Little Hours talk sweet record deals, sweet support slots and sweet potatoes to Limerick Post Newspaper.
by Eric FitzGerald
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DONEGAL duo Little Hours are John Doherty (piano/ lead vocals) and Ryan McCloskey (lead guitar/ backing vocals). The pair have been writing and gigging together for just under two years and already they can boast of smash daytime radio hit ‘It’s Still Love’ and a record deal signed with RCA Records, now a division of Sony Music.
It has been a very busy few months for Little Hours as they write and rehearse new material for the upcoming debut album.
John Doherty is on the phone from their Donegal studio and agrees that debut single ‘It’s Still Love’ opened lots of doors for the duo.
“We couldn’t believe the response we got with it. We got a good bit of radio play with it and got nominated for a Meteor Award for the song, it has been a huge help for us.”
John Doherty and Ryan McCloskey both grew up in Killybegs, playing in different bands. It was kind of inevitable that they would end up playing together somehow at some stage.
“We had our own solo projects for a few years. We ended up joining forces just over a year ago, started Little Hours and we have been going great since. We both had very similar tastes and influences, similar ways of writing so we just gelled very quickly.”
Little Hours have got lucrative support slots to Hudson Taylor and Kodaline. They shared the stage Live at the Big Top on their last visit to Limerick with Dingle’s Walking On Cars. The dark art of making your mark as a “warm up” music act comes down to good timing, great songs, quick efficient change overs [there is only two of them after all] but more important than all that, John Doherty tells Limerick Post that “you just gotta get you name out there”.
“We just try to say our name a lot, a lot of people don’t understand what we are saying because of our strong Donegal accents. We make a point of saying our name A LOT. We have been very lucky and played to amazing crowds and got the right support slots supporting the right bands.”
Recently signed to RCA Records, part of Sony nowadays, do Little Hours feel the pressure to deliver to a label that has been home to many of the world’s biggest hitmakers, Elvis Presley, Diana Ross, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Marc Ronson?
“It hasn’t changed a whole lot yet, we are still writing. When we get the right songs and start releasing stuff with RCA, we will start to notice a difference.”
The duo have lots of new songs to share at their upcoming Limerick gig and John is excited to see how the Dolan’s crowd react to the new material.
“We have lots of new songs, nobody’s heard of yet. Playing live is the real test of a song. It’s handy for me and Ryan, there is just two of us in it and we are both very honest with each other. If I write something and he doesn’t like it, he’ll tell me and visa versa.”
In a recent interview Ryan McCloskey revealed that he and John and their mates have a giant sized sweet potato that is doing the rounds. It was hidden in their roommate Paddy’s bed first and then Ryan’s bed till John found it his jacket pocket. Soon the giant sweet potato had literally shrunk into a wrinkly face.
So when Limerick Post asked after the sweet spud, John confirmed that indeed the potato is “still very much in our lives.”
“We had kinda forgotten about it for a while until I found it under my pillow two nights ago so I’ve hidden it again one of the boys’ rooms. We’ll let you know how that goes.”
Despite Ryan’s suggestion that the wrinkly old tuber should go out on the road with Little Hours, John laughs and says he doesn’t want to become known as ‘the band with the sweet potato’ on tour.
Yeah, it is not the sort of thing you need in the last paragraph of every interview.
See Little Hours and possibly even a giant wrinkled potato on-stage this Saturday night October 24, Upstairs at Dolan’s.
