The Murder Capital: 'You just didn’t think it was a doable thing, being in a band'
Damien Tuit on the Murder Capital and their second album Gigi's Recovery. Plus new music and some great reads
TPOE (The Point of Everything) is a free weekly newsletter. It features interviews from the TPOE podcast and there’ll be occasional music recommendations too. If you want to subscribe (again, for free!), that would be great and if you want to share or tell some people you think might be interested in TPOE, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Here’s the first interview I did in 2023 - an interview with my fellow West Cork man Damien Tuit of the Murder Capital. The chat was around the release of their second album Gigi’s Recovery, but the band have seemingly not stopped since. They’ve just completed an extensive European tour, culminating in a reportedly glorious show at the Olympia in Dublin on November 18. But they’re not done yet - they’ve just been announced for Other Voices, which returns to Dingle and St James’s Church next weekend, December 1-3. It’s going to be their last show of the year. I saw them at St James’s Church in 2019 - four years on, I can only imagine the Murder Capital are going to put on a masterclass.
On going from school into BIMM
So it’d only been going for two or three years, I think. I was conflicted a whole year, like really stressed out about it – you know, when you’re 17 and you feel like it’s the be-all and end-all of everything. When you have such a limited scope of experience of what life is and it all just feels like a lot. But my mum kind of encouraged me; she knew that’s what I wanted to do. I was obviously music obsessed and playing guitar any chance I could and making music on my laptop and stuff. And she could see that and she gave me a gentle push to be like, ‘you need to do this’. So I did end up going into BIMM. I only stayed for two years or so before dropping out because the band took off fairly quickly. We used to joke, like, that was the dream – to get to drop out. So as soon as there was any whiff of it, we did.
It seems like a lot of younger Irish bands are coming out of there now, which is great to see, but how long is a course supposed to be?
It’s four years. My brother’s actually just gone into first year now. It’s just the best place to meet musicians, you know what I mean? That was the best thing I got from it; I met the lads, met like-minded individuals who wanted the same thing and wanted to work towards it. I don’t know where else I would have found that.
Were all of the other guys in the same year?
No, James [McGovern, singer] was in my year and then Pump [Cathal Roper, guitarist] was in the year above. Gabe [Blake, bass] was in the year above. And D (Diarmaid Brennan, drummer] actually is a bit older. He’s 30 this year, he graduated, he lived in New York for a year. And then we had a different drummer, Morgan Wilson, who just wasn’t feeling it. And same with a different bass player. I think we asked Tom from the Fontaines if he knew anybody and he recommended D so that’s great.
Fontaines DC are obviously the other big graduates from BIMM – were they mates you met there?
Yeah, I don’t know if we met them through BIMM directly, or if it was more kind of through Workman’s. I think James had met them. And obviously, their manager Trev, he’s the booker for Workman’s – or was anyway at that time – so it was just kind of all through that. Then we played a few gigs with them, got friendly. I mean, them and Girl Band were just really inspiring at the time. Because before that, it was just, I dunno, you just didn’t think it was a doable thing, being in a band. I was like, I was wanting to get as good as I could and become a session musician, which I dunno, it seems like it’s even harder to do that than to be in a band. Or else I’ll become a teacher or something. But I never had even allowed myself to dream of being in a band. When I decided to do music in college, I was just trying to be as realistic as possible.
Tell me about your friendship with James. Was it there from the start? Did you always know that you were going to start up this band?
Not really, I’d seen him. In college at the end of every term, there’d be these end-of-term concerts. Everyone had to perform a song, it was part of your examination. They chose the best or their favorite or whatever… And I’d seen him perform at the first one, and he played this song (laughs), which I thought was really good, it was kind of edgy, and then at the very end, he jumped down off the stage and got into the crowd and then faced the stage and just started clapping in the most robotic, aggressive way. I was just like, that’s fucking cool. So I had it tucked in my mind. I was like, I want to play with that guy. And then he was just posting on the BIMM page, ‘Hey I need somebody for the next exam’, and I was like, ‘would love to do it’. And I think he replied and was like, ‘oh, sorry, I actually have somebody’ and that was Pump because he played with Pump before. And then he replied an hour later being like, ‘Actually fuck it I’m not gonna play guitar’. So we did that. And we just kept doing that for the end of terms. That was his own songs, I was playing with other bands at the time. And then I think it was the influence of the Fontaines. It was just like, ‘No we actually want to do a band together. We want to all be in it together, all write the songs.
