Messiah J and the Expert: 'We hit a brick wall'
An interview with the Expert about Messiah J and the Expert, the first rap act nominated for the Choice Prize
I talked to The Expert aka Cian Galvin for TPOE 266 during the summer, around the release of his collaboration with Stik Figa, Ritual. It’s a brilliant record, one of my favourites of the year, and it was a great conversation. The first half of the chat was about Messiah J and the Expert, the first rap group nominated for the Choice Prize, in 2006, for Now This I Have to Hear. (Divine Comedy won that year’s Choice, with Victory for the Comic Muse. In today’s newsletter, we’ll focus on the Messiah J and the Expert side of things, but if you listen to the full episode, you’ll hear Galvin talk about the 15 or so years since that project came to an end, as he made a whole other career of instrumental albums and collaborations. It sounds like his creative juices have never waned and he’s in a rich vein of form at the moment. So listen to the full episode of The Point of Everything for that, while below is a transcribe of the interview focusing on Messiah J and the Expert, edited for length and clarity.
Do you think about Messiah J and the Expert that much when you're working on new music or putting out new music? It's 20 years roughly since ye started out.
The first album came out in 2003, as far as I remember, but no, like, I don't really think about Messiah J and the Expert when I'm making music. The only way I think about it is that I'm still really good friends with J. So like, even last week, I sent him on stuff and get feedback. When I'm making music now, I make it in a different way. It was very much a partnership then. Now, I am collaborating with different artists or I'm working on stuff myself. It's more of my expression, maybe a bit more to the forefront, rather than collaboration, which has its positives and negatives, because it's always good for someone to tell you, 'Actually, that bit's not very good'. But no I don't think about that much. And I haven't even listened to much of the music in quite a while.
Yeah, it's probably like me listening back to my old podcasts - I'm not gonna go there.
Yeah, exactly. I haven't really said this before, but there was a stage where we began up again.
Oh. Was that during the pandemic?
No, funny enough, it was pre-pandemic, I think. And then during the pandemic, wrote some songs, but then, life took over again and stuff like that, but I kind of knew at the time, it was more J needed it and wanted it, and maybe this will turn into something, but I was more than happy just to do it for fun.
OK, so just thinking of the two of you rather than 'What is this going to be?'
It was really, rather than 'the first single, what's it gonna be?' It wasn't anything like that. It was just more writing songs for fun again. It was really nice.
There's still a load of love for you though, as well. I'm sure that if people hear that, they're gonna be like I was just there, eyes wide...
I don't know. Never say never. If the stars align, possibly, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Did ye finish a couple of tunes?
We released three official albums when we were together, 2003, 2006, then 2008. In between 2003 and the second record, we made so many songs. We released an album/EP then called …And Another Thing, which is kinda like another album.
And we actually even have another album's worth from that period that never really came out. I found it on my hard drive pre-pandemic and sent it to John. I was like, 'Oh, do you remember this?' And then we started writing some tunes and we talked about, 'Oh, should we put it out?' We were like, you know, what's the platform? What do ya wanna do? When we started thinking, our brains hurt and we stopped it. We never fully shut the door, because we always talk about one of our favorite bands, Portishead, where it took, was it 14 years, for Third to come out. And I really hope there's a fourth. So we never said never but if I was a betting man, I wouldn't bet on us either. I think we completed one new song that was actually recorded. That’s all we came out with.
Was it totally different working on that new song than it would have been 20 years ago? I'm guessing just from your perspective, technology wise, it's completely different?
Absolutely. To go chronologically, 2008, the third proper album came out. We decided to stop in 09. Then 2010, I was drifting along, then the next few years I spent working with other singers and failed collaborations. Then - jeez, I dunno how long ago it is now - but then I started another failed collaboration, even though we have songs we might finish, with a singer called Farah Elle... We love Farah. So John used to do these rapping classes and Farah was in them. Then Farah was a fan of us, she needed help with the production side [of her music] so we started working on production together, did a few songs. And then me and J started writing songs and one of those songs, that new song that was recorded, is basically half Farah, half J, and then I did the music. Me and Farah wrote a couple other things. It was very different to the Farah Elle sound, whereas this was much more electronic and beats. She was recording that and I was just listening to demos, helping her out and stuff like that. And then the pandemic happened around that time. I was only chatting with Farah a couple of weeks ago - we drifted apart as she went off to do her thing and I began my second phase of music career, if you want to call it that. All great people, all still keep in touch, you know?
You and J were in a group called Creative Control. What was the scene in Dublin for hip hop/rap around then? Because when I think of early 2000s in Dublin, I can only think of the Whelan's scene. Like, was there a hip hop/rap scene?
