Small town boy thinks big
CONOR O’Brien of Villagers cannot hide his frustration. “When my record label played me the ‘radio’ mix of my single I put my foot down. It sounded like Guns ‘n Roses.”
O’Brien may be softly spoken and physically slight. But he is no push over, as the bosses at respected London independent Domino discovered.
“I said ‘no way’. So they got someone else to remix the track. Then the head of the record company called and we had a long conversation. It lasted maybe an hour. They want my new album to succeed. In the end I kind of gave in and they put out the second mix. With radio, you usually hear it in a cab or a restaurant anyway. It’s in the background. The version of the song that is on the LP won’t be affected. That’s the important thing.”
This is a big moment for Villagers, a one-man vehicle, more or less, for O’Brien’s dramatic brand of guitar pop. Three years ago his Villagers debut, Becoming A Jackal, received a Mercury Music Prize nomination. At Domino the hope is that his latest long player, Awayland, will go one further and establish him as a major artist. With the countdown to the album’s release underway they are leaving nothing to chance, especially in the UK where the LP is receiving a proper publicity blitz (he’s just come off a high profile support slot with critically adored New Yorkers Grizzly Bear).
“They are pulling out all the stops for us,” says O’Brien. “They are getting behind it and believe in it. So far it has received a positive response. I was doing some press with Continental journalists and a few of them said, ‘we didn’t really like your last record — and we love this one’. I tried to take it as a compliment.”
Awayland is a joyous affair. It comes as no great surprise to hear O’Brien recorded it coming out of a difficult period, specifically the sudden death of his older sister days after Becoming a Jackal was released.
“It was the first time I experienced the death of someone close to me,” he says. “Writing Awayland, it was something I was aware of — it was in my head all the time. However, it wasn’t an area I wanted to delve into. In fact, I was pushed into the opposite direction.
“It woke me to the fact that what I loved especially about music was the pure joy of it. I went to a less sombre place. I embarked on a project that was uplifting. People go through so much shit. What we want is music that makes us say ‘wow’. That was the concept of the album, I realised eventually.”
Still in his mid-20s, O’Brien is articulate and confident. That isn’t to say he doesn’t have the usual creative person’s issues with self-doubt. With Awayland, he struggled with writer’s block.
“I was editing myself,” he recalls. “I had a very clear sense what kind of material I didn’t want. I was reacting to elements on the first record which I felt hadn’t stood the test of time. I wanted not to do those kind of songs again. Of course, starting from the place of knowing what you don’t want isn’t the best, creatively speaking. It took a while for me to work it out.”
He decided to stop worrying about what he ought to be saying. Rather than be bogged down in the detail, he would write tunes that rang simply true. “Instead of concentrating on lyrics, I left them to one side. I started experimenting, creating instrumental stuff. The idea was to look at life and the world from the freshest, most childlike perspective I could. Where the ‘craft’ comes in is building a bridge from elements that speak to you to songs that work with an audience, songs to which listeners can apply experiences of their own. That’s the hard part — and also the fun part.”
From Dun Laoghaire, O’Brien has been the golden boy of Irish independent rock for going on seven years. His first outfit The Immediate were local heroes and received a Choice Music nomination for their first (and last LP) In Towers and Clouds.
The Immediate disintegrated in 2007 and he started Villagers (he paid the rent playing in Cathy Davey’s band). In Ireland, Villagers were acclaimed from the start. Even so, there was surprise when they were signed by Domino, home to Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys. O’Brien’s journey to the anointed land seemed complete with an invite to appear on the influential BBC show Later…With Jools Holland.
“I wasn’t nervous at all,” he says of his appearance. “I played a charity show the other night and found that nerve-wracking to a far higher degree. With Jools Holland, I felt I had done all the work. The song gave me the right to be there. I sort of knew it would be okay, as long as I didn’t break a string.”
He was rather more on edge singing at the Mercury Music prize ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House. With the great and the good of the UK record industry enjoying a boozy night out, O’Brien was concerned the event might pass him by. In the end, he seized the opportunity and made absolutely sure he was centre of attention.
“The band on before me, the jazz nominees, had a hard time of it,” he recalls. “People were chattering throughout. The musicians actually mentioned that in their mini speech. They were annoyed, I suspect. I thought, ‘they’re a trio — now it’s me and an acoustic guitar — what chance do I have?’. I managed to cut through the babble. It was one of those chatty, drunken crowds. And I got them to be completely silent. I quite enjoyed that.”
*Awayland is released next Friday. Villagers play INEC Killarney Mar 18, Savoy Cork, Mar 19, Olympia, Dublin Mar 21/22
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