickstarter campaign, that was in October and it ran to December and we managed to get the 5000-pound rewards within two weeks of the final day. So yeah that was really good and the reason we wanted to do that was to release it on vinyl. That was our main aim when we first ever talked about an album. So, yeah, thank God for the fans for that one.

“We made ours extra special as well for all the people that pledged to our campaign, basically in a pre-order form. We put their name on the back of the LP as well. So everybody that bought the album or CD or bought a t-shirt album deal, and it was like over 20 pound, I think , then you got your name on the back of the record which was amazing so everybody was like jumping on that.”

Although the band’s sound is high energy rock they manage to pack in some potent lyrical content within their songs. Lines such as “We proceed to kill ourselves.. To become divine” in Our design is a striking opening line and very impactful. 

“That’s in relation to all the hard slogs that we’ve done up in the country, just to literally get some money together, well not even that just to get some fans. Literally years and years of doing that “

The Rah’s have a tour lined up in October, including a sold-out show at Sneaky Petes. It’s an exciting time but the nerves are high for what to expect from a show and what the limits are.

“Yes, actually we are doing a session tomorrow. It’s our first session out of our homes or our rehearsal room, so that’s exciting. It’s like being let free again. It’ll be a bit surreal to be around people with an instrument, I’ll probably get all shy and forget all my words. So, I’m looking forward to that but yeah live events need to happen, ASAP we are desperate to play this album live for the fans”

“I hope everybody feels relaxed and stuff. I hope there is no tension in the crowd and obviously, the virus is a thing but I hope that we can actually engage with people without having to think about all blah blah blah, he’s touched or whatever. I hope there comes a time in the next hopefully couple of months where there is some sense of freedom, and I hate to say a cliche but some sense of normality – that’s the thing I’m actually most nervous about. Obviously forgetting my lyrics is part of it but I just hope that everybody enjoys it and to be fair, everybody’s been starved so long, of live events and basic socialising, so I think everybody will be like greyhounds at the tracks”.

The Rah’s have been building their sound and reputation as a dynamic and powerful live band not to be missed. I wondered if McLeod had any advice for anyone thinking of starting a band

“If you’re looking for money, go elsewhere. No I’m kidding, it’s the best experience of your life, the enemies you make will last a lifetime, some that you’ll never really speak to again but that’s fine. They’ll stay in your memory forever. Honestly,  one thing I will say is, if you believe in it, just crack at it. One day it will shine,100%, yeah, that’s pretty much it “

With the release of ‘Our Design’ / ‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know)’ and the upcoming tour The Rah’s have an exciting few months ahead.

“There are a few things lined up for the summer that will hopefully go ahead, We’ve got the October tour as we said. We’ve got an alternate version of ‘Our Design’, sitting there that we kind of forgot about in planning the single release, but I think we’re gonna go chuck that on an EP so there’s more content.  We’ll probably see a lot more live sessions and get the behind the scenes footage in rehearsal rooms and that, now that we’ve got a bit of time on our hands, now the album is out. It’s been a bit chaotic. I think we’ve done about 100 deliveries within three or four days so you can imagine the chaos that was on the run up to the album. But yeah, we’ve managed to get hold of some new equipment and stuff, treated ourselves to some new equipment in the band room, so yeah, there’ll be a lot more live footage from the practice studios. Maybe talk about album two soon or maybe we’ll just chill out and enjoy album one. But looking forward to what lies ahead. I think there’s a decent wave of guitar bands coming through, a lot of great upcoming artists out there so everybody should be listening to upcoming music rather than mainstream radio in my honest opinion.”

The Rah’s alternative rock tunes blister with earnest emotion and the shredding instrumentation the band have been crafting throughout the years. They pour every fibre of their beings into their riveting grooves, majestic guitar solos and fiery melodies to create songs that ooze passion and rock-infused swagger. The new double single ‘Our Design’ / ‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know) displays this perfectly. This band has immense talent and are locked and loaded ready to rock our socks off in the live setting. 

Stream ‘Our Design’ / ‘If You Never Try (You’ll Never Know)’ below 


Author : Danu