It's time for Bell X1 to face the music. Bubbling away in Ireland for a while, they now have a major record deal, a single featured on hit US TV show The OC and a rising international profile. Lead singer Paul Noonan tells Jim Carroll that they're fastening their seatbelts for take-off
MONDAY evening, London town, a squashed room in an anonymous recording studio. The members of Bell X1 have spent the day, as they've spent many days lately, walking around the city seeing the sights. Now, they're about to spend the evening, as they have spent many recent evenings, mixing their forthcoming album.
This usually means squabbling about whether there's too much bass on this track or not enough high hat on that track. Between such highly technical arguments, they sit around and talk. There's much to talk about.
Flock will be Bell X1's third album. The last one, Music In Mouth, sold in or around 25,000 copies in Ireland alone, though the band have yet to register beyond these shores. Because Bell X1 are one of the few local acts currently embedded with a major record label, those 25,000 sales just won't do for them or their paymasters.
Friday evening, Dublin town, the basement bar of a city-centre hotel. Time for the working men and women of the local offices to down calculators and celebrate with gusto the end of another working week. Time too for Bell X1 lead singer Paul Noonan to take a seat in a quiet corner and tell some tales.
Bell X1 are the band who snuck up on the outside when no-one was expecting them. Initially the largely unloved Juniper, until original singer Damien Rice jumped ship, Bell X1 have morphed from average rock journeymen with a Radiohead fixation into the funkiest bunch of skinny white boys to ever come out of Celbridge.
After talking until they were blue in the face about their fatal attraction to Talking Heads and Roxy Music, Flock is where actions begin to speak louder than words. No-one else will make a record like Flock this year because no-one else could. From Flame to Just Like Mr Benn, this is the sound of a band stretching themselves and their music in new and fascinating ways.
When they were recording the album in Dublin, Noonan kept thinking about Brian Eno. Last October, Noonan went to a seminar Eno gave on music and media in New York. "It was really inspiring to hear about his approach to recording and how he created a tension in the studio with Talking Heads. There would be instances where they would have just a single chord for a whole song or he would use a deck of cards as a method to get people to change instruments. It was all about pushing the musicians to try new things."
This time, instead of starting with an acoustic guitar or piano like they usually did, Bell X1 stood together in the studio and jammed. Grooves would appear. Melodies would float into place. Songs would begin to form from thin air. Noonan would crowbar words into place.
This time, Noonan didn't turn to Soundings, the Leaving Certificate English poetry textbook that he pilfered for Music In Mouth, for the words. This time, he just looked around him and took a swing at what he saw, from the cute hoors on street corners (Reacharound) to the trials and tribulations of a songwriter trying to come up with the right words (My First Born First Song).
It's all pre-match talk right now, but Noonan knows this is the one where it's all to play for. "We are very aware of the fact that if we don't have a successful record this time around, we won't have a record deal," he says. "It certainly doesn't influence the writing of the material, but we are aware of the commercial need to have the tools to sell the album. Whether they're there or not, I don't know, it's a lottery. You throw things and hope they stick, there's no rhyme or reason to it."
Many would argue that Bell X1 are in an excellent position to operate without a major label prop thanks to their fervent Irish support base. Noonan, though, wants more. "Yes, we could stay here and make a good living from touring, but it's not what we want to do," he maintains. "Having toured in Europe with bands like Keane and Starsailor and played to huge audiences who had no idea who we were, you get to relish that challenge, you really raise your game."
The singer knows that the band are lucky in many regards. Certainly, few current Irish acts have had the luxury of a major-label deal for a similar length of time. "We've had an income from the man all this time," he says. "We signed our deal as Juniper in 1998 to all manner of bombastic, bullshit fanfare. We put out our two ill-advised singles and learned so much about how not to do things. Everything to do with Juniper was handled wrong and it was very much the catalyst for the band breaking up. Bell X1 at first was about picking up the pieces and making amends."
