WE have all been there! It was the Summer of 2009 at the “afters” of the “afters” of a wedding in a hotel in Donegal. A merry bunch of revellers with that never say die attitude sitting around in a hotel lobby. The bar was long closed, we held on to what was left of our beers sitting in a circle having that singsong that kicks off at that hour oblivious to the fact that tomorrow was already well underway.
But this wasn’t the usual dodgy tuneless crooning in a drunken hour because in the centre of everything was Declan O’Rourke playing on his guitar. He had been playing a gig nearby and was staying at the hotel and with a little cajoling had joined our merry band.
I would like to be able to relate to you every song he played but there is no chance of that but the sweet baritone voice and a repitoire of fine sing along anthems kept this private audience enthralled. The hang-dog expressions of the hotel staff working around us as they tried to prepare the hotel for breakfast told its own story and eventually a security guard persuaded Declan to finish with one last song knowing that until he stopped singing, nobody was going to bed. That last song was Chuck Berry’s ‘You never can tell’ made popular by Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction movie.
Today Declan O’Rourke is laughing down the phone line as I remind him of the last time we spoke. “I remember that night well” he cackles. It has now been four weeks since the release of Declan’s new album, ‘Mag Pai Zai’ and with a nationwide tour imminent I chatted with Declan about the writing of the album and his new independent artist status.
Much of the material on Mag Pai Zai came “in a flourish following a bout of writer’s block”. After an average of one song per month for about ten years, Declan didn’t write anything for almost 18 months. Though there are many reasons for this interruption in creativity, the primary one, he says, was the over-analysing of his song writing process.
“In the past I was a bit too fussy with myself. I kinda had to unlearn some stuff which was important. It got to the point where I was censoring myself, or editing my ideas too quickly. I was too ready to say that this song wasn’t going to work, or that song sounded too much like someone else. It got so bad that I ended up in a place where I wasn’t writing anything at all. With Mag Pai Zai I allowed myself to be a bit freer in the writing.”
Since the release of his debut ‘Since Kaybam’ in 2005 Declan has been recognised for his song writing. Singers of the calibre of Eddi Reader and Josh Groban have covered his songs. While he ultimately writes music to please himself, there is an aspect of thinking of the audience that will eventually listen to his songs. “There is a certain amount of psychology in it. You have obviously only a finite amount of time to get a certain message across and you have to be very frugal with your words. You have to say to yourself, will these words convey what I am trying to get the listener to understand? Ultimately though, if I can write something that I like myself, there’s a much better chance other people will like it.”
Though the songs were written in a few months, the recording process took time. No longer signed to a record company, Declan and his manager, also his brother, have taken the independent route which has given him complete control over his artistry, “because it was an independent venture we were kind of at the mercy of our budget sometimes when it came to booking studio time but it worked to our advantage in the end it gave me more time to be happy with the record”, he says. “Because of the way the music industry is going, money-wise,” he explains, “there seems to be this surplus of goodwill around. Everybody that worked on the record cut us really good deals, added something, and became a part of it because they wanted to be a part of it. All the people we found were all able to embrace this in a positive way and it lent itself in a positive way to our project. When I listen to the album I hear that, probably because of those memories. I hope that even a hint of that goodness, that mood, is captured.”
Declan O’Rourke’s album ‘Mag Pai Zai’ is out now on Rimecoat Records. Declan and his band play Dolans on Friday May 27. To be at the “after party”, try asking him what hotel he is staying at!