In 1999 - oh that makes me sound old - it wasn't much of a scene. In fact, a lot of the scene really came from underground radio or pirate radio. I think there would have been a number of shows on Jazz FM or other stations [in Dublin and elsewhere as well]. Definitely in Dublin, there was a good few pirate stations and they would have their weekly, two-hour show of hip hop. Most people in Dublin, or in Ireland, at the time would listen to the shows because it was the only opportunity to get an Irish viewpoint on hip hop from there. Those radio shows would have been happening from 95, 96, 97, so we'd have been ringing in. But in 98, 99, one of the guys who used to present the show said 'Hey, I'm talking to this guy, I'm talking to this guy, why don't ye all get together in a room, just meet up and hang out or whatever?' So we used to rent a room on Saturdays in town, say 13 lads or whatever it was at the time. You'd go in, hop on the decks, have a mic freestyle, and just really chat shite and get to express our love for the music with other people, like-minded people,
How old are all of you then, like 15, 16?
No, when when we started meeting up like that, we would have been 18. Now other people would have been older, maybe one or two younger, but I think the oldest then would have been DJ Lee, who was on Jazz FM, but he was also the DJ for, not the Den - whatever Ray D'arcy show was on at that time with Zig and Zag [2 Phat]… It was mad that that was the only way hip hop music was getting played on the telly at that time, like Zig and Zag... So we all used to mess around for them on Saturdays, and then, I think, around eight or nine of us used to go all the time and formed a pretend group, really, called the Stonecutters. There was like four DJs, four rappers, me doing beats. it was a mish-mash of lads who just loved hip hop.
It was just chaos. I knew straight away that J was my favourite rapper out of the cohort there. There's also a DJ there called DJ Mayhem, who I thought was amazing. Actually the DJs were, I would say, as a collective, maybe stronger than the rappers at that time. They were so good, and going for DMC championships and stuff like. But Mayhem, I thought was a really cool guy, lived close to me, had similar work ethic, same as J probably, so I said, 'Hey, look, do you guys want to form just a trio?' or 'Do you want to write a song as a trio?' So they came to my house, wrote a few tunes and I think we all knew straight away, we were like, OK, this has actual focus and an idea of what this could be, rather this mish-mash of styles and ideas. So we created Creative Control. After, I dunno, I'm gonna just say six months, we wrote about five or six songs, and we decided to go and - my brother was in a band back in the day, my older brother, and he was like, 'You should go into the studio and actually record these because then you can hand them out and maybe do gigs and stuff like that,' because there wasn't many opportunities for live hip hop back then.
Were ye going to shows? Were there acts coming to town?
I will say, in 98 is when I would say the turning point happened in Ireland. There was obviously stuff going on before that, Mek and Scary and that crew doing loads of great work. If you want to be really crass and break it down to like the Fugees, I think 96 was a breakout year for hip hop worldwide, with the Fugees, Tupac, both of them went diamond. 97 Biggie became massive again, and the Puff Daddy era and all that. So I think globally, hip hop took a huge leap, 96, 97, and then at the same time, while that was going on in America, there was another side of America where 97, 98 is the beginning of the underground independent hip hop scene, where it was a lot of groups who were like, 'OK, I'm not going down this Puff Daddy route or whatever, this isn't my style. We want to make really raw, independent stuff.' And that's essentially what Company Flow did. 'Independent as F' was their trademark and El-P really was a huge change at that time on the independent scene, Company Flow and Rawkus - he's gone on to Run the Jewels, which is amazing to see, someone who's changed hip hop forever.
So I think, in 98 and 99, when that scene was burgeoning in the US with Company Flow and with MF Doom and all the Rawkus crew, some of those acts actually started to come here in 98, definitely 99, and it was the first time me and my mates were like, 'Oh, my God, we can actually go see some of these acts'. So I remember crews like the Arsonists, which were a very underground crew at that time, but they came over here. There were little gigs bubbling here.
And anyway, then in 1999, we recorded those four tracks in Temple Bar Music Centre. Anyway we would have recorded to tapes, because that's how it was done back then. You basically had paid for your four hours - that was all you're getting out of this - so it was all very live and raw. So we came out of that day with four tracks on a CD and we pressed up 30 copies of a CD. Obviously, probably 10 went to our mates. And then my brother Shane, who became our manager, said, 'Oh, I know a couple of people who might want this' and one of them was Leagues O'Toole. Leagues was - I dunno was he presenting No Disco at the time, but he was definitely well known in the scene. And Leagues really liked it. He sent the demo to another guy, Declan Forde. Them two people changed our lives. Little do people know, but they actually really changed the scene in Ireland forever. So at the time Leagues was also doing, as far as I remember, distribution for Rawkus in Ireland, and Rawkus was like the biggest independent label at that time. So Leagues absolutely loved the demo and asked would we sign a record deal with him, to Volta Beats with Dave O'Grady. They signed Jape and they would have had Goodtime John, Paul O'Reilly. I think they might have had Connect Four Orchestra as well and a few others.
