Music Under Fire

When it comes to music, the Irish rock scene has much to offer, particularly with Director, the 2006 sensation whose We Thrive On Big Cities captured the attention of avid rock-seekers abroad. Whether their matter-of-fact approach pulls you in, or if you're merely looking for a solid rock group to build your music library on, Director fits the mold.

Now that they've been back in the studio working on their next album for a few months, Music Under Fire is pleased to pull some thoughts from guitar lead Eoin Aherne about the band's current status and what to expect on their upcoming album.

First off, where are you all originally from, how long have you known each other?

We're all from Dublin. Michael, Rowan and I are all from the same town Malahide. It's a fairly small suburb, a seaside town. It’s become a little more cosmopolitan in the last few years (it now has a Starbucks etc.) but it’s mostly quiet with a few schools, a few pubs, a couple of churches a video store and increasingly a lot of women’s clothes shops. I went to national school with Michael and then secondary school too so I’ve known him for about twenty years which is usually a phrase only old people are able to use. Rowan was at the same secondary school and we were friends mostly – all quite into music but not in a band. The three of us finally got it together around the end of school and started playing at school shows and that kind of thing. We started to get much more into it once we started college and started doing our own songs but we still didn’t have a drummer and were playing our shows with quite a crappy drum machine. We weren’t having much luck with drummer auditions until Michael met Shea. They were both studying Music at college and Shea was up for abandoning his classical guitar to fulfil his Dave Grohl/Stuart Copeland ambitions. It was great to get a really musical drummer and we all have the same sense of humour which is always really important. It worked pretty much from the start.

What made you choose the name Director for your band?

It wasn’t really an epiphany moment. We wanted something that was one word, something that looked good on a poster and not to be a ‘the’ band. We played under the moniker of ‘Business’ for a time but it was taken by about a million others. I do think that in a way just the sound of the word Director or what it conjures up in your mind suits the type of music that we play. It’s authoritative obviously and that can only be a good thing. Most importantly if you say, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…Director’ it doesn’t sound lame.

We Thrive On Big Cities has undoubtedly been a great step for Director. Your album reached #2 on the Irish album charts within its first weeks back in 2006, how has this changed your careers leading up to 2008?

We haven’t had to get real jobs would be the main one. We’ve been able to play shows around Ireland consistently with people always wanting to come and see us play. We hadn’t really been on the ‘scene’ much before it came out so it put us on the map in Ireland straight away. We moved from never having done an interview or having been on television to people ringing us up asking would we do stuff for them. It’s just so much easier to try and do something, get people interested in your band if you have an album under your belt. Obviously you guys are interviewing us because you like the record. If you try and tell one of your friends about a band you’ve just discovered the first thing they’ll ask is if their album’s any good? We’re really looking forward to its release internationally in the Summer. Hopefully it’ll be a slow burner while we’re recording or just get people interested for the second record.

We understand you've been back in the studio as of late, what have you been up to?

We recorded two tracks at the beginning of the year with a guy called Tom McFall who is Jack Knife Lee’s engineer. It was nice to be back at Grouse Lodge Studio where we recorded the first record. We weren’t really sure what the plan for the songs would be – whether we would go with one of them as a single or if they would be the start of the new album. I think mostly we were interested in trying to work with someone new to see how that process worked out. Tom had just finished recording R.E.M.’s new record in the same studio so he had a lot of experience in using the studio to its full potential. We realised after the session that we weren’t ready to push ahead with the rest of the album and needed more time to write. The writing’s gone well over the last few months and we plan to start recording the new album at the beginning of July but still haven’t made a final decision as to who we will be recording with.

Have you been experimenting with anything new?

We’ve been working a lot more with harmony and extra vocal lines. Big Cities has almost no backing vocals on it at all and Shea and I are singing a lot more which is opening up the songs more in ways we used to not try at all. We’ve also moved away a little from our policy of working on the songs just as a band in the room, making them work with just what we were playing there and then. In the beginning it was what we always did so we would never be faced with having to make a chorus ‘work’ in the studio by layering and layering or ‘fancy’ production and then have it sound weak live. We would always have the different parts speak on their own terms. I think we’re more open now to the possibility of adding keys or extra percussion as integral parts to the songs even if we’ll have to find a way around it live.

What are your biggest influences as an artist?

As a guitar player I love melodic guitar playing and guitarists. I’m a fan of guitar lines you can sing and can easily hum you any number of George Harrison solos. I love the fact that people like The Edge or Matt Bellamy or Josh Homme have their own sound – an identifiable sonic quality that when you hear them play on any number of different songs and different parts you still know it’s them. That’s something I would definitely strive toward. In the bigger sense of being involved in something creative I’m a huge admirer of people who are engaged in a craft, something that you have to work at. I’ve just finished reading Andy Summers from The Police’s memoir and despite being a massive rockstar and all that goes along with it the amount of time he talks about just practising his guitar by himself, for years before they ever made it is quite inspiring. I read a lot and admire the late Irish writer John Mcgahern for his very measured prose, carefully worked out and gone over again and again until it feels right. Someone like Nick Cave seems to subscribe to this mantra as a songwriter, just going and doing it everyday until you finally get something you’re happy with, and the whole band and Michael as a songwriter would definitely go along with this idea. Some days we’ll only make one bit of progress, one little change in a song and it’s only when you compare what you started with with what you have at the end that you can see all the progress you’ve made.

While you're not making music, what do you find yourself doing in your freetime?

I would like to say playing guitar; the idea of the musician who always has an instrument to hand but it’s nowhere near the truth. I’m a bit of a square and just do completely normal stuff like watch tv or read or go to the pub. We all have the same group of introverted friends pretty much from school but as it has happened none of us have real jobs. We’ve all ended up in a different band or as an actor or dj or journalist so we just hang out or go to gigs or to see movies. Michael has a passion for making weird home movies with another friend of ours so sometime we get roped into making small appearances in those but heaven forbid if they ever see the light of day.

If you could visit any place and play a show, where would it be?

For me I’d love to go and play shows in the States. I’ve never been over and I’d love to match up all my expectations from the countless American tv shows and movies and news with the reality. I really hope we get to some touring there with the new record. I think the further you get from your home with your music the more progress you feel you are making as a band so I think travelling to America would be both one big holiday and one big step for the band.

MP3: Director - Reconnect (buy)
MP3: Director - Big Cities (buy)

For more videos and info on Director, visit their Official Site or visit their MySpace page. Support Director by buying We Thrive On Big Cities through iTunes.