I caught up with Wild Youth’s David Whelan and Conor O’Donohoe this week to chat about their infectious new single ‘Next To You’, the ups and downs of writing and how the support of the band and their close family-like relationship with one another helps with the more difficult side of being in the public eye as well as the very groovy dance in the video for ‘Next To You’. 

‘Next To You’ is a funky indie pop number with an 80’s pop sheen. The I’ll do anything for “the one” lyrics are quite witty and the song boasts the upbeat catchy sound that people have come to know and love Wild Youth for, while taking their sound to a more groovy 80’s-esque dimension.

Conor : “The song came from a writing session a while ago, just came from a good kind of guitar loop, then the chorus melody came and then we finished the song. We brought it into production and into that upbeat Wild Youth sound that people have come to know. Yeah, and we’re really happy with how it turned out. We feel it’s been a nice progression for us and a very natural progression from our first EP. We’re delighted that people like it because we love it without sounding big headed in any way. I think it’s (80’s style) something that we’ve definitely always been into. If we sit in a room together or in a dressing room before we play a show you’d hear a lot of Prince, Michael Jackson, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and then if you look at modern music, it will be Tame Impala and The Weeknd, so it’s always been sounds that we like. We didn’t make a conscious decision to make it sound like that, I think it’s just what you listen to and what you’re inspired by, it starts to show in your music. It’s just us pouring ourselves into a production and into a song. If someone was to say to me, put all Wild Youth’s inspirations into one song, I think that’s exactly what ‘Next To You’ is.”

There is something more sparkly about this track and seen as Wild Youth are constantly refining their sound they tell me what their upcoming releases will have in store. 

Conor : “There’s lots of different elements, lots of different sides to Wild Youth you’ll see on our new tracks, people will see a lot more diversity. There’s going to be ballads, there’s going to be more upbeat songs, there’s going to be slightly edgier songs. So yeah, it’s definitely in and around the world of where our new music is gonna sit, but people are gonna see a lot more diversity, with our new songs.”

When listening to the track I noticed a few tweaks to the vocals in the chorus of ‘Next To You’. I wondered how the band stumbled on that effect or was it an idea they had when writing the track

Conor : “That was just a cool vocoder effect that was used on a demo that we fell in love with. To be honest, the first demo was super rough so it’s just Dave through a vocoder because it was a handheld mic in the studio and it just kind of came about. It was like this almost high pitched vocoder-y vocal but, we fell in love with it and we thought it was super unique and catchy. So then, Dave obviously did his natural vocal and then he layered up his natural vocal. We kept his vocal through the vocoder just sitting slightly on top of that which gave a really cool effect for the chorus and we thought it just felt right.”

‘Next To You’ features another catchy melody hook. The band constantly release radio ready earworm melodies that appear so effortless and can appeal to all.

Conor : “It’s just how the melodies come out, we never overthink about how to write the catchiest melody. I think we are drawn towards catchy melodies and it’s naturally what comes out. Normally the melody will come quite quickly and we don’t overthink it. Let’s say if the chorus comes like “I don’t smoke cigarettes”. We’re like, okay, that’s the chorus and we don’t say ‘how can we make that catchier’. We just love that vibe and we put that vibe down and then we live with it and if there’s any natural tweaks that we want to make after we’ve got the demo, or re-listening to it, we make those little tweaks. But it’s never to try and make it super catchy, it’s just naturally what comes out.”

As it’s a natural process I wondered if the guys ever feel the pressure of writing. This natural process is elusive at times there is no real formula. I wondered if the process is daunting for them if the melody doesn’t come to them easily

Connor : “Yeah, all the time. There’s so many ups and downs of writing. There are days when you could sit down at a piano and you feel like you’ve never written a song in your life and then there’s another day where you could sit down at the piano and you could play one chord and write 17 different melodies. It comes and goes all the time. I remember last year there was one week in particular, we were writing in LA and a huge bulk of probably our new material came from that time. You just sometimes get those magic weeks where everything feels right and it all sits in and comes together. Then you can also get three or four weeks where you could be in studio every day where you don’t get a song that might sit right or might feel like a Wild Youth track. But that’s why you just got to lock yourself away and write for as long as you can and write as many songs as you can. So last year maybe we wrote 50 songs and you whittle that down to maybe let’s say, six or seven new songs that we have ready to put out over the next couple of months.”

The backdrop of ‘Next To You’ is vibrant, exuding rich percussion, shimmering keys and a funky bass line. The bands image with this track mirrors the songs swagger, particularly in the video where the band are sporting a swaggering 70’s/80’s-esque style with flared trousers and slicked hair along with some pretty swanky dance moves to match. Wild Youth are very much involved with their visuals, colour themes and how they present the overall package from the merch to stage lighting.

