Interview with Land Lovers
The Dubliner band Land Lovers comes to us with a pop music style that, far from being standard, it involves a return to a well-done pop, with simple songs full of harmony and catchy melodies. Land lovers have the legacy of Ireland in their blood, a country full of good musicians.
Land Lovers is a band from Dublin in Ireland, who play in a melodic, wordy style that might not be actual pop music but is something of the sort.
Formed in 2008 as the solo project of Pádraig Cooney, who self-released the album Romance Romance, the full line-up now includes Cooney, Ciarán Canavan, Brian Lynch, Cormac Hughes, and Shane Murphy. Their new album will be released in October 2011.
Land Lovers helped to establish the Popical Island collective with fellow Dublin-based bands Groom and Yeh Deadlies, forming a cooperative relationship built up over time.
The band has released the Immovable Feet EP; contributed a song to the much-loved Popical Island #1 compilation; played nationwide tour dates including appearances at Electric Picnic, Castlepalooza, Hard Working Class Heroes, and the IMRO showcase; and released a limited-edition 10-song Yuletide Miscellany. Cooney wrote and sang the Popical Island Showband’s Christmas single, The High Line, while other band members formed part of the 20-piece wall of sound.
1. How did the band begin?
The band met at Manumission in Ibiza, or was it at law school? I must ask our band historian.
2. How would you define the sound of the band?
We play fussy pop music for non-fussy people. We aim always to please (ourselves).
3. Talk about your last work.
Our last work is our next work! We have just finished recording our second full-length album, to be released in September. We’ve spent a lot of time on it: beginning in summer 2010, we’ve been working in short bursts as batches of songs have appeared ‘finished’ to us. I think this has allowed us to give a lot of care and attention to each song.
It’s intended to be a detailed introduction to the band, an attempt to crystallize all the aspects of our songwriting in a coherent record. It’s supposed to be ‘serious’. And it’s supposed to be catchy and fun!
When I started writing for it, I had a vague notion of incorporating elements of tango and songs from 1950s Hollywood musicals. I think the latter stayed in there somewhere, among all sorts of whims and the recurring features of our music. Lyrically, it’s mostly about secrecy and death.
4. How are your concerts? What can we find there that we wont find on your studio records?
You’ll find less of some things, slightly less harmonies, less diversionary tactics! You’ll find more awkward stage banter, and you’ll find more hilarious mishaps. If you see us in Dublin, you might find some people singing along. I HOPE SO!
5. What do you think about the music industry and is your place within it?
I’m sure the music industry is a lovely thing and I’d like to meet it someday. To me, the ‘music industry’ is the DIY culture I’m familiar with, a network of bands of all sorts doing stuff off their own backs, working really hard and helping each other out. People being creative for that end alone, the pure enjoyment of creativity, and the camaraderie of playing music with others. Now that’s idealistic, but there’s a lot of reality in there.