So were Fontaines that big an influence even back then? I think we’re talking like 2017, 18, are we?
Yeah, but I mean, they had only a couple tunes out, it was more just from talking to them, just talking about the longevity of a project and if it’s all split equal. It makes sense. As well like, it was his [James’] songs, but we’re all writing parts. And then we’re starting to write our own songs. And it was turning into a band as well. So it’s a mix of things.
You released your debut album, When I Have Fears in 2019. How do you look back on that album?
I look back on it fondly now that we finished the second one. But for ages, I was like, borderline ashamed of it.
Wow really?
Yeah. Just because we ended up touring it so much. And it was really only eight or nine songs that we we’re doing, we ended up having two set lists that we thought were doable. I must have played like 200, 250 gigs just for those songs. And so you just get into a weird headspace. And it’s like, that was the sound of that first album, but just after a certain point, it didn’t feel like it represented all the music that I loved and that I was super passionate about. I think I just really got in my head about it. I think another part of it was that, you know, when you have one album out, and a couple years pass, then you just feel like – especially with just one – it’s like ‘that represents me’. If you’ve grown past that moment, it feels a bit odd if people are looking towards that and associating it with you. So now having finished this other one, I’m feeling more connected to it cos it’s more recent. It’s like, ‘Now I can put the other one in its place as being like, Oh, I made that when I was 20, 21. As a debut album, I could be proud of it. But it’s not the only thing out there that’s representing me’, if you know what I mean.
Do you think the rest of the band feels the same?
I think more or less? I don’t know, I don’t really want to speak for everybody. I don’t think maybe everybody had strong feelings about the first one as I did, in that sense.
Was it just the distance between the two albums, like it’s been two and a half years since it was out? Did it feel like it was just becoming a bit of a weight on your shoulder?
Yeah, it did. And it was just like, I don’t know, I just didn’t, I just couldn’t be proud of it. I don’t know what it was. It caused me a lot of uncomfort. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing because it forced me to really want to improve and improve my skill sets and improve what I could bring to the band and I think that ultimately ended up [with us] making something that I think is better. You can show one person both albums and they just might prefer the first one and that would just appeal to their set of influences.
I mean, it was successful. It got played loads on UK radio, you got to tour shows in the UK and Europe, maybe even further afield as well. Was that always the plan, were you always looking outside of Ireland?
Yeah, I mean, I think we always just wanted to tour from the very beginning, that sounds like the best thing ever, just getting to go to new places to play shows. That was always the goal and we got to do it an awful lot on the first album. And then, like the pandemic – we were two shows into an American tour – our first American tour, which was supposed to be six weeks long – and had to come back because the whole country shut down because of Covid. Which at the time was really tough to deal with, and like took a year or so to actually get over that disappointment, but at the same time, was probably for the best in a lot of ways. I think we were all feeling the weight of playing the same songs every night. And I think we just needed a break and just to like, come home and look after ourselves.
And probably some time apart as well. Did you all just go back home across Ireland?
Yeah, we all went back to our parents’ houses, basically. That would have been March and we got back to start writing in June in Dublin. And that have been three months apart, which at the time was the longest amount of time we’d spent apart since starting the band; like before that it had been two weeks or something. So I remember we rented this little house near Thomas Street and we all arrived on the first day and it was a little bit awkward like (laughs), I’d gotten into sampling and was recording music at home the whole time and experimenting with bits and Pump had gotten some synths and stuff. And he was doing that. Him and me were on quite a similar page. But I think it was like him and me had just gone full steam ahead, we want to go exploring that thing. And I think it took a little bit of time for everybody else to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can see that’ – because, I mean, we were bringing in stuff that was pretty alien to the headspace of the first album.