Conor : “Yeah, I think so. I think Dave would agree with me too. We find that we always try and make a certain time period of our music. Our first EP, everything, all our visuals had like a baby pink backdrop and that transcended into our live show. We had pink lighting and we used the color pink a lot. So now for the new phase, we wanted to tip our hat to the psychedelic era that we loved and were inspired by and bring a little more color and fun into it. We try and make the music match up with the vibe of whatever it is that we’re feeling at that time and whatever we think brings it all together, like our Merch we’ll tie in with all the vibrant colors that we’ve used in the video and our artwork will tie in with the vibrant colors. If we were to do shows now, we would have had a lot of that imagery and visuals and that colored lighting. We can’t do shows at the moment but when the time is right we will do it. When you combine them all in your show and it’s like songs from our first EP, the lighting for the show could be pink and then it could move to the more vibrant colors for our newer stuff. So we always try and keep a theme and stick in and around that because we are very hands on as a band in terms of how we want the visual to be, how we want the videos to be, how we want our lighting to be and that’s as important to us as the music, you know. We look at it as a big collection of art, almost, if that makes sense.”

“We were quite lucky in a way. We recorded a lot of our new music in January and February in London. Then, obviously, everywhere went into lockdown. So, like everyone else we locked ourselves away but we spent all that time putting together a full creative plan and a visual image of how we wanted this phase to look, critiquing the music, the songs, the production and adding elements of how we wanted it to sound and kind of going through it with a fine comb. Dave is obviously an amazing dancer and he came up with a dance for the video which is a side to us that people haven’t seen on the video and you know we’re very hands on with everything that we do. We’re very lucky we have an amazing team of people that work with us. We will feed all the ideas of how we want everything to go and then, with those teams we combine our ideas and we put it all together, and that creates the final product.”

The bands songs showcase deep lyrical content and are a joy to listen to. However they also create music for people to dance to and escape the madness of life and to enjoy. 

Conor : “We always try and write from our own life experiences and make the lyrics as real to us as possible. We are quite emotional people. So our lyrics sometimes can be emotional, but also we want our shows and our music to be an escape for people. Because, you know, the social media world and online can be a scary place and the world can be a scary place. People go through a lot of mental health issues as we do, and have good days and bad days and we want people when they listen to our music, that they’re not just listening to us talking about how our hearts have been broken by girls. We’ve always tried to disguise emotional lyrics with upbeat music for people who just want to dance around their house or walk down the road and just escape or even when they come to our shows, be able to just have lots of fun for like an hour or an hour and a half, whatever the show is and just escape from all the troubles and difficulties that are going on in the world.”

Living the life of a musician can be difficult and challenging. The world can seem like a very harsh place filled with overwhelming pressures from peers, media, critics etc. I wondered how the band deal with all of this.

Conor : “I think, you know, I’m probably not as good at that as Dave. He preps me a lot for things like that because sometimes that stuff, kind of hits me a lot more and Dave will pull me aside and be like, ‘Look, it’s the world that we live in’. Unfortunately if you put yourself out there, you’re also putting yourself out there to ..”

Dave “ Yeah to be criticized”

Conor : “ Yeah you’re putting yourself out there and if you’re walking down the road and you’re having a bad morning someone might approach and want to talk to you. But it’s all part of our job you know, we’re so lucky to do what we do and we can never give out about what we do and obviously there is some stuff that can be said online which can be incredibly hurtful but I think you just have to try, and Dave is teaching me more and more every day, and you just kind of have to block it out.”

“I think once we stay together as a family, and as best friends as a band and we know that we’ve always got each other, all the rest of the stuff, the negativity and stuff you just block that out. Then when it comes to anything else like attention, we always welcome anyone to come over and talk to us and we’re so grateful that people take the time to listen to our music or love our music and we always love to talk to those people. When people are kind online we’ll always engage with them, we’ll always respond and we just ignore the negativity and put that shield up, which can be hard some days. It’s easier than others and some days it’s really hard and can really affect you but we try and just you know, block it out and stay as positive as we can and make it all about the music and nothing else.”

I wondered if they themselves were their own worst critic

Dave : “Yeah.That’s like a natural human trait as well. I think everybody does that. For us it’s a strange business in a strange world that we’re in where everybody can scrutinize you. You’re in people’s faces a lot, so then think about that natural self criticism everyone has and then multiply that by 10. That’s what you can feel sometimes. I think what Conor said, we just try our hardest to separate it you know, just to realize that we do have a very special job that we get to do that some people would literally kill to do and we got to do it. So we have to take the positive and then sometimes shield from the negative, because we do get to do what we love, you know,”

Conor : “ I actually saw something brilliant online yesterday someone tweeted, and it was something like ‘you can be as mean to me as you want, but don’t worry I overthink so no one’s gonna be meaner than myself’

I thought that was incredible, because, you know, the shit that people say online, like, I’m way harder on myself than you can ever be so it’s fine. I just thought that was kind of a cool thing that I saw online, even though it’s not cool that that girl feels that she has to tweet that but, yeah, you find coping mechanisms, I think.”

Wild Youth have become known for their energetic live shows which has seen them share the stage with the likes of Mumford and Sons, Niall Horan, The Script, Kodaline and Zara Larsson on arena-sized shows as well as selling out the Olympia. The band feel a bit lost without the energy from live shows since Covid-19. Most artists felt they needed to write during lockdown, interestingly the band did not feel pressure to do so.

