||||Mediocre Music Blog

Emotions were running high in the Static Gallery a few weeks ago, as a packed house witnessed the breathtaking show of James Vincent McMorrow (hosted by Harvest Sun Promotions).  It’s a rare experience to go from pure joy and laughter to intense, soul-searching wistfulness. Even rarer to witness a whole audience on the same emotional roller-coaster.  His show was stunning, his hauntingly beautiful voice tingling the spines of all in attendance, resonating through every bone and taking us far away to an enchanted world.   Not only has this rugged Irish man got a remarkable voice, but he’s funny too; he had the whole room in laughter in between songs.  His comment on Bruno Mars sparked particular hilarity…“Would anyone really jump on a grenade for love?”… Maybe for you James!

Although, contrary to what you might think, McMorrow’s lyrics aren’t planned with this effect in mind, nor does he think too long and hard whilst writing them as I found out when I caught up with him. Read on for the full interview.

Emotions were running high in the Static Gallery a few weeks ago at the breath taking show of James Vincent McMorrow.  It’s a rare experience to go from pure joy and laughter to intense, soul searching wistfulness, even rarer to witness the whole audience on the same emotional rollercoaster as yourself.  His show was stunning with his hauntingly beautiful voice tingling the spines of all who were there, resonating through every bone and taking you far away to an enchanted world.   Not only has this rugged Irish man got a remarkable voice, but he’s funny too, and had the whole room in laughter in between songs.  His comment on Bruno Mars sparked particular hilarity. “Would anyone really jump on a grenade for love?”.  Maybe for you James!

Although, contrary to what you might think, McMorrow’s lyrics aren’t planned with this effect in mind, nor does he think too long and hard whilst writing them as I found out when I caught up with him. ..

MMB: How’s the touring going?

JVM: It’s been going great,  except our car was broken into on the first day which was a little bit less-so.

MMB: Uh oh.

JVM: Yea, and a lot of our stuff was stolen, so that was a slightly less than compelling way to start a tour, but the shows have been great, in contrast to all the crap.  And then we had no back window on our car out for four days.  So we had to like park up against walls so no one could see that our car was essentially just open.

MMB: What a nightmare…

JVM: Yeah, and it’s a bit sad because we lost a lot of microphones and stuff. So it’s made what was going to be a pretty simple affair even more simple! Because we literally have nothing, like, we don’t have any equipment. We have two guitars and someone from the label bought me another microphone, so that’s all we have.

MMB: Would you say your music as a way to express yourself? Or is it more to inspire your listener and effect other people?

JVM: It’s probably a bit of both.  I think there are two distinct elements to making music, one’s for yourself and the other’s for other people. I make music that I like. That’s what every person who makes something does it for. They make something because they are compelled by it. They make it so it’s for them. Then as soon as it’s finished it’s for other people isn’t it? Its job becomes completely different. It’s trying to make people in a room understand what you were trying to capture… or putting something on a CD and giving it out to the world, hoping that someone will listen to it and get that. So there’s two things isn’t there? I think every musician makes things that they want to make themselves, any musician that doesn’t do that isn’t really worth talking about anyway.

MMB: So is your music more from past experience or is it more based around how you’re feeling at the time or about your surroundings.

JVM: I’m not a very linear song writer. It tends to be quite abstract, so I never really delve to deep into lyrics. They make sense to me at the time, then once they’re finished I don’t really analyse them, and I don’t ever talk about them either because my favourite music is stuff that I don’t understand. I tend to listen to it, then depending on my mood on the day it could mean something completely different. I’ve heard a thousand different interpretations of my favourite song. So I think it’s better to leave it as that, and obviously its personal. I’m not a see a tree, sing about a tree sort of guy, it tends to be slightly different to that but beyond that it’s a quite abstract and unknowing thing for me.

MMB: Does the album have a theme?

JVM: Well, I’ve been asked that before and it makes you think about it. I don’t think too long and hard about these things, I just kind of make them and go to work. But the year before making the record was quite a charged and fractious year; and the album is definitely a response to that. Not in a way to document what happened, but all the things that happened in that year made me want to make the record that I made. There’s definitely something there theme-wise, but again it’s not a very specific ok song one is going to be about this etc., I just knew what I wanted it to sound like.

MMB: OK, so if you could play with anyone, dead or alive who would it be?

JVM: The National or Sufjan Stevens. They’re people alive. The National would be my favourite band, and Sufjan Stevens is the reason I started making music in the first place, so I’d like to share a stage with them. I probably wouldn’t do anything, just hit a tambourine or something!

MMB: Do you think it’s a possibility. Do you think you could?