Like many of his peers, Noonan believes Irish audiences have played a huge role in maintaining local careers. "Traditionally, Irish audiences have had more insight into what brings bands to a certain point. The live landscape is less developed here and that works to a band's advantage. We couldn't tour in the UK like we do here. Over there, it's all agents and promoters. . . Over here, we can make quite a bit of money from touring. People know that a lot of bands go on to make records from the money they're paying in at the door."
But Noonan sees dangers in this that others sometimes miss. "There's a false sense of ownership. It's like fans are buying shares in the band and some of them think this gives them access. It can be abused because people can feel part of what you are in a way that is not particularly realistic. It's easy to lap that up and to play the golden cow. It also could hamper ambition because it encourages artistic complacency and being happy with your lot."
A few weeks ago, Bell X1 played at the South By Southwest festival in Texas. They came home carrying a few extra pounds, a couple of pink cowboy hats and a bit of a reality check. "You get a real sense of how small and insignificant you are as a band. It's a real cattle-market and everyone's trying to out-indie each other, it's all hair and shoes as far as the eye can see."
A lot of those who came to see Bell X1 in Texas were talking about The OC. A recent episode of that teen soap featured Bell X1's Eve, The Apple of My Eye and the track also appears on the TV show's latest compilation album.
Noonan has never seen The OC, but he knows now that it's a big deal. "I've heard the phrase 'TV is the new radio' being used a few times in Texas in terms of how to break bands in the US. The OC likes to see itself as cutting-edge and they actively look for bands with no profile in the States and we certainly fitted the bill. We're going back to the US after the Irish tour for our first proper tour there, mainly on the back of all the coverage from The OC."
However, Noonan realises that it will take more than just a TV show to get to the next level. "This is the third time we've been in London, mixing a record and staying in some flat in Chiswick and, each time, we're wondering will any of the 60 million people on our doorstep buy it when it's released. I don't know if this record is any more commercial than the other two, it's definitely a much preppier affair."
If they're looking for a comparison in fortunes, they don't have far to look. A couple of time, unprompted, during the interview, Noonan mentions Damien Rice. Their former lead singer has become the elephant in the corner who now accompanies Bell X1 wherever they go. Noonan says it's inevitable that Rice will always be part of their story. "Damien was the driving force behind Juniper, he's that kind of person, he cuts huge swathes through people's lives. I will always look for Damien's approval about things because he was so instrumental in all of us finding a voice in the first place.
"Of course, part of me is fiercely jealous of his success and his lack of appreciation for that. But I've known him since we were 13 so what we have is beyond the music lark, I feel. I'm not in touch with him that often nowadays, but there's still an indelible mark there."
The first time Noonan ever felt passionate about music was also around when he was around 13, listening to REM's Life's Rich Pageant on his Walkman under the bedcovers in Celbridge. That passion got under his skin like an itch then and has never gone away. "That's what I wanted to do. To be in a band writing songs that people would take to bed with them when they were 14 or 15 and listen to on their Walkman and feel alive." These days, he's in such a band, but there's often too many damn distractions, too much to fret about and too little time to remember that passion which got him here in the first place.
The music industry is a terrible place for dreamers, a purgatory for romantics and a never-ending losing streak for the wild and the innocent. It chews 'em up and spits 'em out. But there are times when even those who question their own motives know they're doing the right thing.
As he prepares for Flock to kick off the next chapter in the Bell X1 drama, Paul Noonan knows now is not the time to stop.
"Huge parts of what we do are as tedious as fuck, but there are moments when you get that tingling joy all over again. You might get it when you land on a hook for a song or listen back to a mix and you're smiling at each other because you know you've cracked it or you're having stupid adolescent fun on the road. It's a life we have led for a while and I think we love it too much to stop now."
The single, Flame, is released in May, the album, Flock, in June. Bell X1's Irish tour begins at The Forum, Waterford on April 14th. www.bellx1.com