Conor : “As a band that’s one of our favorite aspects to do, live shows and to meet our fans and a feeling that we get from doing the gig so yeah it’s been definitely tough. Especially because we don’t know when there’s gonna be a start to it again and what are the requirements for it to happen and stuff like that. So you do feel a bit lost in it but we’re lucky that we got to release this new single ‘Next To You’. It’s the first time we’ve done it where we haven’t been able to play gigs. So none of our fans or no one’s heard ‘Next To You’, and then we released it so it was a different kind of excitement, it was a different buzz, it was a different energy off this one. We were very lucky that we got to do this otherwise I think I would have gone clinically insane with no gigs.This whole lockdown has made us take a different outlook on life you know, try to find the positives among the negative. Everyone’s going through shit right now, everyone’s going through hard times and you have to just find the light in it, to make yourself feel good. So, I think ‘Next To You’ has been a godsend for us.”

“At the beginning we did a few (live streams) for ChildLine, they needed to raise funds, and we’ve been asked alongside a stream of other amazing Irish acts to do a live stream and we did it, and we loved it, we had great fun with it. It’s kind of hard sometimes, because I think for us as a band we are quite energetic on stage, and we feed off energy so sometimes we do and I’m not gonna lie, we’ll be honest, we find that hard when there’s that separation. It’s just us on a camera sitting there and we get a little bit awkward, you’re looking at yourself on camera and your dad is commenting ‘hey, I’m in the next room turn it down’. But, yeah, we’re looking at loads of different options and keeping our ear to the ground with when we can do something and maybe if people are responsible and they wear their masks and they socially distance, maybe we might be able to do some socially distance gigs. We’re always looking for innovative ways to do different things. But, yeah, who knows we might totally eat our words and be on a live stream on Instagram in two weeks”.

“We didn’t feel pressure to write because we were quite lucky as I said, we had recorded a bunch of new music in January and February that was gonna be our music to come out this year. We had all those songs ready to go and then, we finished them through lockdown and so it wasn’t like, ‘oh god we need a load of new songs’. So we actually had a lot of fun writing through this lockdown because we had all these unreleased songs ready to go, that everyone was really happy with, so it allowed us to go back and do things, like write a ballad, or do things where we write an edgier song or to try different things because the pressure was off a little bit, and it’s actually led to some of our favorite material that we’ve ever written because I suppose we didn’t overthink it. We didn’t put pressure on ourselves and we just had fun with it.”

“Some of the songs for me anyway and I don’t know about you Dave, but I absolutely love some of the stuff that we wrote during lockdown. So it’s great, it’s exciting and we’re just going to continue to do that. We’ve new music kind of ready, to go up probably the summer next year so we’re just having fun now and we’re in the studio and writing as much music as possible and trying different things and just having fun with it. Don’t get me wrong we had some bad days”

Dave : “Yeah we have and our biggest hit was the shows like everybody else who’s in this industry. We were pretty lucky our cards were lined up though, that we had all these songs written in January, which made that side of the process much more enjoyable.”

I asked the guys if they had any advice for anyone wanting to start a band or a career in music?

Conor : “Just do it for the love of music, don’t get into it to be famous, don’t get into it to make it straight away and be patient.“

Dave : “Work hard“

Conor : “Work really, really hard, hone in on your craft and just write thousands and thousands of songs because no matter what, shit is fertilizer and the good will come.You know, we did it, we wrote thousands of songs”

Dave : “Terrible songs” 

Conor : “So just be patient, make it all about the music and the song and discover who you want to be because you only get one opportunity to come out and establish yourself as a band so make sure that you love your name. Make sure that you’ve got the sound that you’ll still be happy to play, because if you have a song that works you will be playing it in 10 years time. Just make sure you’re proud of everything, and have fun with it. Because it can be hard but it can also be the best job in the world.” 

Wild Youth plan on providing us with a lot of tunes over the coming months until their much desired live shows return

Conor : “To be honest, for us, because we don’t know with shows, we just want to put out a bunch of new music and we’ve taken about a year to get everything together since our last release. Now we’ve got a bunch of songs that we’re super proud of and we want to feed as much music to the world as possible, continue to write, get back in the studio. We want to have our third and fourth EP’s done by probably the end of the year too and maybe that could even be an album, we don’t know. But now that we’ve got all this time, we just want to write loads more music on top of what we already have ready to go and continue to put out new music until the time is right to play shows again.”

Wild Youth are growing and expanding their sound. Their hook-laden, infectious songwriting coupled with disco glimmers and an insatiable groove which drives all their tracks showcases the bands skill for writing catchy earnest tunes. With ‘Next To You’ embracing their 80’s synth side, Wild Youth have provided a tantalizing taste of what’s to come from them over the coming months. This infectious gem and the bands upcoming tunes will ensure we have some pretty slick tunes to bop to until the band are allowed to grace the stage again and provide us all with the smiles, energy and good vibes we most definitely need.

Watch the video for ‘Next To You’ below 

Author : Danu