Golden Time: Conor O'Brien of Villagers on his new album, and giving up drinking
Conor O'Brien of Villagers. Picture: Andrew Whitton
“I knew it was going to be a lifelong pursuit,” Conor O’Brien says of Villagers’ longevity. Featuring a rotating cast of musicians led by the Dubliner, it’s been an ongoing pursuit since 2008, growing slowly but steadily, surely. There’s a sense of nostalgia around his sixth studio album, .
The title itself hints at a long-ago past, a longing, perhaps, for something different, less algorithm-driven, while there’s a woozy, lush sound running throughout, with contributions from a group of players that O’Brien had first seen performing in a tribute to Italian composer Ennio Morricone. “My first love of music was always film soundtracks,” he explains.
O’Brien, now in his 40s, has also started a Substack newsletter, a space for his “musical detritus, scribbles and obsessions”, with snippets from his ‘Golden Notebook’ among the posts.
These reflections on the past, on his journey, have helped shape the future. “There's no point in trying to repeat yourself... Once I've done something I just get bored.”
Did he find in the past that he was repeating himself? “Most of the time with albums, for me, what you're hearing, as the listener, is 10% of the work I've done, because I throw away 90% - I don't throw it away, but I put it aside. And then in a few years’ time, it might become the beginnings of something else. That's how I work. It's always really uncomfortable. And it's always lots of failure.”
He admits this 'failure' isn't enjoyabe but says he is kind of addicted to it. He dabbles in other creative outlets - he has a techno sideproject called Vanishing Arcs, has played drums with the likes of his former Immediate bandmember David Hedderman, and does the odd little creative writing, but “I find it hard to get out an album every two years”.
Over the past 18 months, O'Brien been busy indulging his nostalgia of the Villagers project compiling lyrics, artwork, and scraps from his notebooks for a book that will be released later in the year.
“It's been a hell of a lot of work to do alongside preparing the album, but I'm really proud of it… it will be nice to hold a body of work that I've spent a lot of time on for the last 15, 20 years. It’ll just be nice to have it all in one book.”
While previous album was built out of four or five long band sessions and jamming for hours before extracting ideas, O’Brien played and recorded everything in his Dublin City apartment for . Another big change for him, in 2024, is that he’s given up alcohol. “I've stopped drinking. And I’ve started living in my body again and being present a lot more.”
He adds: “I feel like it's given me a whole new energy. It feels quite deep, actually. Because I was quite dependent on it for quite a few years.”
O'Brien says he was inspired by Richie Egan, a peer and friend for 20-plus years, who currently lives in Malmo, Sweden, and released his seventh studio album under the moniker Jape last year.
“He took that plunge, and I could just see it, he was happier and lighter and felt more present. And it's a cliche to say, but I do feel more present.”
O’Brien says he “hit the self-destruct button a bit too much in the last few years”, drinking too much wine before and during shows. “Not really being able to go on stage without half a bottle of wine in you... That was making it lose something,” he reflects.
He couldn't go on stage without it? “I didn't even test that hypothesis. I never got to test that because I was just doing it every night and then continuing to drink after the shows so that kind of ruined a little bit of the — I mean there's lots of stuff I'd say I would have beautiful memories of right now if I didn't do that... It wasn't an extremely dangerous - like it wasn't high-level dependency but it was definitely dependency and I was numbing myself in order to do the job. So I've finally gotten rid of that, which is good.”
He’s not preachy but O’Brien states simply: “It's really nice to experience things with full consciousness.”
features collaborators including the American songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick on violin, David Tapley of Dublin band Tandem Felix on pedal steel guitar, and Dónal Lunny (Planxty, The Bothy Band) on bouzouki, who has become a particular musical foil of O’Brien’s in recent years, the pair having played short sets together — indeed on the Golden Chimes Substack, O’Brien has uploaded a cover of Planxty’s ‘As I Roved Out’.
“I think I really got to know him through the Ceiliúradh, which was in the Royal Albert Hall about 10 years ago now,” he explains of an event centred on Michael D Higgins’ State visit to the UK, the first by an Irish president. Lunny “put me at ease so much, because I was so nervous because I was still a bit, I guess, wet behind the ears.
“He was just this lovely, peaceful, steady figure. And over the years, when I've played with him, it just feels so natural.”
O’Brien says is the most vulnerable album he’s made. Perhaps that’s evident on penultimate song ‘Behind that Curtain’, when he sings: “We're playing with God because he's gone for a walk”.
What’s his relationship with faith? “I was always so religious growing up. I was brought to the church every week, but I used to just pray every night for as long as I could and name everybody I knew, and pray for them. [It lasted] up until I was about 12 and I started listening to Nirvana. Nihilism took over then.
“I think as you get older - you know, I'm in my 40s now - you start to realise with all these things, there's value in all of them, they're all just different ways of filling your days, trying to make sense of this mad, messy grey area that we all live in.”
- is out on Domino Records now. Villagers Play Trinity College Dublin on Saturday, June 29
I've been getting back on a Big Star buzz recently. I wrote a little songwriting piece about the origins of one of the new Villagers songs which started life as an imagined Big Star tune, and have been reacquainting myself with their albums ever since. 'Try Again' is one of the best tunes; I've listened to it three times today.
I enjoyed Alabaster DePlume at the Button Factory. I had conflicting feelings about it actually, but I think this was a good thing; there was an anarchic energy at the core of it which has coloured my days since.
I finally saw Wim Wenders' a few days ago. It's a beautiful film. Kōji Yakusho carries it with such a benevolent presence. I was frustrated by the ending, but most film endings frustrate me; I don't know why — it always feels like there could have been more.
I just finished the wonderful by Claire Keegan. I find that short stories are good for travelling. I've been dipping in and out of by Paul McCartney, edited by Paul Muldoon. It's a dream to read.
