Thrill seeking
On the eve of their The Thrills' Australian visit, Andrew P Street speaks with a very, very weary Conor Deasy
"I'm a little bit jetlegged - I didn't sleep last night," sighs The Thrills' amiable frontman. "My girlfriend lives in California and going out there I'm OK with but coming back always gets me. And once the sun comes up..."
Deasy's got to face another long plane journey shortly, since The Thrills are one of the headliners for Come Together - along with US combo VHS Or Beta, who expressed their excitement at catching up with their Irish friends in an interview you can check out on this very website as soon as you finish reading this story.
"We've crossed path a couple of times," Deasy smiles. "When they're in Dublin we've played with them a few times. They're good guys. Touring sometimes can be a slight sense of ritual to it, but when you meet cool bands it can be quite rewarding. It's very easy for it to be very workmanlike and very distant, and you have to make an effort for it to go beyond that - but we were always good like that."
And there are distinct advantages to having friends in the rock. "It's funny," Deasy yawns, "a band that were supporting you a half year ago, a year later they're suddenly ten times bigger than you. It's worked the other way for us too, so it's good to have a good attitude about these things."
And that's what's getting the band through these days: despite last year's Teenager being cited as their best album to date, the band were dumped by EMI after less than stellar sales ("No, we're not with EMI. It was a bit disappointing. It's a good record: I don't really know what to say"). It's hardly a surprise: like fellow guitar-pop maestros Teenage Fanclub or Canada's Sloan they seem to be better loved by musicians then the general public.
"Well, Padraic [McMahon, guitarist] has always said that, that we're a musicians' band, so I'm glad that you finally said that so I don't think he's entirely crazy," he sighs, chuckling. "That's nice to hear. Sometimes when I hear people talk about our music I think maybe it's a little bit misunderstood or pigeonholed in the worst possible sense, and I've always found it frustrating: I've never thought of our music as just ‘feelgood', or ‘jangly', or whatever hackneyed expressions they use - I think musicians don't resort to that as much.
"I think when you use harmonies or certain reference points people jump to certain conclusions and maybe The Smiths got away with that to a certain extent, but other bands haven't so much. But yes, Teenage Fanclub, that's a good example. It goes back to bands like The Zombies straight through - really worthy bands. And you can blame a bad label or a bad manager, but sometimes things just don't work out. If you want to be a musician and you want to fight the good fight, you have to have... a sense of humour's probably the wrong term, but you've gotta be willing to accept [things not working out] and accept that sometime there's no rhyme no reason to it."
The Thrills play at Come Together on Sat 7 and their own show at the Metro on Sun 8 June