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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

Indie, indie rock, New Music

Villa In France ‘Burned Out’

Villa In France has released their new single ‘Burned Out’.Villa In France are a three-Piece Indie-Rock band from the North Coast of Northern Ireland consisting of Aidan Davidson (Vocals, Rhythm Guitar), Nino Morelli (Lead Guitar, Backup vocals) and Matthew Gillan (Drums). 

‘Burned Out’ presents Villa In France’s earnest songwriting through chilling indie rock. The verses brood and ferment within a hypnotic and eerie guitar melody as Davidson croons “living in sandcastles, blood on their hands to get to the top” before the crashing chorus interjects with a spectacular abrasive sonic assault. The band showcase their refined and evocative musical prowess within the track’s dynamic soundscape – the song meanders between haunting verses, searing interludes and a corrosive crescendo while acid-soaked guitar embellishments and ground shaking drums create an intense and irritated atmosphere throughout. The result is an immersive and exciting wall of sound that is a joy to listen to again and again. ‘Burned Out’ is a compelling new tune from Villa In France.

Stream ‘Burned Out’ below 


Author: Danu

Indie, indie rock, New Music, Rock and Roll

Palava ‘Just Look into My Eyes’

East Manchester indie band Palava have released their new single ‘Just Look into My Eyes’.The track is the first single off the bands upcoming EP. This swagger steeped rock n roll number boasts the raw and vigorous sound of Palava in all its glory. With mammoth riffs paving the way for the brawny drums and fiery bassline, this track surges with adrenaline. The band create a hyper raw backdrop to accompany the catchy melody and majestic guitar embellishments leaving the listener pumped and craving to hear the song live. Showcasing a mosh-ready chorus and shredding guitar solo ‘Just Look into My Eyes’ is a tantalizing assault on the senses – a must listen.

Stream ‘Just Look into My Eyes’ below 


Author: Danu

Indie, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

Rory & the Island ‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’

Irish artist Rory & the Island has released his new summer single ‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’.The single is released one week ahead of Rory and the Island returning to the live music scene with two sold-out shows in the Dublin Castle Camden, London on 13th and 14th August, and follows his two most recent singles hitting the Number 1 spot on iTunes Ireland in 2021. Recorded in Distant City Studios in Yorkshire, ‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’ was mixed by Joss Worthington and Paul Gallagher, then remastered by John Davies who has received huge acclaim for his recent work with The Killers, U2 and Years & Years.

‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’ is a glorious groovy gem from Rory & The Island. The artist drifts a sweet melody over funky guitar flexes and rich shaking rhythms to create a strut filled soundscape for listeners to indulge in. Rory’s smooth vocals glissade over the catchy chorus “Donna Don’t Take My Summer away”, while a soulful 70’s/80’s backdrop exudes an upbeat hazy atmosphere. Rory & The Island is a melody wizard who has a knack for creating perfect earworms and musically lush tunes for listeners to enjoy and ‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’ follows this trend superbly. Press play and enjoy.

Speaking of the single Rory & The Island said: “After releasing 2 quite introverted melancholic songs during the pandemic I decided that with a bit of light at the end of the tunnel to just go crazy with a feel-good bubblegum pop summer song!”

Stream ‘Donna Don’t Take My Summer’ below 


Author:Danu

Alt- Pop, Indie, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

Curtis Walsh ‘Picture Perfect’

After returning in recent weeks to share his vibrant new single ‘Picture Perfect’, fast-rising Irish artist Curtis Walsh is back once again to unveil the uplifting new video for his latest offering. Directed by acclaimed Irish filmmaker Donnagh Fitzpatrick, the new visuals for ‘Picture Perfect’ aims to highlight the rich and joyous aesthetics Curtis brought to his original performance. Giving us upbeat and enticing images of summer fun, the new video looks to project a warm and inviting texture throughout, perfectly illustrating all of our desires to break free from these recent lockdowns. Curtis Walsh will also be heading out on the road for a number of headline shows across Ireland later this year, as well as a performance at Hit The North Festival in the UK in October.