Did you find it’s that old cliche of the difficult second album?
Um, I feel like our struggle was maybe different to the cliche, because I feel like the cliche is that you have your life to write the first one. Whereas we wrote the first one in about seven months and didn’t think about it too much. And I think what made the second album so difficult was deciding to develop the sound substantially and also do so while being in complete isolation for a couple of years, with the lockdowns. That was the thing that made the whole thing so taxing was it was just the five of us in a house. We were in Dublin for that summer, and then ended up going to the countryside, which we thought was gonna be for six weeks, but it ended up going on for months and months and months. Where we were writing was like, it was like the kitchen and the sitting room, and the sitting room was where all the gear was. So if it wasn’t going well there was nowhere to get away from it.
Where in the countryside were you recording?
We were in Wexford.
I was reading James’s interview in Irish Times at the weekend, and he’s quite plain speaking about that creative process. He says that there were these mad arguments to the point where nothing was conducive to the writing of the songs. Was that there in the first album as well, like, were you arguing with each other?
Oh, like, there was times when me and James would be in the studio on the first album and screaming at each other, I’d have to leave the room and take it out to the car park arguing like that. And I’m happy to say that when we did the second album, nobody yelled once. It was all just discussions. But like it took those two or three years to gain that sort of ability, I think, to just talk about things more. I mean, there was times when Pump had to take a break from writing and I had to take a break from writing, Gabe had to take a break from writing during the pandemic, because it just got too heavy.
Mentally?
Yeah. And just interpersonally. We were the only people we were hanging out with, but sometimes, you know, you just would have big disagreements on where things were going. But it was also I think where we all were emotionally at the time. You know, like, I’m sure you can remember, everyone’s mental health was fragile during that time, extremely so. Just we were putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. And I probably felt a lot of pressure on ourselves because I think we’d expected to have that first album for the rest of 2020. And then it was like, right, that’s gone so you need to come out with the next thing. And if you don’t, and if it’s not good, well, then, you know, nothing’s gonna happen. So there was a fair bit of pressure on that, I think.
Were you ever worried about it, like the way that the creative process is/was tied into that argumentative process?
Yeah, like, we came to the realisation during the whole thing that it was like, we’re the work and if we’re not looking after each other, it’s just not gonna be sustainable, we’re not gonna make a second album, we’re not gonna make a third. But I just we improved our listening and communication skills a lot because with the first album, it was seven, eight, nine months, whatever it was, writing it. And that was seven, eight, nine months that we’d known each other. So like, we really didn’t know each other, we didn’t know the ins and outs, people’s personalities, how to talk to somebody. So that’s what we had to learn on the second one was how do we communicate. And the thing is, as well, we all have come from five quite different places musically and that’s what I enjoy about the band is the sum of the parts is, you know, none of us could write this music on our own. Everybody’s influences are all over it.
You talk about the ugly side, the fights and the arguments and stuff like that, but then it is great being in a band still, I’m guessing?
Then the other side of that is the love. I don’t want to get soppy, like, but the five of us do love each other a lot and have been there for each other through the last three years and have really helped each other up. And I think on this album, making this album was just this beacon of hope at the end of it all. It was like, if we can just make this album, if we can just do this, if we can just keep going with it. Because a lot of the songs on it… we had a lot of the original ideas from that summer in Dublin, but it really took two years to finish them and get them to where they wanted to be. And it was just chipping away at them little by little figuring this bit out, saying, We don’t like what we’ve done with that. Can we pare it back or blah blah blah? Just setting your sights on this will get to that place and just stupidly believing it. Because a lot of the time there wasn’t much proof that it was gonna go there.
The album is Gigi’s Recovery. Are you proud and happy with how it turned out?
Yeah, I really am.
‘Return my Head’ is the latest single from it. I absolutely adore the track, I think it’s absolutely brilliant. Tell me a little bit about creating that song in particular.
