Night Must Become Light
[lead]Vocalist and guitarist, Kieran McGuinness, talks to Robbie Byrne about Delorentos’ latest LP, Spanish fame and the Home and Away addiction of Irish students[/lead][hr gap="2"]Irish indie-rock quartet Delorentos are the enigma of our bijou music landscape. Having hit the big time in Spain, Russia and the United States, while simultaneously knocking on the door for outright homogenous success, guitarist, Kieran McGuinness, is confident that the success of his group’s latest single, ‘Show Me Love’, is a sign that Ireland’s pop conscious is finally waking up to the Dublin outfit.However it is a success which almost failed to come to fruition.
"We got back on speaking terms, swallowed our egos and admitted that we messed up.”
In 2008, halfway through recording their second album, Delorentos called it quits: “We had a great record deal bagged in the UK and our passports were at the ready for a tour of Asia and Australia, but when we arrived to play those gigs we were miserable.
“It was then that everything came to a head,” he says, before continuing, “I guess the pressure of repeating the success of our debut album became too much for us and we fell apart, the enjoyment was gone.”Over the next few months, the record company with which Delorentos had signed a deal with had collapsed; forcing a broken band with no financial support to reluctantly cobble together what they thought would be their sophomore and final album.“By the time You Can Make Sound saw light, we had practically broken up,” but the unprecedented success of the LP brought a newfound excitement for recording, leaving Kieran to explain that “it allowed us to realise that we could still make great music together. We got back on speaking terms, swallowed our egos and admitted that we messed up.”The most intriguing element of Delorentos’ make-up is not their past, but their song-craft ethos. Every member of the band is a fully-fledged songwriter, all of which have contributed fully formed songs to every album by the group.Oddly, working alone is a signature element of a band so tight-knit; “When we get around to crafting an album we spend a couple of months writing alone at different dates. Ross spent time alone writing material almost two years ago, while some of us were writing for this LP at the beginning of this year,” comments McGuinness before asserting, “having four songwriters in the band drives us to be the best musicians we can be.”Still, making it in the in the over-prescribed Irish music scene is almost possible today, so how do the Delorentos cut above the competition?“A lot of people ask the question of how we feel about other bands who play in a similar vein to us but, truthfully, our competition is not others, but ourselves. If I don’t write a song that’s good enough, I don’t get to play my material live – it’s that simple.”And it is this rather hermetic approach to song writing that has created the most assured release by the band thus far. If you thought that ‘Show Me Love’ found Delorentos in a catchy, though radio friendly rut; fortunately the vast majority of Night Becomes Light is an enthralling combination of introspective melancholy and driving post-punk anthems.One particular track, ‘Forget the Numbers’ is labelled by McGuinness as the encapsulation of what the band is all about today: “A relative of sorts to the album’s title, ‘Forget The Numbers’ reflects a turn from negativity to positivity. You’re going to have trouble before success, so just ignore those who put you under pressure; in essence it’s a letter to us!”The album itself, recorded by Rob Kirwan at his Windmill Lane studio, allowed the band to share and swap studio space with Hozier throughout the year.“There was a little bit of competition with Hozier, who’d worked with Rob every second day, near the end of our recording sessions. In the end he got his debut out a few weeks before us, so I guess he won that little battle.”Evidence of Kirwan’s work as a producer and mixer who worked with acts as disparate as U2, Soulwax and Depeche Mode is clear in the rich sonic textures that weave throughout the album. Whether it’s the Motown-esque layered crooning of ‘Too Late’ or the lush emotive instrumentation of ‘Dublin Love Song’, a sonic depth is present that was largely absent from the group’s previous work.
"In Waterford we were forced to stop playing mid-set as Home and Away was on the TV."
Elsewhere, the band is united in agreement that their latest effort contains their strongest track do date. “Though its difficult to pick a favourite, ‘Valley Where the Rivers Run’ is possibly the most beautiful track we have ever recorded, made even more special by the fact that our drummer, Ross, wrote and sang the entire piece.”While Night Becomes Light finds Delorentos with the de facto backing of a major label for the first time in the form of Universal Music Ireland, McGuinness argues that this move won’t restrict their knack for creative publicity.“With Little Sparks we did the pop-up shows and the Little Sparks magazine to promote the album, while this March we released the Record Store Day acoustic album, Unbroken/ Untied. But now so many people are doing crazy things to promote their work, you almost blend in by doing something unique,” before adding, “still, while saying that, we’ll have something very special up our sleeves.”Despite his hopes that Night Becomes Light will see Delorentos rocket to the very top of Ireland’s festival line-up cards, the band’s biggest break thus far has already occurred across Spain. “In three days we played to 160,000 people across the country, while at Murcia Festival we played after Mogwai, before supporting The Flaming Lips to 60,000 festival goers.”But these were not fans of the Scottish post-rock legends or the Oklahoman oddballs – everyone was there to hear the Irish outfit.
But it wasn’t just an apt Spanish sounding band name that lent to the group’s success, as McGuinness explains: “Really, our Spanish success story is one of luck. Somehow the television producers of Real Madrid and Barcelona’s El Classico came across ‘Care For’, one of the cuts from our last album, and played it at the half-time interval.“From there our tracks received rotation on Spanish radio, resulting in a Spanish promoter asking us over to play these gigs. We found literally thousands of fanatical Delorentos fans; it was beyond amazing.”Yet Delorentos’ Balearic adventure fails garner top gong for their favourite gig. “This crazy Irish-American bar owner named Seamus asked us over to play in his pub in downtown Memphis. It was after a long string of dates, so technically we were shit hot. The crowd themselves were barbarian – sweaty and bat-shit crazy – they rocked to everything we pumped out. That was without doubt the most memorable gig with the band.”Crazy, albeit in an entirely different sphere, was a set the band recently performed in Waterford Institute of Technology’s Dome Bar.“Some of the things we come across as a band are so odd that I still struggle to work them out. Recently in Waterford we were forced to stop playing mid-set as Home and Away was on the TV. The second that theme tune came on we had to switch off the amps and sit on stage along with the students to watch the entire episode before we could play again… now that’s rock & roll.”Pressed on where he would like the band to be in twelve months time, McGuinness sighs as if to prolong his contemplation, before concluding: “Our greatest weapon today is that we have four albums under our belt. I honestly feel that each one of these is better than the next, so what I want is to be able enter the studio and have the material to create our best album – a world beater.”The Delorentos kick of their tour to support ‘Night Becomes Light’ in Cyprus Avenue on October 24th, with tickets priced at €15.