Kodaline’s Steve Garrigan: ‘After Covid, walking out and seeing a crowd made me nervous’
Steve Garrigan and Kodaline.
Steve Garrigan has spent his career hiding in plain sight. As the frontman of Irish rock band Kodaline, he’s played arenas, headlined festivals and topped the charts on numerous occasions. But if he comes across confident on stage, once the lights go down he is very different. Face to face, he cuts a shy figure and does not feel comfortable being the centre of attention.
“A lot of musicians and songwriters and creative people are kind of introverts. I suppose I am like that,” says Garrigan, speaking ahead of the release by Kodaline of a new live album, Our Roots Run Deep.
In his case, it goes beyond mere introversion. Garrigan (34) has suffered anxiety and panic attacks throughout his life. During lockdown he bravely put down his experiences in the autobiography High Hopes: Making Music, Losing My Way, Learning to Live.
The book is a raw and moving exploration of mental health issues and how to live with them and Garrigan was rightly praised for his honesty. “I have lived with anxiety and depression pretty much all my life,” he wrote in the introduction.
“And for a long time, I suffered in silence. I just bottled everything up and didn’t talk to anyone about it.”
The one place he never felt nervous was when performing. And yet, following a pandemic-enforced lay-off, going back on stage was a challenge.
“After Covid, walking out again and seeing a crowd – it did make me nervous,” he says. “But I suppose you would call them good nerves.”
Kodaline’s first shows back were in Belfast, as lockdown restrictions eased in the UK. However, it was in Dublin that the Swords group had their grand homecoming when they played a series of acoustic dates at the Olympia Theatre. Those gigs were recorded and will now be released as the 17-track Our Roots Run Deep, which comes out October 14.
“After Covid, just being in a room with a crowd was emotional in itself. The gigs were more of a celebration,” says Garrigan. “Getting back in front of the crowd – people seemed to enjoy it.”
The pandemic devastated live music in Ireland. Kodaline took a hit, though, with an international following and a series of chart-topping albums, they were in a position to weather out the worst of the lockdowns. Still, it was tough.
Plus, they also saw how Covid impacted other performers and their own road crew. No matter how big you were, few musicians got through the pandemic completely unscathed.
Our Roots Run Deep celebrates the return of normality as it pertains to the music business. It’s a testimony to Kodaline’s music and their bond with their audience. But above all, it commemorates finally having the freedom to get out of the house, stand with other people and have a shared experience.
“The idea of the album was to capture the atmosphere of the night as best we could,” says Garrigan. “If people listen to the record, and hopefully they enjoy the record, we wanted them to feel like they are there at the gig.”
Kodaline are one of those bands who wear their hearts on their sleeves. This has made them hugely popular, starting with their 2012 single All I Want, which was play-listed by the BBC and featured on American medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.
However, it has put a target on their backs, too. Sincerity hasn’t always been appreciated in music and it is easy to scorn artists who emote from the core of their being. For example, the (now defunct) Q Magazine notoriously gave their 2013 debut, In A Perfect World, a vicious one-star review.
A decade on, that traditional cynicism towards musicians who deal in earnestness has melted away. Coldplay are celebrated as pop’s ultimate purveyors of feel-good vibes. And the old derision directed at Kodaline has largely vanished too.
“Limp-wristed rock is what we used to say,” says Garrigan, audibly rolling his eyes.
“It depends on the person. We have lots of fans around the world who love our music. Our biggest songs are very emotional, slow songs. We play around the world to big crowds. I’ve always loved that type of music. I love Coldplay. I love that style of music. I understand: there are people out there who hate it. There are people who hate all genres.”
Live records can be hit and miss. Some are essential entries in an artist’s catalogue. Others are quick cash-ins. Irish artists have always been drawn to the medium.
Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous, from 1978, is considered their definitive record. And the consensus is that the live recording of U2’s Bad, as featured on the 1985 EP Wide Awake In America, is the best rendering of one of their greatest songs.
“I grew up listening to live albums and some live albums are iconic,” says Garrigan. “Sometimes they are better than the original. Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous… when I was a teenager I used to listen to that all the time. For me, that’s one of the best live albums ever made. The way it’s mixed, the sound of it, is amazing. And Phil Lynott is amazing. He has a couple of quotes that are incredible.”
With Our Roots Run Deep, Kodaline were eager to have the sound of the crowd on the recording. They didn’t want to make an LP that was antiseptic and “clean”.
“At a lot of our shows, the crowds seem to sing along to the songs, which is cool. I rarely heard that on record. Sometimes they turn it down. We wanted to turn it up as much as possible – to try and capture that atmosphere.
"It’s a totally different setup to what we usually do. It’s acoustic and stripped down. It’s intimate. I hope people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.”
Garrigan is still in his thirties. But he feels as if he’s been around forever. With the tenth anniversary of Kodaline’s first album approaching he’s been thinking about the band, their legacy, where they’ve come from and where they’re going.
“Next year it’s coming up to ten years. We [the three founding members] have been playing together for 17 years. We’re still very young. It’s crazy how time goes by. We have to pinch ourselves sometimes.
"We’re incredibly lucky. I still have a lot of the same friends I grew up with which keeps me grounded. We’re always working on new music. I’m always writing songs. I can’t stop doing it.”
- Our Roots Run Deep is released October 14. Kodaline play Musgrave Park, Cork in June 2023.