Basically, we did a 500 pressing. We recorded another song, 'Blood Rush' with the Dose, and 'Blood Rush' really changed a lot for us. But in between that time, Declan Forde really loved the demo. He was a young promoter here. He asked could he come see us rehearse. I think Leagues might have been there as well. Anyway, Dec Forde came into the room, absolutely loved it and said, 'I want to build a scene around this and the Stonecutters'. And he said, 'I'm gonna start bringing acts over so you guys can play and your friends, and we can build, create something there.' So basically, for about a year or two, we just played every single support slot for every single Dec Forde show. And he'd be like, 'Who should I bring over?' And we'd be like, Masta Ace. Canibus, the Pharcyde. Basically all the people we loved. Declan Forde really changed the scene for those five years, that run. . You had the Def Jux scene, El-P coming over, Aesop Rock.
What venues were there around that time?
The Pod and the RedBox, they ran that whole [area]. So you might start in small rooms and then go big. So like the Pharcyde would play the bigger rooms, Public Enemy came over, Gang Starr. So yeah, there was loads of amazing acts and shows we did at that time; NAS, lots of the Wu Tang people. I believe that changed a huge amount of the music scene in Dublin, Ireland at that time because big, well-known acts were coming over at a regular pace and people who were into that music were able to go quite regularly and then bring their friends to see what it was like and experience it and then I think it made a big change. And then as far as the next change, you could say it was the internet and then everyone being able to contact people easier and people come over again.
I would have known you around the time of Now This I Have to Hear (2006). Did it feel like you were always on the up around then? Was there a bit of hype around you?
Yeah, definitely. At the time, there was definitely a big buzz, it felt like, in 05. I think if we were ever to have a time when it nearly all happened, I think it was 2005. So we released the debut album in 03 and then 05, 06, we had written the second record. 'Something Outta Nothing' was the first single, we had a video for it. We were playing SXSW.
Oh, wow. Back when SXSW was a big deal!
Yeah, like I remember even being in SXSW in 05 or 06, and we were in the room playing to a lot of our idols at the time, like Atmosphere, Sage Francis - people from America in the scene we thought we were a part of over here. We were being brought over by Steve Lamacq to do sessions in Maida Vale. Sony did talk to us, there was labels talking to us at that time. We were so desperate to get the music out at that time. We decided to release it in 2006 ourselves independently. We got great press at that time, especially over here. The first record was all - people were like, 'What is Irish hip hop? What is this about?' Whereas I think the tide turned then. And people were like, 'Wow this is something to take seriously.' We got really good reviews as far as I remember, we were up for the Choice.
Those few years felt like, you know, if someone's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. But then we felt like we had gotten as big as we could in Ireland without doing major crossover stuff, which we didn't want to do.
Commercial stuff?
Yeah. If I'm being honest. We knew if we made really commercial music, we probably could have got on radio, but that wasn't our style. We decided to go to England and just ran out of money, really. Probably like a lot of other bands, I'm sure.
You moved over?
No, no, but we went promoting there, going over and paying PR companies or whatever to get us on radio. So then when we did get plays and all like that… We still had money but we got disheartened by everything that went on. Over those 10 years, me and J compromised our work life, if you want to call it that - our jobs were part time because we were trying to do music full time. We probably both lost partners during that time over music. It got to a stage when we - I remember we sat down, maybe the first session, 'let's write the fourth record.' And we both looked at each other and I could tell we were both pretty exhausted.
Just ran out of gas?
At that time for sure. Yeah, I think we definitely did. I don't think we knew where to take it. I think music was even changing a lot then.
It was changing so fast as well. That London scene just kept going and innovating.
Yeah, so it definitely was just changing. I just think we hit a brick wall.
So it just came to a natural conclusion?
Yeah, I think we were both thinking it and I can't remember who said it, but I think we both just said 'let's just take a break'. And the break lasted probably an awful long time.
You have the memories though. They're happy memories, I'm guessing, for the most part? It was great hearing about that 10-year run.
Yeah I wouldn't change it at all. It's made me who I am. It's made John who he is. Lots of funny stories, great memories, great times, great people - like still a lot of people from that time are still my best mates, a lot of people in the bands who played with us, and the older musicians around at that time. Just great memories. So, yeah, I wouldn't change at all.
Do you have, musically, regrets? Do you think like, 'What if we had signed with a record label? What if we had done this?' Was there one point where you think maybe if we did that, we'd still be together? Maybe we would have been bigger or anything?
I don't have regrets, but I think if something was going to happen... it was definitely around 05, 06. There was just a lot of buzz around us at that time. But we just couldn't find or make the step to make a full-time career out of it. But not a lot of people do.... That's why I have so much respect for musicians who are able to make a career out of it, whether it's your style of music or not, like fair fecks to anyone who does it.