The Coronas On Tour…
The Coronas kick off their whirlwind Australian tour Thursday night! Renowned for their magnetic live performances, and having been previously voted as the #1 Live Act of the Year by Hot Press, The Coronas have been headlining their own shows and festivals in Ireland for almost fifteen years. Their regular Christmas performances at The Olympia Theatre in Dublin have become the stuff of legend. Recent sold out tours in their wake spanning North America and Australia further showcasing the trio’s successful and ever-growing legacy. Danny O’Reilly talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour and their new album Thoughts and Observations.
Great to be talking to you. Are you looking forward to getting back and playing some dates in Australia?
Yeah, we can’t wait. Yeah, looking forward to it, the weather has just turned here. It’s gone very cold, even though it’s sort of bright morning here in Dublin. But, yes, we always love going to Australia. The last time, our little tour last November was amazing, it’s definitely something that has become part of our annual thing now where we tend to go almost every November. We have done pre-COVID and post-COVID so we’re buzzing to head back there in November and get back and play to the Aussie crowds.
Did the planet didn’t quite align for Adelaide this time around?
No, unfortunately it we just couldn’t make it work. We’re in America the week before and we’ve got a couple of shows in America and then we have to come back. We’ve got some shows in December. So, we literally only had a week gap and whatever way it worked with the dates. We have a busy weekend in Australia. We’re doing Melbourne, then Sydney, then Perth all in a row like so we’ll be able to crack it on and getting a flight from each city. Unfortunately we couldn’t make Adelaide work this time around. We had a good show there the last time and hopefully we’ll be back again.
It must be really exciting time as well to tour with a new album?
Yeah, it is. It’s different. We started our own record label now. There’s been a lot of work if that makes sense, there’s a lot of interviews, a lot of planning. We’ve decided to do a launch tour around Ireland where we’re doing some small venues, signings and stuff like that. When you become your own record label, which we did three albums ago, you realise there’s a lot of work to be done and a lot of marketing. Just little things that need to get sorted and. But to be honest with you, we enjoy the process. We’ve had the perspective of being with a major label. When we started, we had an indie label in Ireland and they were sort of helping us out, but we were still sort of DIY. Then we signed to Island Records in London and moved over there and had our big label. It’s interesting only when you start your own label that how much work is needed but we enjoy it. It’s one of those things when you have a big record label and something doesn’t go well, you go or the label didn’t promote us or the label didn’t do this and they should have released, they released the wrong song, and they didn’t put us forward for this or whatever. But when you’re your own record label, you’ve only yourself to blame. So, it makes us work harder. We’re very busy all the way up to Christmas, we love touring, we love performing our music to whatever size crowd, whether that’s in different countries. We like that challenge of putting together different types of shows, whether it be a big venue or small venue or a venue where there’s a lot of Irish people and they want to hear more of our back catalogue or a newer crowd like in America maybe where they know more of our newer stuff.
Is having your own label more about having greater control of your own music and how you distribute it, artwork and branding?
One hundred percent, and even from the inside, we took a lot of that stuff for granted originally. It was only when we started our own label a couple of years ago that we realised everything that goes into it and we’ve actually found a good balance. It’s almost given the band an extra bit of energy. The fact that we’ve sort of approached the whole band in a more holistic, I suppose approach to the whole thing and we delegate the work between us in a natural way as well. It’s not an easy industry and we’re very lucky that we’re at a stage where we can sell tickets and can make a living out of out of our music and do it on our own terms. As you say, we have much more control as well, which is obviously the positive of having your own label. There’s no one breathing down our throats saying the album needs more singles or you need to do more TikToks or Instagram stuff. We can have honest conversations about those things like, no one’s going to believe us if we’re a band in our late thirties doing TikTok dances. That doesn’t suit our music, but at the same time, you still have to appreciate that there’s things that you can be doing that can help your music get out there and help promote it. It’s not the way it used to be when we started, where you release the music to radio and you send the press releases and hope that that someone will take notice.
Sonically how would you describe Thoughts and Observations?
I think it’s a natural sort of development for us. We used the same producer from the last record, George Murphy, a great producer, who lives in London and works out of East Coast Studios, which is a beautiful studio. George has been with us and seen us develop when we had the batch of songs, we always try and let the songs guide the sonics. You know, as opposed to going, OK, this this album needs to sound like this. What songs have we got? Let’s mould them into that sound. We consider ourselves more as songwriters always first and foremost and we try to get the best out of the songs, but it felt natural. It felt natural to maybe go a little bit more organic. We’re a three piece now. A few years ago, our guitar player left the band. We opened out the band recently to more members and we have Lara Kay playing guitar is amazing. Our live band also includes Lara playing guitar, my sister Rose doing backing vocals and piano and then our saxophonist and keyboardist, Cian McSweeney. They’re all really talented musicians and were involved in the recording of this album as well. We did that on purpose because our live shows have been going really well.
I think the album will work live as it’s a live sounding album. I think sonically in a way it’s honest. We went organic at it as opposed to try and over produce it. We tried to just get the get out of the way of the songs a little bit and make nice sounds which is organic with real instruments. Not too many synths and stuff. We use a lot of a lot of real instruments and even a song like, That’s Exactly What Love Is”, our most recent release is a duet with Gabrielle Aplin. The initial demo, which I did in this little room in Dublin, was all like produced with blips and blops and funky sounds and stuff. Our producer George was like, OK, hold on a second. There’s a beautiful song at the core of this. It doesn’t need all this overproduced hipster sounds. Let’s just have piano, acoustic and two great vocals and put the bass and drums on top of it. It was like, oh, yeah, of course, you know, why not? Just because it’s simple chords doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be approached in a simple way. We were always on the same page with the recording and I think sonically it’s that sort of honest organic feel that suits the song.
What do you love about touring Australia?
Well, the people first and foremost, the people have always been so good to us. Last time we had such an amazing tour, we got to play the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, which is just such an historic venue. This time we’re going back to Coogee Beach, where all the all the Irish people hang out. So, it’s going to be a lot of fun and. We have a mixture of Aussies and obviously Irish who are living over there now who come to our shows and it’s always a great time. We’re always so welcomed and they’re always up for a party and a sing along vibe. Also the weather obviously, even though we’re only here for a short period we have a day off before when we land in in Melbourne and we have a day off in Perth after. We’re going to enjoy the gigs and enjoy a little bit of sunshine and hopefully the next time we’re over we’ll get back to Adelaide as well.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch The Coronas on the following dates, tickets from Troubadour Presents…
