Labour of love for Jape’s laidback frontman

Singer Richie Egan tells Eoghan O’Sullivan he is aiming for a slower, less in-your-face style with the band’s fourth album

IN 2008, Jape’s album Ritual took home the Choice Music Prize, the Irish equivalent of Britain’s Mercury Prize. The Choice offers €10,000 prize money and plenty of exposure. But Richie Egan denies it helped establish his band as one of the most influential in the Irish music scene. “Jape is not that commercially successful,” he says.

Of Ritual, the band’s third album, Egan says, “it wasn’t that bad, but there’s stuff on it I definitely would change”. Surely he has felt under pressure to deliver the follow-up? “Not particularly, no, to be honest. I tend to just put pressure on myself to try and write a song that feels right to me. And if it does then I’m happy.”