Interview | Delorentos

Delorentos vocalist and guitarist, Kieran McGuinness, talks to Verge about his band’s latest LP, Spanish Fame and Irish Students’ Home & Away addiction

Irish indie-rock quartet, the 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, band 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.

But this success almost failed to come to fruition. In 2008, halfway through recording their second album, the 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 become 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, “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.”

“I guess the pressure of repeating the success of our debut album become too much for us and we fell apart, the enjoyment was gone.”

The most intriguing element of the 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,” he comments, before asserting, “having four songwriters in the band drives us to be the best musician 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 the Delorentos in a catchy, though radio friendly rut- fortunately, the vast majority of Night Becomes Light is an enthralling combination of introspective melancholy or driving post-punk anthems. One particular track, ‘Forget the Numbers’ is labelled by Kevin as the encapsulation of what the band all 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!”

“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.”

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 near the end of our recording sessions, who’d worked with Rob every second day. In the end he got his debut out a few weeks before us- so I guess he won that little battle.” Evidence of Rob’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 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.

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 the Delorentos with the de facto backing of a major label for the first time in the form of Universal Music Ireland, Kieran argues that this move wont 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 Kieran’s hopes that Night Becomes Light will see his band rocket to the very top of Ireland’s festival line-up cards, the bands 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.

“In three days we played to 160,000 people across the country – at Murcia Festival we played after Mogwai before supporting The Flaming Lips to 60,000 festival goers.”

But it wasn’t just an apt Spanish sounding band name that lent to the group’s success, as Kieran 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”

Still, the 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, Kieran sighed 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.”