Jape played as part of Jameson’s Live St Patrick’s Day show in the Academy, we sat down and had some words with him before the show.
What do you do when you’ve got two choice prizes under your belt, four solo albums under your band moniker Jape and countless musical credentials?
Well apparently if you’re Richie Egan, you move to Sweden where you have your own studio and you continue writing.
“I’ve been writing an awful lot, I’ve got a studio in Sweden and I’ve just been writing pretty much every day since January really.”
With intentions of putting out a fifth album pretty soon, “within the year anyway” Richie Egan seems intent on making Jape a bigger name than it already is. Playing St. Patricks Day for Jameson Live alongside Bombay Bicycle Club and The Cast of Cheers is no short order after all.
“This year we’re pulling back on gigs so I’ve only been back twice now, and probably won’t be back for another few months.”
Right now it seems like its all go in the studio as he’s trying to find a sound at the moment that he wants to be different than the others.
“We’ve got an interesting mixture between electronic and song-writing stuff so its kind of hard to tell which is which but lots of different sounds are coming out and we’re just giving it that human feel.”
Living in Malmö at the moment, he hasn’t had the opportunity to see too many Swedish bands yet, so whether this will influence the new album or not is yet to be seen but that doesn’t mean he’s not looking at home right now for the best in electronic influences.
“I’m following a lot of it on Twitter and stay abreast of whats going on back home, I’m listening to as much as possible as it seems the standard of electronic music has really risen a lot in the last few years.”
With no albums lately there was no nomination for Jape this year for the Choice Prize, but seeing Delorentos take it was no surprise either for Richie as he suggested he should have put money on it like many others.
Whether he’ll be part of next years line up is yet to be seen as the album may not be out by then, but “it will definitely be written” and we can expect a lot more live shows from Jape and Richie Egan following whatever comes from that studio in Malmö.