James V McMorrow is one of Ireland’s most promising singer-songwriters. He recently toured his debut album ‘Early in the Morning’ and will be making his maiden Electric Picnic appearance on Sunday September 5th.
So are you looking forward to Electric Picnic? Any particular memories from past EP’s or have you been?
Yes very much so. I’ve only ever been to Electric Picnic once before, I remember thinking at the time how amazing it would be to be able to play at it one day, so this will be really special for me.
Any acts this year you’re looking forward to seeing? Any acts that have made an influence on your sound? I’m guessing here, but would have thought that Low Anthem would be up there?
I actually don’t know the Low Anthem’s music as well as you’d imagine, although I can absolutely see why you might think so. Some friends of mine who saw them in Vicar Street said they were great, so I’ll try and catch them if I get a chance.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Black Mountain, The National, Mountain Man, The Antlers, and The Tallest Man on Earth. The National in particular play a huge influence on how I go about songwriting, they’re one of the few bands in the world that manage to pull off grand and epic songwriting without it sound remotely forced or reaching. In modern music I tend to look to bands far more than I’d look to solo musicians, probably because I play quite a few instruments myself. Mountain Man also are one of the most captivating things I’ve seen in the longest time, three girls that hold hands and sing mostly acapella folk harmony, it’s really something to see.
You released your debut album earlier this year, is it just a case of touring the hell out of it for the next year or so or what are the plans?
Pretty much so yes. The record’s definitely coming out in the US/Canada and Europe in a fairly profound sense, I’m getting myself ready for another 12 months of traveling and playing. I mean this record is something I made and put out myself, I wouldn’t say my expectations were low to begin with, but they were certainly realistic, so being able to go to these places with this record is an absolute joy. I am already thinking about a second record, I’ve done some early demos, but I spend a long time pulling songs apart and putting them back together, so it’s going to be a while yet.
Are you hands on with things like marketing/promotion or is it a case of ‘focusing on the music, man’?
To begin with I was quite hands off, but as it’s grown i’ve become much more aware of how things are put across.
I was slightly naive initially, no one really knew who I was, I assumed I could simply put the music out and that would do the talking for me. I underestimated just how much involvement I need to have in how it’s presented. The nature of music today, how quickly people can access it, means that the smallest offhand remark can fast end up everywhere. For example the story of how I recorded my album, recording it by myself in a house in a fairly isolated part of Ireland. I spoke about it early on because it’s integral to how the record was made, how it sounds, but at certain points I thought it overshadowed the music. It was simply a place to go where I knew i could give 100% to writing and recording, from time to time people read more into these things than is there to be read.
There’s obviously a rich tradition of male singer-songwriters in Ireland, is there anyone in particular you’d see as an example to follow?
We do certainly have an incredible tradition historically of singer-songwriters. As I said earlier i dont listen to a huge amount of solo male singers, but for me Van Morrison is pretty much the pinnacle, not only in Irish terms, but you’d be hard pressed to find a better singer and songwriter in the world, at any point in history. Astral weeks is a perfect album.
When I was starting to think about writing songs Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan were absolutely ruling the world with their first record, seeing it connect the way it did really made me want to work harder at understanding the craft, those songs were and still are effortless.
Finally, what can people expect from your Electric Picnic set? Will you be throwing in any covers of other EP acts?
No I’ll be keeping the set to purely originals. I want to make it a really energetic and potent set, so I’m focusing in rehearsals on really getting to the core of the songs, making them substantial and weighty. That probably makes no sense at all, hopefully it will by the time we get to the stage next week.
www.myspace.com/jamesvmcmorrow
By: Kev Donnellan
