After a majorly long break from their music, Irish five piece, The Would Be’s, decided to bounce back with their new album ‘A Beautiful Mess’, and a launch in Academy 2 to top it all off…
We caught up with Paul and Eamonn before they took to their sold out show…
So you’re about to play Academy 2 for your album launch- how are you guys feeling?
Are we? Who told you that! Nah, we’re really looking forward to it. We’re all hyped up and on a roll I think.
Are you expecting a good turn out?
Apparently the tickets are selling well, there’s like 140 gone at the moment so a few walk ups and we’ll be sorted. It holds about 230 or so. Nice and sweaty!
So coming out with the new album after such a big break- what triggered this come back?
Well last year, Tony Clayton Lee’s inclusion of ‘Im Hardly Ever Wrong’- our first single- that was the single that hit everything off for us with John Peel, he feel in love with it. He included that last year in his 101 Irish records you should hear before you die, which was pretty sweet. We went to the launch and had a few drinks and got talking. We met a few other Would Be’s there as well. So it was just a case of talking really and Tony was asking why don’t we just get back together and we just thought why not! So we started rehearsing and it just seemed to work again. So we hopped into the studio and recorded ‘Ivy Avenue’, the first single last year, and just played it to death!
So yeah that was out initial spur to get us doing it again, out of retirement!
How has the reaction been from fans since the return?
Yeah it’s been great, the facebook is getting messages! Actually, someone has travelled over from London tonight to see us. I hope he’s not disappointed! Yeah, it’s been nice, and the reviews of the album have been great- really happy so far. We’re waiting for something to go terribly wrong, something has to!
For people who might not be familiar with your music, how would you describe the sound? Even in terms of today’s music scene- who would you guys sit beside on a shelf in a record shop, if there’s any left?!
I suppose we always had a sort of a Smiths vibe in our music. At the beginning, the Arctic Monkeys. Clever lyrics, guitar. Indie guitar Pop I suppose. I think Johnny Marr’s ‘The Messenger’ sort of brought it back, even though The Strypes are bringing guitar music in again. Queens of the Stone Age is guitar based, but we’re not them! We’re just Indie Guitar Pop.
There’s a good space for that on the scene at the moment. That whole genre is coming back in.
I hope so yeah! It needs to, I think anyway. It’s a pretty sterile place!
Is there any one song on the album that you’re most proud of writing?
I think ‘Ivy Avenue’ probably my favourite. It just stands out for us. That was the first single last year. I like ‘Different Kind Of Blue’ as well. I think it’s a little bit of a different direction for us- a little more melancholy. I love them all!
In terms of writing music, what is your process? Lyrics first or music first or how does it generally work?
Mostly lyrics. Although, in the last while we’ve been trying melodies first. It works both ways. We spend quite a long time on melodies, it doesn’t really flow out quickly with us. We have our little shed up in Cavan, and we lock ourselves in there and just jam out- melodies and chord structures and stuff like that for laborious amounts of time and see what comes out!
We always try to write something that we think we haven’t heard before. Which is probably our mistake…!
Following the release of this album and now with the launch tonight, where do you hope to be as a band in the next year or so?
In the South of France! Sipping on green tea! No, hopefully with the album we’ll get the chance to go to England again ’cause the first time around, England was a great place for us with the John Peel thing. We probably had a bigger following in England. There’s rumours of a gig in November so hopefully that will happen. If this keeps going well we can hopefully get another one out next year.
No chance of stopping again any time soon then?
No hopefully not. We’ve got bitten now we can’t stop! We’ve got the bug again! I guess if we thought it was shit, we just wouldn’t bother, you know? At this stage for us, it’s become more of an artistic sort of endeavour. We’re not setting out to be cool and hip or trendy with the kids! It’s really an artistic thing for us to enjoy! Music is all we’ve done since the original Would Be’s- god help us!
Great! Well, thank you very much for that interview.
No worries- thank you! That wasn’t too painful at all!
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