Eastbound Dublin makes its highly anticipated return in 2023. The festival will host a range of diverse performances spread across various venues in the city in late February 2023. In its fourth year, Eastbound Dublin still is about capturing the spirit of new and breaking artists and capturing the imagination of a devoted, music-hungry city like Dublin, and bringing it all together to create meaningful beginnings.
I caught up with indie pop artist Jack Cullen who is performing on February 26th in The Grand Social along with Really Good Time, Ruti and YINYANG. We discussed his latest album ‘Dark Days and Nightmares’, how he creates his glorious sound and what he has planned for his performance at Eastbound Dublin.
“Yeah. I can’t wait. It’s my first time playing in The Grand Social. It’s been a long time since I’ve played in Dublin. It’s one of my favourite cities in the world and I absolutely can’t wait.”
Cullen’s recent collaboration with rappers Snow and Rxseboy, ‘Spilled My Coffee’ ( a remix of Cullen’s ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ ) became one of the “most viral lo-fi rap tracks” of the year. It was added to over 30 channels on YouTube and used by 20 million creators on TikTok. It’s an irresistible remix that showcases another facet to his sound while elevating the soothing earworm of the original.
“Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s funny how that all came about. I wrote a song called ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ down in Cornwall and we sent it to some guys over in America and they came back with ‘Spilled My Coffee’. Yeah, it was really nice to begin releasing music, that way, kind of the wrong way around, as it were, you know, we released the remix first and it was cool to collaborate with people in America. It was nice to kickstart stuff and hopefully, it made sense when I released ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ my track alongside my album, because it was obvious then it was the remix of my own song.”
Cullen creates lush indie pop tunes that are just glorious on the ears. Each song oozes subtle instrumentation, delicate indie pop embellishments and soothing tones that are simply a delight to the ears. Cullen has a talent for expressing a range of emotions and feelings within his tracks. We discussed how he achieves this.
“I think I just tried to be as honest as possible. I like to be honest with what I want to say. Sonically working with The Roots over in America, and having Questlove on drums it really helped open my ears and eyes to that kind of sound and I think it definitely helps sculpt the sound of the album. “
“ I’m a positive person. I like to try and look at the brighter side of things and try and be as positive in any situation as possible. So in light of darker times where I was when I was writing the album, I definitely tried to look at it from as much light as possible and like you say, try and be as big a ray of sunshine as possible. That being said, I think it’s naive to think that’s all that life is and it’s important to say the harder things sometimes, I think they’re very important. But I guess I’ve tried to then bring that into a happier light.”
Cullen released an album last year called ‘Dark Days and Nightmares’ and it’s an absolutely beautiful listen. The songs flow effortlessly into one another while maintaining their own unique identity. I wondered if there was a concept behind the album.
“It was from years of writing. It’s about three years of writing. It really took a long time to release any music. I think moving forward the concept behind my releases will make more sense.”
The song Hurricane is the perfect example of Cullen’s ability to wrap earnest tender lyrics in sweet soothing musicianship. Cullen explained how he crafted the track.
“Hurricane is a really good example actually of a dark place that I was in, you know the lyrics “wish we could just fly away to another place, but I’m stuck in a hurricane”. I think, my mind was in a complete pickle, and I felt like I was just in this hurricane in my mind and I couldn’t get away and it is a perfect example of the blend of darkness and sadness [in] the song. But the way we created it was actually like this celebration almost of that. I think in those times, I look to the people that I love and that love me, friends and family and they get you through those times. That’s really what that was about. It was a celebration of those people and the love left”
Cullen has a smooth and easy-flowing tone to his voice however, he told me singing wasn’t something he really thought about before he started.
“No, I don’t think so. I was, in another life playing rugby in Ireland. That’s where my Irish roots comes from and that’s all I wanted to do. I never thought that I would be a singer. I never necessarily did it much in school or it came quite late to me when I had lots of surgeries playing rugby and I was then beginning to write a lot of music and therefore singing a lot. So I think it came quite late that I realized I can sing”
We discussed what fans can look forward to from Cullen’s show at Eastbound.
“ What I always like to do, especially at these shows is strip back the songs. It’s nice to play them in their rawness. I think the emotion comes out a lot more and it allows me to even reflect on the lyrics a lot more because there’s not as much noise and production around the songs. I think it’s going to be a nice way to really connect with people who come and I really can’t wait to do that.”
Jack Cullen is an outstanding singer-songwriter. The melodies within his songs elegantly interplay with soft indie pop soundscapes and mellow guitar embellishments to create musical gems of delight. Cullen’s performance at Eastbound is not to be missed.
Tickets for Eastbound Dublin are available for purchase at www.singularartists.ie
Stream ‘Dark Days and Nightmares’ below
Author: Danu