That was the last song we wrote for the album. Which similar to the first album, ‘Don’t Cling to Life’ was the last song I think that we wrote for it. I think we just looked at the batch of songs that we were gonna put on the album and wanted something fast, short, sweet. And that was that song. I think it started with the synth patch that’s kind of buried in the mix, but it’s this sort of modulated crunchy thing that Pump had. Yeah, it came together pretty quickly. Some of the songs came together (pretty quickly). ‘Ethel’ came together really quickly and then we just completely abandoned it and were like, no, that’s shit…. And then, right before we went into the studio, I think I showed it to my girlfriend and she was like, Oh, I really liked that. I was like, oh, yeah, so then we gave it another chance.
Is there a track that you’re particularly happier, or proud of?
It’s probably a mix between ‘The Stars [Will Leave Their Stage’], just because I had that little riff for ages and the drum part with D. But it was only a year later that I wrote the chords for the chorus. It was just another one where it could easily have been one of those ideas that just got left behind. And also then ‘Crying’, I’m really proud of that and happy to get a little bit of sampling in there as well.
TPOE 286: Rachael Lavelle
Rachael Lavelle released her long-awaited debut album Big Dreams on November 10. A brilliant collection of 10 tracks, the press release says: Big Dreams is an existential coming-of-age album that chronicles the journey of a young woman searching for direction and meaning in a very strange world. Inspired by sounds of everyday life and an intriguing obsession with YouTube self-help videos, the album explores romance, directionlessness, ambition and the expectations of the unsatisfied digital native. Recorded in various locations including an artists studio in Lisbon, the album is the result of years of experimentation and destruction. Written and produced by Lavelle, it was created alongside long-time collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Ryan Hargadon and engineer and co-producer Alex Borwick. Throughout, the album features the voice of the Luas, Doireann Ní Bhriain, who narrates the inner monologue of the millennial mind; the ever-wondering, ever-doubting, the contradicting and the aspiring.
On this episode of the TPOE podcast, Rachael talks us through Big Dreams track by track, as well as her features with Villagers, Crash Ensemble and others, influences, sleep, CMAT, and dreaming.
Buy Rachael Lavelle - Big Dreams
Rachael Lavelle tour dates:
November 30: Mick Lally Theatre, Galway
December 1: The Record Room, Limerick
December 6: Prims Bookshop, Kinsale
December 7: Coughlan’s, Cork
December 8: Connollys of Leap, Cork
December 9: St Michael’s Church, Waterville, Kerry
December 15: Project Arts Centre, Dublin
New music
Junior Brother - ‘The Men Who Eat Ringforts’
“The song recounts a scene in rural Ireland all too common today: the bulldozing of a ringfort for a coming motorway,” explains Junior Brother, a.k.a. County Kerry’s Ronan Kealy. “‘The Men Who Eat Ringforts’ is a twitch of frustration, spat into modernity’s hollow wheel before it clears the way. Sacred things unseen to the suits are still there for them willing to look.”
Eoin Dolan - ‘The Most Important Thing is Peace Within Yourself’
“When I pass away, the one message I would like to leave the world is that ‘The Most Important Thing Is Peace Within Yourself’. The writing of the song was greatly influenced by the teachings of SN Goenka. With respect to the music video, I wanted to create something that would explore the topic in more detail. The presence of the outside preacher is in stark contrast to the journey of peace from within”
RF Chaney - Tropism
“When I set out to make Tropism I knew I wanted to explore ambiguity and ‘the inbetween’ in several aspects. Firstly, I wanted to blur the lines between acoustic and synthesised sounds. I was inspired by a kind of ‘1+1=1’ conceptual approach to the instrumentation, viewing two instruments blending together to create a single new sound rather than just two instruments playing at the same time.”
Further reading
Island Universe: DIY in Cork, Ireland and Beyond
Mariana Timony goes loooooong on the Cork scene featuring a whole host of some of my favourite artists
A Different Beast: An Interview with Elaine Malone.
Mike Ryan interviews Cork artist Elaine Malone, who released her brilliant debut album Pyrrhic in September.
Kneecap on new music, a united Ireland, and how they became part of a Fassbender film
Brilliant interview by Ellie O’Byrne with the seemingly next big thing. They have mine and Grian Chatten’s vote