Next month Mick Flannery releases ‘By The Rule’, his fourth album and strongest collection of songs to date. More akin to the quieter moments of his first two records than the anthemics of ‘Red To Blue’, it finds one of Ireland’s finest songwriters further refining his craft, with starkly beautiful songs, honing in on Mick’s singular strength; measured and delicate performance from a person capable of terrifying ferocity.
Godenplec sat down with Mick in The Westbury Hotel to discuss what he’s been up to, and how Berlin, busking and a swift spell in the studio allowed ‘By The Rule’ to come together.
Flannery was sure this time around to let less external pressure affect the production. “The last album, the stretch of time it was written over was much bigger, so I think there are some inconsistencies,” he told GoldenPlec.
“As well, there was some pressure on me to write radio-friendly stuff and I took it on board and I compromised a few things while recording, and then I choose those more radio geared songs to go on the album in favour of some songs I preferred and I felt that was a pity, afterwards. I feel in some ways it was a wise move at the time but afterwards I felt I wish I hadn’t done that.
The song By The Rule, made the choice for the album’s title an easy one. “I was thinking of the song, and the whole thing as a narrative about one person’s life and his way of thinking. It’s mostly my own, but oftentimes I would think of someone else, or an older person looking back. By The Rule is about a person who never really figures out what he should do, what way he should be. He’s looking for a rule, but he can’t find one. He’s not religious or anything so he’s searching for a way to make him feel better. About dying (laughs).”
This time around, Flannery was sure to make recording a swift and productive process. “For the previous album I did some writing in the studio, it just happened that way. I just didn’t take it for a good way of doing it. The lyrics were bad – just not thought out properly.
“I wouldn’t listen to them that much after, by virtue of the fact that I’d just scribbled them down after a bad dream or something, so I didn’t put a lot of time into them. So I gave up on that sort of style. But this time I only had two weeks in the studio so it just wasn’t an option.
The short span for recording was intentional as Flannery wanted to give the album a live feel. “I felt the musicians were good enough to do it live, and they were. I didn’t want to do the thing that I did the last time with the previous album, which just went on too long. It may not have happened this way. If it hadn’t, I might still be tipping away in a recording studio and not here talking to you. But thankfully it just came together nicely.”
With only two weeks recording time booked, the songs were formed as they were recorded. “There are songs that I’ve played a few times at gigs with the band. About two weeks before recording we had two days of rehearsals and that was all we did really, so during recording we were still hashing out arrangements. A couple things needed to be ironed out take-by-take and maybe the last take would get it. Things might get better than the recorded version when we play them live, we might find new and find better ways to play them.”
Mick’s still not too precious about the original arrangements. “The arrangements on this one were loose enough. The songs are in such a way that it’s hard to come up with written arrangements. They’re simple songs. Ryan [Freeland, the album’s producer] geared people away from doing riffy, contrived things; more towards doing something different on that take than the last, not trying to settle on one way of things.
“I often just let people do what they do – I don’t really like to give [instructions]. I don’t hear a great deal of parts in my head. Unless it’s for strings. With string players you have to give them something, some notes, so it’s forced upon you to think out the part.”
Four albums in, Flannery’s songwriting style remains intuitive. He doesn’t rely on a ‘process’. “The melody is important. The vocal melody is probably, to me, the most important. I always think, were I to put the song on its own, would it hold someone’s attention if it was played by just me?”
Production-wise, there seems to be a greater emphasis on atmospherics, particularly on the vocals. “If you heard it, it’s there,” Flannery says. “There’s one song in particular that has a weird effect on the vocals, done by the mixing engineer.
“I might have asked him for it alright, ‘cause I do like reverb. But also, we were all playing at the same time. All the reverb spills over between the instruments because it was all recorded live. I was playing in one room and the drummer in the other but the door was left open so his hits come through on my mic and it all spills over and creates an atmosphere all its own.”
Flannery spent seven months alone in Berlin while writing the album. Why Berlin? No real reason, just a change of scenery. I’d heard a lot of things about it from friends of mine who’d lived there in the past. That it was a good, fun place to live with a lot of freedoms you wouldn’t have other places. Simple little freedoms like being able to walk around with a glass bottle of beer in your hand, and nobody gives a shit, things like that.
“I don’t know if Berlin was integral or anything like that. Maybe it was an added bonus or something that it exaggerated my solitude, the fact that I couldn’t understand the language. I didn’t have even the pleasure of overhearing conversations that I could understand. It was a lot of time spent with myself.”
He kept quiet in Berlin, save for a few impromptu sessions on the street. “I was hanging around Wallace Bird; did a few gigs together. But I don’t think I met too many over there from outside of Ireland. I did a bit of busking for the fun of it. I was doing it on a bridge. I never really got an audience. You know the way sometimes you’d see people gathered around? That didn’t happen. It was a kind of noisy bridge and my voice is not very loud, so I’m not a natural busker. I did some busking in New York a good few years ago.”
Flannery has been quoted in the press claiming to not have thoroughly enjoyed New York. “I think I was referring to open mic scenes,” he says. “They’re difficult. You’ve a load of people with the same agenda in the same room, and they’re just trying to show off to people who are trying to show off. And I was guilty of it myself, but it seems the only use I could see for it is to get used to sitting in front of people.”
So what does one of Ireland’s finest songwriters listen to? “I was listening to Hozier’s songs the other day, they’re very good. I was listening to Lisa O Neill. But I’m not great in general for listening to stuff. I don’t buy a lot of new music.
“I don’t use it a lot during day to day things. I use it when I pick up the guitar and mess around. I don’t use it as a background. Some people wake up in the morning and turn on the radio to feel part of the world. I don’t have that impulse. If I want to hear music it’s usually if I’m going out for maybe a couple of drinks and I’m allowed to request songs from the barman, and I just pick Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.
Flannery is conscious of his public image becoming too caricatured. He is affable, funny and thoughtful in person, yet the general sense is one a miser. “Everybody gets the same sense (laughs). And I worry about it being printed too often, ‘this grumpy prick hates this shit’. There are times where the person interviewing where they’ve been given instruction by another source and they’ll have a questionnaire of silly things, like ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ or, ‘I love what I do because…’, so they set you a premise, a false premise at times.
“Not that I don’t enjoy what I do, but things like, ‘My favourite thing about myself is …’; I would never start a sentence that way. So that kind of thing can make me awkward and it can be difficult to know where to draw the line with people. And, even saying that, it might not be taken very well (if you do). It’s all very unnatural, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. I’m glad it’s still happening. Sometimes I feel like I can take it for granted. Get too apathetic about things. ‘Tis a fright to be bored.”
‘By The Rule’ is released on 9th May and Mick Flannery opens for Elbow at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on 25th June.