‘Picture Perfect’ is a shimmering alternative pop anthem. The track captures a sense of nostalgia and fun throughout as Curtis Walsh spreads a smooth, dreamy melody over a bubbling beat and ethereal electronic soundscape. Fusing dance elements with sweet pop sensibilities and infectious grooves, the song leads beautifully into its catchy chorus while lush harmonies ensure this earworm won’t leave your head easily. Filled with summer vibes and showcasing Walsh’s velvety vocals, the track is the perfect sun-kissed bop sure to have you singing along in no time.

Speaking about the new video, he said, “This song really meant a lot to me so I wanted to make sure the video really complemented the whole vibe of the song. It had to be uplifting and have a good happy energy to it. There was a little bit of back and forth on the ideas and treatment for this video, but quickly enough we got to a place where the song and video really linked nicely with each other! I was really impressed with the way it came together and can’t wait to see what everyone thinks!’

Watch the video for ‘Picture Perfect’ below 


Author: Danu

Indie, New Music, Singer/Songwriter

Pa Sheehy ‘Róisín’

Pa Sheehy has released his second solo single, ‘Róisín’, alongside announcing the release of his debut EP ‘The Art Of Disappearing’ on 24 September and dates for his first solo tour.’The Art Of Disappearing’ EP is available to Pre-save/Pre-order via pasheehy.com and Golden Discs now. Fans who pre-order the physical EP will have access to the pre-sale for the live shows on 4th August at 10 am.  Tickets will go on general on sale on 6th August at 10 am via Ticketmaster.ie and Pasheehy.com.

‘Róisín’ presents Pa Sheehy’s earnest and emotive songwriting through beautiful musicianship and refined arrangements. Sheehy spreads cinematic soundscapes over vivid lyrics to create a heartfelt and goosebump-inducing tune that surges with emotion as he captures timeless mental images of Róisín, “It’s your touch, It’s your face, It’s your cause, It’s like the rest of the world is on pause”. A delicate piano laments over pulsing beats creating a sense of unease and tension as the song builds, becoming more vibrant with ethereal guitars leading the way to the captivating crescendo. Sheehy has a knack for crafting evocative music filled with passionate melodies and honest lyrics and ‘Róisín’ illustrates this perfectly. The track is a first-rate tune and a fine example of Pa Sheehy’s compelling songwriting.

Speaking about his new single ‘ Pa Sheehy said: “How many times can you let down the one you love before they say goodbye?.. when I went to college I had it all! Captain of the local soccer team, I had a little car and a beautiful girlfriend. Róisín. Fast forward 18 months. I didn’t play sport, dropped out of college and I had made it impossible for Róisín to stay. Why? Alcohol. I loved what it gave me and I put it before everything and everyone. I never labelled myself an alcoholic, but after going to a bunch of councillors it became obvious that I was. A reluctant me did everything I could to keep tabs on it but after spending my rent money on a piss up and couch surfing around Cork I finally asked for help. Everything I had was gone. I spent a month in a rehabilitation centre. The first one to visit me was Róisín. I stayed sober for a while but In the end, we had decided to call it quits, not because of a lack of love but I couldn’t put her through this again. I was lost, so was she. This song is a gift to her. Some people deserve to have their name sung from a stage.”

Watch the video for ‘Róisín’ below


Author:Danu

Alt- Pop, Indie, Indie Pop, New Music

Julian Lamadrid ‘Saturday’

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julian Lamadrid has released his new single ‘Saturday’. This infectious bop flows upon bright electronics and sunkissed tones as Lamadrid coos, “Ooh, babe, ooh, babe Ooh, babe, If we make it ’til Saturday, Then I’ll tell you my last name“. Lamadrid’s smooth vocals caress the dreamy melody through a haze of reverb, while his melodic prowess and effortless swagger make ‘Saturday’ a euphoric delight on listeners ears. He crafts a laid back summer tune filled with tropical tones, shimmering synths, and bubbling beats to create a luscious alternative pop gem that is sure to brighten any day. Lamadrid is displaying his versatility as an artist by producing tunes with an array of vibrant and tantalizing sounds from the funky flex of his previous release ‘15 Minutes’ to last years steel drum, synth peppered ‘Patience’ and 2019’s edgy alternative pop ‘Die Young’. Each release from Lamadrid is an exciting keyhole glimpse into the glorious musical world of this talented artist. 