JVM: I think anything’s a possibility isn’t it? If those opportunities ever presented themselves, I’d probably be like “I don’t know” you know? Because the reality would never quite match up to my vision of it. I work well on my own and I like being on my own, not necessarily playing music on my own but creating music on my own certainly works.

MMB: Ok, so how about summer plans. any festivals lined up?

JVM: Well, I’m going over to America in June for three weeks and then we’re coming back and going straight to Glastonbury.

MMB: Oh wow are you looking forward to it?

JVM: Yeah, Glastonbury is the one I guess isn’t it? I’ve never been to it, I’ve never played at it, but we’ve got a really good day, good stage so we’ve been pretty lucky with that and then into the summer it’s just festivals on the continent and another three or four back here, I’ve got Greenman and Bestival and Camp Bestival and Latitude.

MMB: So are you touring when you go over to America?

JVM: We are yeah, I start tour on the 6^th of June in New York, I’m playing with some friends of mine on the East Coast, an Irish band I played with before who gave me my first helpful start in the US. I was going out anyway to the West Coast to do a run of shows with more friends of mine, a band called The Civil Wars. They’re really great, wonderful people as well, just some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. So I was going out anyway to meet them and play with them because they’re opening at my next show in London so it was a happy trade off. They’re putting the record out over here, and because America’s so far away and so daunting, it’s just a really happy coincidence that we were both able to help each other out. So June is pretty much dedicated to the US, because I think everything has been going so well over here, and the album has done really well over there considering I’m not there. So it’s time that I gave it some time.  We went over there for South by Southwest and did some shows afterwards and it felt incredible, and it’s the place I’ve always dreamt of selling records. All the music I’ve ever listened to has been American, so it just kind of makes sense to me to try and sell a record there.

MMB: Have you had many requests, people asking you to play out there?

JVM: Yeah, I mean like I said the album’s done really well there and you get things like TV syncs and stuff like that, your song will end up on a TV show and the radio’s been really good there, so you get a lot of people on the internet asking, and with the internet like blogs and stuff, the label have been very proactive with things like that from the ground up.  Which is my kind of thing, I’ve always been a reader of blogs and an appraiser of what they can do. When I put the record out in Ireland they were incredibly helpful to me when I had no money and no one helping me, it was some blogs in Ireland just taking the record and constantly talking about it that meant that it could get it this point, so it’s good in the US to have that.

MMB: Do you ever watch programmes or adverts and your song comes on?

JVM: Yeah, it happens from time to time. It’s in an ad in the US for a company called LLB which I think is a clothing company, the only reason I know that is because in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” Andres Thompson wear’s LLB shorts, so that’s the only reason I said yes!

MMB: What would you say your newest inspiration at the moment is?

JVM: There’s a band called Wye Oak that I went to see at South By, and I brought all my band to see them, and their newer album is called Civilians.  It’s probably my favourite record of the year and I brought them all to see them and they were unbelievable.  They’re just a two piece but it doesn’t sound like a two piece. The drummer plays bass and keyboard.

MMB: Yea.  Ok so a final few questions! Do you have any weird phobias?

JVM: Ha, not beyond the usual stuff. I wouldn’t say I had any unorthodox fears. I fear the usual stuff!

MMB: Ok and if you were on a desert island and you could only take 3 things, what would they be?

JVM: I don’t really know, erm you know I guess it would be so wildly cliche of me to say things like my drum kit and my guitar! But I probably would!  Because I was watching something recently and someone was like could you live without music, it was two or three really famous musicians and they were like saying yea I could live without it, which is true because you could live without music if you were forced.  And then somebody else within the group was like “no I couldn’t live without music” and they were like “that’s ridiculous of course you could”. If someone said to you right no more music for you wouldn’t die! So I’d say, pie in the sky, yea I’d bring my guitar but like if I wasn’t allowed to bring my guitar I’d probably survive! I’d probably be more concerned with water and food at the time than was I able to play a drum!

MMB: I’m sure you could make a cool little instrument.

JVM: Yea out of a coconut. Yea I could make percussion!

MMB: And if you could invite anyone to dinner, who would it be?

JVM: Ha. interesting. I don’t know.  Someone like Eddie Izzard I guess because he’s the funniest man on the planet, and he’s also an irritatingly smart man.  So I think he’d be interesting. Someone like that I think would be pretty entertaining.  Unless he’s really not entertaining, because sometimes people like that who are just compelling individuals on TV and on stage and then can kind of be a bit less in real life.

MMB: Ok great well it was lovely to meet you and thank you for your time!

Head over to James’ website to grab his latest record “Early in the Morning.”