Words: Vanessa Monaghan
Over the course of five albums Bell X1 have become one of our nation’s favouite bands. Just before they played in Vicar St for Arthur’s Day, I sat down with Paul, Dave and Dominic from the band and chatted about touring, lyrics and ice cream.
You guys are taking part in Arthur’s Day for the first time this year and you guys have had a great career so far but is it weird at this to do something for the first time?
Dave: It’s nice to be a part of this, a lot of international bands coming in and playing, rubbing shoulders with Irish bands, up and coming or more established. Because it’s all in a flurry of one evening, one day, it’s going to make for a real exciting… I kinda wish I was a punter instead of playing and having to keep me gig hat on. It would be good to scoot round and ‘Where are you?, who’s playing?, I’ll be down in a minute!’. It’s good and buzzy.
So what have you guys been up to since the release of ‘Bloodless Coup’?
Dave: We released the record and we were over in the States then in July, going back there in a few weeks, October into November. We’ve made some videos for the singles,’ Velcro’, ‘Four Minute Mile’..
And you’re getting fan videos made now too!
Dave: Yeah, that’s right, it’s great. It’s an honour when someone puts time with a song of yours and puts their ideas behind it.
And ‘Velcro’ was made by Shane Delahunty, what way does that work, do you go to him or did he come to you with an idea?
Dave: It was through talking to a few different people, DADDY, those guys are great visual artists and we’ve worked with them before and it was through them we got introduced to Shane and the guys, Folks & Folks. We’re making a second video with them now for ‘Sugar High’, we were shooting yesterday actually.
How did it go?
Dave: More hanging round the warehouse… (laughs), let’s be honest, music videos… No, they’ve some great ideas and I think it’s going to look really really good.
Going by your reaction, are videos something you dislike?
Dave: Ah yeah just.. Ronnie Wood from the Stones saying ‘Thirty years in a band, five years playing music’. Twenty five years hanging ’round.
Dominic: And music videos are more disproportionate in terms of hanging around.
Dave: Depends on how you make the video as well. The way we were making it for the most part yesterday was one person was doing something at a time so the other four are sitting on their … ass.
When you take how videos are made and then look at how you recorded the last album, most of the music was recorded live.
Dave: This record is the first time that we have been five people in a room playing with the red button is hit into record. We wanted to do it that way, to do all our rehearsing beforehand and have it pretty much decided before we go into the studio decide, what the song was going to be. So, we spent all our time in preproduction in a rehearsal room taking snapshots, embellishing that and then go right, ‘We’re ready for the studio’, then go in and go bang bang bang. Take really quick snapshot of the songs and we were working with a producer called Rob Kirwan who really helped that no nonsense routine and cracking the whip really, making decisions.
Not everything was locked down before we went to the studio, I think there’s a danger of being over cooked. There still has to be a certain amount of uncertainty when you go into the studio, a certain amount of discovery to keep the excitement levels up. Credit to him, as a producer he managed to marry that. We were organized but still enough room for excitement and discovery.
So going into studio to record like that, how did that effect the dynamics within the band?
Paul: It was the first record we made with Rory and Mark who have been playing with us live for the past couple of years. I suppose it’s made it easier to take out on the road because there isn’t as much of a case of ‘who’s going to play that?’ and ‘what did you do there?’ and trying to listen to the record to try and work out what the component parts are…
Dominic: ‘What you’re going to do with your third hand?’…. ‘We’re going to need another computer..’
You guys have a beautiful way with words but there is still a certain Irishness about them, Where did this literary influence come from? Did you read much growing up?
Paul: Ah mise! I don’t know I get accused of this a lot. You just write what you write A lot of songs are written in various head spaces and scraps of paper, sung into the phone at 4 o’clock in the morning and at some point you grab all those together and see if they’ll stick together in some way that will make sense.
I suppose I’ve always, in thinking about it, there’s something to be said for how the Irish people use language is quite a playful one sometimes and I would be a fan of a lot of Anglo-Irish writers. You do almost soak it up as osmosis growing up here as almost that playfulness with language. A lot of it seems to come from our translations of the Irish language, just small little inflections or colours that we would throw on the English language, maybe that would explain some of it. I suppose I talk about Cornettos and those cultural giants…
My little sister just texted me before I came in, she wanted to know what your favourite flavour is ?
