The first incarnation of this north Co Dublin band fell apart pretty quickly, but Delorentos Mk II have discovered the creative chemistry needed to produce one of the best Irish debut albums of 2007, writes Jim Carroll
ALL bands have backstories of one kind or another. Before a bunch of musicians get to stand on a stage and play their songs together in front of a paying audience, many chess moves will already have been made in rehearsal rooms or garages to get them to that point.
Sometimes, the backstory turns out be more interesting than the narrative and the band can never get beyond that page in the book.
In the case of Delorentos, the band about to release one of the more thrilling Irish albums of recent times, their back story begins inauspiciously back in the late 1990s.
A bunch of north county Dublin schoolkids formed a band, called themselves Delorentos, recorded a few demos and didn't really get very far before they disbanded. But, in late 2004, three of that band resurrected the name, added a new member and began to work together. This time, things began to happen. Good gigs were played. Great songs were written. A profile was established.
Ró Yourell and Níal Conlan are a little flummoxed when asked why the Del boys worked better the second time around. After all, two-and-a-half years down the road, the relationship between the band members is something they now take for granted and rarely bother to examine.
"When the four of us got together for a few jams and started writing together, it just sounded great, it was really exciting," ventures Conlan. "It was far, far better than anything we'd ever done before or any garage band we'd been in when we were younger. And we get on so well, too, and that's a massive thing."
Onlookers often just plain forget how important the getting-on factor is for bands. When musicians decide to write and perform songs together, they naturally have a common goal. But, as with any group of disparate individuals, there are also a huge mix of egos, ambitions, fears, self-confidence, doubts and anxietie. It's a situation which calls for compromises and sometimes confrontations. Musical differences are just the tip of the iceberg so it's no wonder so many bands eventually implode.
No doubt Yourell and Conlan, along with bandmates Ross McCormick and Kieran McGuinness, spent time working out why things were gelling at the beginning. As Yourell points out at one stage, "we're a fairly tight circle and we do tend to debate things incessantly."
These days, though, Delorentos are far too busy to ponder the ins and outs of band psychology. Conlan reels off a long list of notable achievements over the past two years, topped by appearances at both Oxegen and the Electric Picnic last year.
There have been radio sessions, TV shows, headline gigs and a support slot with Bell X1 at Dublin's Point. Abroad, they've showcased their music at In The City in Manchester, CMJ in New York and South By Southwest in Texas. The journey which began in earnest when they won the National Student Music Awards competition in London in 2005 shows no signs of stopping.
Of course, there have also been a few mistakes ("photos wearing denim jackets or videos with more than one person in a stripey top would be things we wouldn't want to do again," quips Conlan), but it's obvious that Delorentos version 2.0 are firing on all cylinders.
When you hear their debut album, In Love With Detail, you'll understand why people are happy to give Delorentos the time of day. As sharp and nuanced as a piece of bespoke tailoring, the album stands up admirably to critical scrutiny. While most bands prefer to round out their rough edges, the four have discovered songs like Any Other Way and Eustace Street in the midst of those corners and curves. What you hear on the album is a band who have already worked out the important stuff.
They can certainly talk a good game. "Unlike other bands, we don't have all these people around us," says Conlan. "We're our own men and we're all more or less on the same wavelength. We've never waited for things to happen or for people to do things for us - we've just gone ahead and done them. We've never done that thing where you shop demos to labels."
It's interesting to hear that the band consider themselves to be outsiders in the Dublin scheme of things ("We live way beyond the suburbs in the sticks. It's nearly Louth," says Conlan about their base in Portrane) and are keen to remove themselves from any perceived clique.
"I know there is a perception that all bands hang out together but we always felt that we were a bit removed from any scene," says Yourell.
"We'd be close to a few bands like The Immediate, The Flaws and Fast Emperors, but it's not like Mundy and Glen Hansard and Paddy Casey hanging out together in Whelan's, which is a scene that has also changed. We're more likely to talk to bands when we want to share their gear. If there is some pub or place bands meet, no one has told us where it is."
Instead of following the crowd, they've stuck to their guns. In Love With Detail will be released here on their own label (Cottage). To Conlan, this seems the obvious thing to do. "The industry is changing - just look at what a band like Enter Shikari are doing," he says. "Even a band like Bell X1, who were a major-label band, can now record and release an album themselves.
"For me and Kieran in particular, it had always been an ambition to set up our own label. We had seen bands, like Life After Modelling for example, that could have been fantastic who never had the opportunity to get beyond a certain stage. Now, we have this label and we intend to use it to release other bands."
Their priority for now, though, is their own album. "It took a lot of time and money and effort to get this record together so we want to continue to own it," says Yourell.
"All of 2006 was taken up with the album. We spent the whole year writing and trying out new songs when we played live. We'd spend a week recording and then have a couple of weeks off. During one of the off periods, we toured with Bell X1 and worked out a couple of songs that we weren't quite happy with."
The album was produced by Gareth Mannix, the prolific Kerryman who has worked on records by The Chalets, Director, Republic Of Loose and many other Irish acts. "The reference points we gave Gareth were all racuous, live-sounding bands like Arcade Fire and early Pixies," says Conlan.
"He had the band-in-a-room sound very much in mind, which suited us. We didn't want that overly produced, processed sound which every other band had at the time. We wanted to capture that dynamic between the four of us which happens live."
Mannix discovered the best way to get that sound was, well, to have the band in a room and record them playing live. "He had us in a room in Sun Studios playing over and over again until 4.30am so many times during the year," recalls Yourell. "He'd have the lights off and candles burning so it was intense. But it worked, it really worked. Eyes Open was recorded completely live with no overdubs and songs like Any Other Way and Eustace Street also have that kind of energy we were after."
The pair are quietly confident about where In Love With Detail will take them. "I'm sure you could carve out a useful niche for yourself in Ireland if you had a hit on local radio, but that's not for us," says Conlan. "We want to be touring wherever will have us, and we feel confident enough that the music and songs are good enough to enable us to do that." After all, that's why the four of them got together in the first place.
Conlan remembers how he felt before one of the gigs they played at SXSW in Texas a few weeks ago. "I was ridiculously nervous. I sat at the bar with Ross and was saying to him that I wondered why I was doing this with my life. I was terrified and wondering why I put myself through something where I was so scared." Then, the gig started and everything changed. "It was amazing. I think we really thrive when it's a gig where we think the odds are stacked against us. But the best thing was that there were all these kids outside the venue watching us through the open windows. I thought to myself, 'that's why I'm doing this'."
Off to a good start: immediate impressions
The first cut is not always the deepest and cracking Irish debut albums such as In Love With Detail are rarer on the ground than you might think.
When it comes to finding their momentum, many Irish acts really only get going the second or third time around. After all, when you think of Bell X1, it's usually Music In Mouth or Flock rather than the Radiohead-heavy Neither Am I which comes to mind.
In recent years, though, a couple of debutants have got it right from the get-go. First albums by Julie Feeney (13 Songs), The Immediate (In Towers & Clouds), Si Schroeder (Coping Mechanisms) and Fionn Regan (The End of History) have all made an impact at home and, in some cases, abroad.
In the future Delorentos may well write songs which equal or better their debut album. But in terms of making an immediate impact, In Love With Detail is set to be an auspicious calling-card.
Jim Carroll's blog, On the Record, is at http://www.ireland.com/blogs/ontherecord/
