Director are being interviewed by TG4 across the way from the Button Factory coffee shop where I am supposed to meet them. The over-zealous presenter can be seen giving Michael Moloney a massive hug through the clear glass of the studio, some consolation perhaps for only scoring one out of ten in a general knowledge quiz, which I am told about later. I order a coffee and read about electronic cigarettes in the Health Supplement while I wait. Before long I am joined by half of the band – front man Michael Moloney and bassist Rowan Averill. The other two members, Eoin Aherne and Shea Lawlor, are working up a sweat at rehearsals. Despite an obviously hectic schedule promoting their latest offering ‘I’ll Wait For Sound’ out on 8th May and just back from a gig in Port Laoise, the guys are surprisingly chipper. But if their last album which went platinum and reached number 2 in the Irish charts is anything to go by, the band have every reason to be optimistic. After five years of playing together, the direction in which Director are headed is clear. They are a rock band no longer confused by blurry pop-genres or bossed around by major record labels. I hear all about what the Dublin four-piece have been up to in the last few years since the debut that got them firmly on the map.
Can you tell me a little bit about what you were trying to do with this album?
Michael: Em well I guess the album is a little bit of a continuation of the first album. The first album was about a young person going off in search of something that they knew was missing in their life. This album deals a little bit with what happens when you get there, the disappointments, you know often the sort of truths that you learn.
Did it come from a personal perspective?
Michael: Well I think a little bit from a personal perspective but also a little bit from you know, things you hear or stories you hear, people you know… You put it all together. I think at the end of the day it’s about what you communicate to somebody really as opposed to trying to tell an exact story about something that happened.
There’s clearly a harder, rockier sound on the new album, was this your intention from the get-go, to go in a different direction to the more pop sounding ‘We Thrive on Big Cities’?
Michael: Yeh, we definitely wanted to go bigger and rockier. With the first album, we produced it ourselves and we were maybe just a little confused as to the direction we wanted to go in, and that was a little bit why we were afraid to work with a producer, ‘cause we were afraid he would drive it in a certain direction so we wanted a tight, dry sound but we also wanted a big sound and things were kind of at odds. This time around we knew a little bit more what we wanted to sound like. We wanted to sound bigger but at the same time on the album there are songs that are really quiet and gentle, quieter than anything we’ve ever done and we worked with this guy Brad Wood, he’s a producer who’s worked with Placebo and he did some Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair. We were a bit more comfortable going into studio with somebody like that this time because we were surer of the kind of band we are.
So you didn’t hold back as much?
Michael: Yeh, exactly. He [Brad Wood] brought an awful lot of experience to the whole thing.
How did that come about, working with Brad Wood?
Rowan: Well he was kind of suggested to us by a few colleagues and stuff. There’s a lot of producers in America that you can get quite good value out of because a lot of them have their own studios, they have the whole set up whereas here, we’d have to rent an engineer and a studio separately and all that sort of stuff. So yeh, a few different producers in America were suggested and we spoke to them and I guess Brad was just the one that we clicked with the most, I guess just talking to him, and he had all the demos of the tracks and was very enthusiastic about the songs so I think it was just sort of that. I mean, it wasn’t necessarily all the albums he had done before strictly speaking, how they sounded or whatever, it was more just…
Michael: He was the person who had the best handle on the songs. I guess that’s what made us enthusiastic about working with him, and he was a lot cheaper than doing it here but at the same time, it’s funny because with the last album we were with a major label and we recorded it in West Meath, and on this album we paid for everything ourselves and we went to L.A. which turned out to be cheaper all in all
In terms of road-testing the new material, are you happy with how it feels live or are the songs still evolving on stage with each performance?
Rowan: We didn’t have much of a chance to play the songs before we recorded them. A lot of bands, what they’ll do is, write and play on tour and see how they go down and then change them, but I guess there’s still one or two songs which we’re trying to work on in the rehearsal studio to get right from the album, but most of the ones we’ve played so far are working out pretty well.
Michael: When you’re playing gigs before an album comes out, people don’t really know the songs, you know, people who like the band are interested, but it’s hard, you don’t want to play all new stuff basically. So there’s the tendency to want to play all new songs but it’s not necessarily what people would want to hear.
Do you get bored of the old ones?
Michael: Not really, but when you have something new… We haven’t had a group of new songs to play in a long time so it’s exciting.
Rowan: I think what we find is with the older ones we try and reinvent them a little bit, change the way they would go live and I think that’s the way you get around having played them for two years already.
It must be difficult to maintain the momentum after such a successful debut…
Rowan: I think so, especially given the amount of time we spent between the first and second album I think we reached a point somewhere after a year and a half after the first one was out we decided that our momentum was probably slowed right down so after that we could take as long as we wanted to get the second one. But yeh, of course it’s difficult to keep yourself in the public eye, and in the mind’s eye.
Michael: We did take a long time between the two albums; we work very slowly, admittedly! I’m glad we took the time to really get it the way we wanted it.
Are you worried about how this one will be perceived?
Rowan: I think whenever you produce anything in terms of art you’re always going to be worried, especially given the economic situation that people are in at the moment you never know how it’s going to go. But it’s like doing an exam and worrying about the results – we’ve already done the album, we can’t really change it.
Work on this record began above a pub in Dublin, moved inland to the Leitrim countryside before the finishing touches were added in L.A. How important is it to keep your surroundings fresh?
Michael: Well I think on this album it was very important. We were above an early house which was just very depressing. You come in at ten o’clock in the morning to hear pumping dance music and ABBA and stuff like that, and people will be passed out on the road and then when you leave at eight o’clock and there’s nobody there. It was a small room with no windows – not so nice.