Paul: Of the Cornetto? Ah the classic, you wouldn’t be going near the raspberry ripple or the strawberry or coffee that was there for a while.. No! The Classic!
Dave: Do you not get that fruity urge sometimes?
Paul: No!!! I remember you’d get a cone from an ice cream van and they’d put that…
The Syrup! That’s the nice bit!
Paul: No it’s not!
Dominic: No Ruins it!
You need the syrup!
What ensues is the band overlapping telling me how bad syrup is ..
Dave: And the chocolate
Paul: No it’s nasty, its bad for you full of E numbers
Dave: It’s meant to be bad for you, that’s why its nice!
Dominic: As opposed to the healthy cone ..you’re ruining the healthy cone with syrup!
The syrup/not syrup debate is one that we will no doubt continue another day but back to the music!
How do you guys feel now, five albums in and having grown from a little cult band to arguably the biggest band in the country?
Paul: It’s been amazing because what we did here was just gig and gig and gig before we had any sort of profile, we were conscious of gigging as much as we could and I think that built up a really loyal fanbase that’s stuck with us over these ten years. Last year was the tenth anniversary of the first record. Ireland for us, still drives everything else,we own our own records and we put them out through licensing in other countries but still Ireland is the engine for it all and it’s because we this amazing loyal fanbase.
There seems to be a lot of bands that do well in Ireland but just don’t seem to take the next step up in other countries. Why do think that is?
Paul: I think the DIY ethic is very strong here, in terms of people owning the means of production and getting stuff out there themselves and not waiting around for others to do it for them.
Dave: I think that DIY ethic raises the question of what is successful, I think we’re a band that always wanted to live comfortably and to be able to continue to do what we do. If you’re idea of success is Westlife, then we’re not a successful band…
You’ve had five albums and you can sell out any venue in the country at the drop of a hat….
Dave: I think it’s all relative. We’re getting out and going and getting to new territories and new horizons.
Do you still get the same buzz out of the band that you did ten years ago?
Dave: It’s a different kind of a thing, I think. It’s less of a wide eyed wonder about the things that are new and it’s more, you know yourself when anyone gets older, different things excite you and turn you on and for us I think seeing new and different places and meeting people and bringing our music to these people and I think the challenge of seeing the mix of people in the front row, or a few rows back, mouthing the words, even in America when we went there a few months after (turns to Paul, ‘Was it July? We released in March or April?)..in July we were in the States and some people were singing every word of every song on the new record plus the fact that you’re playing to a slightly bigger audience in a slightly bigger room in the same city, that’s the new buzz. Probably when you’re younger, you’d be getting off your head in different cities.
(Everyone laughs)
I have to bring up the Facebook gig, it seems like getting into Facebook is like trying to get into Buckingham Palace, there’s so much security. What was the whole thing like?
Dave: It was very exciting, the biggest thrill was afterwards, we actually met Mark Zukerburg. It was the first time he was ever in the European Headquarters, just a stone’s throw down the river there, so we got to meet him there.
So how like or unlike his ‘The Social Network’ character is he?
Paul: It’s funny he’s kind of been defined by that. You kind of expect him.. Jessie Whatshisface who played him
Dave: That makes sense when we met him, he was so demure and quiet.
Dominic: He was just like a first year college student, you wouldn’t pick him out in a round or anything. Clearly everyone was fussing around him and knew where he was all the time.
Paul: How much money do you have in your pocket? (laughs)
The PR rep has just told me to get out for the second time, so one quick question.. You had a song in The O.C. If there was any TV show or soundtrack…(interrupted)
Dave: The Wire
Paul: Bring it back for another season and we’ll record the theme tune.
Would you not go for a James Bond theme?
Paul: No..
Dave: We could probably soundtrack a James Bond lesbian kiss…
Bell X1 are legends, Bloodess Coup is out now.