Stream ‘Saturday’ below 


Author: Danu

Indie, Indie Pop, indie rock, New Music

Somebody’s Child ‘CRAZY’

Dublin-based indie rock five-piece Somebody’s Child have released their new single ‘CRAZY’ – the first piece of material following the band’s critically lauded second EP ‘Hope, Amongst Other Things’, which was released earlier this year. The song is the first single to be taken from a new Somebody’s Child EP –  ‘Staying Sane’,  which is set for release this autumn. More conceptual than anything the band have done to date, Staying Sane is written from the perspective of a long road trip along the west coast of Ireland, with the new single kicking things off.

Layered in vibrant indie, earnest lyrics and richly layered soundscapes, ‘CRAZY’ is a triumph from Somebody’s Child. Within this catchy laid back tune filled with sun-kissed vibes, the band lay bare honest emotions as Cian Godfrey ruminates on self-isolation. “Have you ever questioned if you’re crazy?. They all say I’m a waster ’cause I’m lazy. I’m terrified of strangers I thought maybe, That I need help”. These well-coined lyrics provide depth while contrasting the light and upbeat tone of the song. With subtle elements of R&B peering between juicy guitar bounces and slick beats, Somebody’s Child creates a relatable indie bop for listeners to enjoy. The chorus ripples with rich percussion, funky bass lines and uplifting melodies as the band push past all expectations to deliver a euphoric and impressive earworm that will chime in your head for days.

Speaking about ‘CRAZY’, Godfrey says: “CRAZY is definitely from the depths of my thoughts. A throwback to my school days mixed in with my deepest fear – going crazy.”

Stream ‘CRAZY’ below 


Author: Danu

Alt Rock, Indie, indie rock, New Music, Single Premiere

Late Night Pharmacy ‘Relapse’ Premiere

Dublin-based alternative rock band Late Night Pharmacy have released their new single ‘Relapse’. ‘Relapse’ is the band’s third single of 2021, following April’s ‘Too Late for the Rickshaws’ and June’s ‘Slacktivist (Normalise This)’. Recording the single was only possible after Late Night Pharmacy were one of four Irish bands hand-picked to take part in the 2020 edition of the TiLT Development Deal. As part of this deal, the band received hours of free studio time in Dublin’s renowned Sun Studios (in which artists such as Rihanna, Kanye West and Sinéad O’Connor have recorded over the years). There, the band recorded two songs, ‘Relapse’ is the first to be released.

Saturated in sharp indie rock, ‘Relapse’ is a mighty new single from Late Night Pharmacy. The band present their intricate fizzing indie sound through a catchy summer bop filled with jangly guitars, buoyant drums and light percussion. The track meanders between airy tones and edgy rock as the band drift a laid back melody over jagged riffs and driving bass lines to create a thrilling balance of mosh ready rock and infectious pop. With vivid metaphorical lyrics, “Oh my old friend, you were the scars on my skin. My veins have blown since we packed it in And now I’ve got the shakes, I’m craving my fix”, teamed with acute instrumentation and a shredding guitar solo the band pull out all the stops with this glistening gem. Late Night Pharmacy are blossoming wonderfully as a band. With each release, they delve deeper into their refined and exuberant sound while showcasing their deft lyrical prowess. ‘Relapse’ is a vibrant indie anthem ready for repeat plays. Press play and enjoy.

About the track, the band said: “Relapse” is a song about breaking up with your girlfriend, falling back into bed with her, regretting it, and then the whole cycle starting again. The lyrics compare this to a recovering drug addict repeatedly falling off the wagon, alluding to Oscar Wilde and The Undertones.“

Stream ‘Relapse’ 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