Rowan: I think you know, rehearsing in Dublin was good but we got tired of it after a couple of months and luckily Eoin, the guitarist in the band, had a great aunt or something who used to live in a tiny cottage in Leitrim and it was free so we worked there during the week, Monday to Friday, and come back to Dublin at the weekends.
Michael: But it was quite intensive because as Rowan said, it was very small. There were only three bedrooms and four of us so one person would sleep on the floor and because we were secluded with no neighbours, no shops, no anything, I guess we were just forced to focus on the songs.
So has living together in such close quarters made your relationship as a band stronger then?
Rowan: I think so, I mean, we’ve learned when each of us wants our own quiet time and we respect that.
Michael: I think as a band we’re very insular and fairly close. We spend a lot of time together so it almost doesn’t feel like you’re hanging out with someone, it just feels like they’re always there! Not in a bad way but it’s like a family or something.
Who’s the hardest to get on with?
Michael: I’d say it would probably be different for whatever member you ask…
Rowan: I guess Eoin would be the moodiest member probably…
Michael: Yeh, he’s not here…
Rowan: Yeh, it’s easier to do someone who’s not here… So Eoin!
Let’s talk about the artwork on the record for a second. Who takes care of that?
Rowan: This was an artist called Albert Reyes. Funnily enough, the actual front cover was hanging up in the studio, it’s the back of an old book cover, and we kept on walking by it in the studio and thought “Hey, that looks pretty good” and eventually we found out from Brad who had drawn it and got in contact.
Michael: It was actually a friend of Brad’s.
Rowan: Yeh, he’s an L.A. based artist and we saw some other drawings he had done, the booklet features all stuff drawn by him, so it was very handy. Our artwork is always difficult; the first time round we spent months and months going through pictures to try and find what we wanted, and this time it was a lot easier and a lot quicker.
Are you writing new stuff all the time or do you keep the blinkers on when you’re promoting a new album and just focus on the task at hand?
Michael: We just focus on the job at hand. At the moment we’re taking a bit of a break.
Rowan: When the album comes out we’re so busy rehearsing for the live shows, doing press and gigs, you don’t really have the time to write. I’m sure when there’s a lull we’ll get started on some new stuff.
Michael: I think it happens to a lot of bands. It’s very hard to write on the road. With a lot of bands they come right off touring and they go straight in to record another album. Luckily with us, nobody was putting pressure on us to do that. We pretty much finished touring and spent almost a year working on the album, which is what I think we needed to do and I’m glad we did it.
Do you draw inspiration from outside musical influences during the writing process?
Rowan: We generally feel it’s not necessarily the music or strictly how it sounds, it’s more the way a band holds themselves and approaches music that we tend to take from other bands because you know, we’d say we like this band or that band but none of them would sound much like us at all, you know, (looks at Michael) you’re a big fan of Steely Dan let’s say, and we sound so far from that sort of music.
Michael: Yeh, it’s all kind of jazz rock, not really what we do. Randy Newman would be another big influence; he’s a 70’s singer/songwriter. I think you sort of find something you like and assimilate the way that they approach music and it comes out differently.
Do you all have completely different musical taste?
Michael: Yeh. Pretty much.
Rowan: We all get asked in press stuff what Director’s top five albums are, and we can never agree.
Michael: As I was saying, I would be into Randy Newman and Steely Dan, but then Eoin would be a fan of Bruce Springsteen who I just couldn’t stand, in the same way as he wouldn’t be able to stand Steely Dan.
What about you Rowan?
I’d be a big fan of Beck, Nick Cave, Super Furry Animals, heaps of stuff. There’s bands like Grandaddy where we’d find common ground in the odd places, the odd album that we can listen to in the car on the way to gigs. But not too much.
Michael: We were going to a gig the other day and Rowan and Eoin were playing Tom Petty Best of or something and I was sitting in the back going “What the hell is this crap?!”
It doesn’t cause major rows or scraps though, does it?
Rowan: No, we’re lovers not fighters. We just sit quietly and take it.
The first album was nominated for the Choice Music Prize. What did you guys think of this year’s winner?
Rowan: I really enjoy Jape. My cousin plays drums with him live a fair bit. I think it was a really good choice. Often with the Choice, there’s a lot of people who say “There’s no way that should have won”, but with Jape the general consensus was that he was the rightful winner. Everyone really likes him. I was pleased for him.
Any plans to take I’ll Wait For Sound Stateside?
Rowan: Europe is all sorted for release dates, but we haven’t got a license for the U.S. yet.
Michael: We’re hoping we will.
Sing it without a Tune was released on May 1st. Any idea what the next single will be?
Rowan: Not really. Singles are kind of funny these days in that they’re mostly just tools for radio. Even with the first single we don’t have a physical release because there’s no point anymore. We’ll just have to see.
Michael: A lot of people are saying a lot of different songs. There’s one song called I’ll Wait For Sound on the album, which is like seven minutes long, or six and a half. I think it would be a really fun single but it wouldn’t be played on the radio.
Rowan: But maybe we’ll release it anyway!
Finally, will Director be performing at any festivals this summer?
Rowan: We hope so. We haven’t been booked for any yet because the album is out in the summer and often if you want to get booked for any festivals you have to have a March or April release so we’ll see how we get on, hopefully we’ll get some offers.
Michael: It’ll be a case of shimmying into them.
Just in case you don’t catch Director at Oxegen or the Picnic, make sure you shimmy down to the Button Factory on May 22nd. Tickets are €15.
Katie Gilroy.
