TO celebrate the release of their eight album, ‘Thoughts & Observations’, The Coronas have teamed up with Golden Discs for a mini Irish tour at intimate venues including Dolans on Monday September 30. It is confirmed to be an all-ages show – Doors 6pm, under 18s accompanied by an adult
Danny O’Reilly from The Coronas chatted with Limerick Post, discussing their upcoming album release and their concert at Dolan’s on September 30.
Written in Dingle, County Kerry and recorded in Eastcote Studios in London, Thoughts & Observations is The Coronas eighth studio album, and a powerful, melodic record which takes an incisive look at life, relationships and art. Although technically a three-piece, with Danny O’Reilly on vocals, piano and guitar, Graham Knox on bass and Conor Egan on drums, the band embraced the talents of their touring supergroup on this album with Lar Kaye (All Tvvins) on guitar, Cian MacSweeney (True Tides) on saxophone and Roisin O on backing vocals. Produced by Grammy award-winning, long-time collaborator, George Murphy (Mumford and Sons, The Specials, Ellie Goulding) Thoughts & Observations is at times anthemic, at times delicate, but always authentic and full of emotion.
One track ‘Singing Just For You (On Occasion)’ refers to a place where Danny was finding it difficult to write lyrics. So he got started by writing about that exact thing – songs about trying to write.
“When I sat down to start writing the album, it took me a little while to get going. Lyrically if I’m struggling to get started I often write about that exact thing.”
Is it getting easier to write for a new record after releasing eight albums so fat?
“I do think we’ve gotten better at the whole process, whether it be recording, releasing, and then from a writing perspective, it’s up and down. But even at that, I think we’ve gotten a little better too.”
“Usually, I’ll write a little bit and have one or two songs in the back pocket that sort of lean towards the next album. And I’ve already started to do that for the next one (album number nine).”
“Once you get one song, you know, you’re a little bit excited about the next one and the next album takes shape a little bit.”
Recording, releasing and promoting albums is an expensive business, and today fans can choose to spend 20 euro on a new album or just have Spotify for less than the cost of an album per month. So is it perfectly fair for any band that is touring to use dynamic pricing and any other ticket pricing for as much as possible to make up this shortfall in revenue?
“We don’t make any money off album sales, but we never really have!
Even our first album came out when there was still physical music being sold. Our first album went triple platinum or something.”
“It’s always been through live shows that we made our livelihood. We want people to continue to come back to see us and we’ve always tried to include value for money in pricing our tickets.”
“If we can make a living from selling the amount of tickets we do at 30 euro in Ireland then I’m sure they [other bands] can make it work the same for everyone.
“Dynamic pricing doesn’t really do well for me. I think you should pick a price, and that’s how much it costs then at least everyone is in the same boat.”
The band played to a full house at King John’s Castle during the summer, so a return to the Warehouse, a smaller capacity, is a rare thing for a band that is this popular.
“We had a great show in Limerick in the summer. We played in King John’s and it’s such a beautiful venue. We’ve done it loads of times at this stage, and every single time we play it, it’s just like, such a great venue.
“Dolans have always been so good to us, so yeah back playing in the warehouse is going to be brilliant.”
This is a unique and rare opportunity for true fans to see The Coronas up close and personal. The band will be signing albums and might even grab a quick selfie!
