Belfast trio A Northern Light have not been going for long, but are already making waves with their second EP, The Right Thing To Do. The EP has picked up a fair amount of airplay, including a live session for BBC1 last month.
We caught up with the band’s bassist Colm Laverty, and gave him a light Vinyl District grilling:
When did the band form, and how did you come together?
We formed about a year ago, after I’d put up an ad in a local coffee shop. Darren and Omar had been in bands together for years and they wanted to try something new. We also had a synth player for the first six months or so – we really wanted to make good use of the instrument, but realised we did not necessarily need it all the time.
What is the musical climate like in Belfast these days, is there a healthy pub/club scene?
There have been quite a few young, new bands appearing in Belfast over the past few years and it’s very exciting to watch. For the most part, everyone does what they can to help each other out – rather than fighting for crowds.
There are a few great venues around the city for small and established bands alike. On any night of the week there’s bound to be at least one gig.
We also have a number of organisations and websites which do stacks for the local community: the OhYeah Centre, BBC Introducing and Bandwidth Sessions, to name but a few.
Most classic bands from Northern Ireland in the past forty years have been somewhat political, for obvious reasons. Is there a sense of leaving that behind since the peace process, or does anger still fuel the music scene there?
It’s hard to put my finger on that, because I can’t, and wouldn’t want to, speak for every single band. I’m sure there are a lot of bands who are still fuelled by that anger, but who write music which is thematically a bit more subtle.
It still affects us in certain ways, some more than others; even within the band, Darren and Omar, being older and from another part of the country, they’ve lived through a lot more than me.
One of our songs, Mother’s Call, is specifically about this issue. Over the past few years, there are still reports of political bombings and murders, and it just reminds us of how fragile the country could be. The theme isn’t angry, but more along the lines of “We’ve come a long way, let’s not look back now”.
Name five great bands and five great records that you feel inspired you.
That’s a tough one. It’s the High Fidelity dilemma; I’ll probably end up ringing you at 4AM to change one of my answers.
Blink-182 – Blink-182
Cheesy, I know, but this, along with Dookie, definitely had an effect on my fifteen year old self. We’ve had this discussion several times; it’s a wonderfully-produced album, in which the band matured tenfold.
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
No further comments necessary.
Rush – Moving Pictures
Rush are one of those bands I’ve only gotten into after forming A Northern Light. Moving Pictures was the first one I listened to and I was absolutely blown away on the first listen (which rarely happens). They just upped the game on how good a bassist could be.
Radiohead – Kid A
This was one of those difficult albums to get into – after a few years of loving OK Computer, this was just a wee bit weird. When I properly listened to Kid A, I realised how wonderful it actually was. Not only in the music, but the whole idea behind it: the band just said, “Everyone’s copying us – Fuck it, let’s start all over again”.
Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
It’s a masterpiece – Check Your Head breaks a whole number of genres and changed my expectations of the Beastie Boys completely.
What are your plans for the rest of this year?
Our second EP, ‘The Right Thing To Do’, was released in March, so we’re just trying to promote it at the moment.
If all goes to plan, a small tour and a few festivals are on the cards.
Apart from that, we’re gradually building up a whole bunch of new songs so that we can record an album near the end of the year. We don’t want to give too much away right now, until we properly confirm things, but things are looking pretty exciting for the band over the next few months.
Check out, ‘The Right Thing To Do’ the title track from the latest EP HERE.
