Dave Geraghty, who recently unveiled his latest music project Join Me In The Pines, will play Tony Clayton-Lea’s Culture Vultures night in the Odessa Club on Thursday, June 12th. Ahead of the show the songwriter spoke to theLastMixedTape.com about his influences, working as a solo artist in comparison to with Bell X1 and recording at home.
You have called this project Join Me in the Pines why did you decide to use this name instead of your own?
I think the lure for me was to distance myself slightly, (laughs) unfortunately I wasn’t born with the most exciting “rock name” like Phil Lynott or Johnny Lydon so this made things more interesting for me. That way Join Me In The Pines could be more an umbrella to put my music under, while my own name remained personal and separate. Also the sound is kind of cinematic, it’s about anchoring reality in the ambiguous, the name Join Me In The Pines gives it that feel.
Do you think this project gives you a freedom to move from working with a full-band to on your own?
Yeah it definitely gives me that sort of freedom. Psychologically it also makes me feel less judged when it comes to reviews, and lets me focus more on the music although that was an after affect. I also think this record is cohesive, and encapsulates more of a theme. It’s got a lot to do with where I grew up in Leixlip and extending a fantasy of that time, there’s a personal side to it.
You recorded this album at home. How did this effect your song-writing?
It was a learning curve. It made me better at recording techniques and I needed to be more disciplined. Also, having this equipment at arm’s length meant it was always in the back of my mind when I was going about the house. The first week was stressful because of that, so myself and my wife came to a solution that once 5 o’clock came the studio time was over.
That was difficult at first, but I got used to it. I’d be just about to fall asleep and suddenly I come up with an idea but would have to say “it can wait”, then when I woke up I would be scrambling to remember what it was (laughs).
But it was good for me, when you work on something on your own you can’t see the wood for the trees and you just keep adding and adding. It’s totally different from writing with the guys in Bell X1 because you can’t jam things out together in a room and come up with ideas, you have to build each track from the ground up and that’s how this album was.
Was there a nervous feeling when releasing a record like this after such a long insular creative period?
It was a relief actually. I was more glad to have it done and be able to say it was “in the bag”. There came a point when I had to say “stop it’s ready”. A good friend of mine, who doesn’t mince words, came over and gave me his honest opinion. That was important because I just wanted the truth, and he was very positive. Clare Finglas was also a huge help on this record too, see was able to keep the darkness in the song-writing and the sound. She was instrumental, I think the most interesting music comes from that atmosphere.
What would you like people to take away from the Join Me In The Pines in comparison to your previous solo records?
It’s hard to say really. The album definitely sounds a lot better and more cohesive. The record is about the place I was born, Leixlip, and leaving it. But I wanted to say that “even though I’m leaving you, you’re not leaving me”. Growing up there was totally different to now, Leixlip was a real green belt where you could go out into the fields and woods. But that was lost, multi-corporate computer companies came in and changed it. The green belt was swallowed up by parking lots in the name of what they call progress.
Tickets for Culture Vultures at the Odessa Club, Dublin on Thursday June 12th are priced at €10 and are available now through entertainment.ie. Doors at 8pm.
