Oppenheimer

Over the coming weeks, Ragged Words will be running features with some of our favourite nominees for the Choice Music Prize. Here we chat to Oppenheimer's Rocky O'Reilly

I was going to start by congratulating you on the Choice Prize nomination but should be congratulating you on something more important - you’re just back from your honeymoon (fellow nominees Fight Like Apes played Rocky’s wedding)! We hope Iceland was good.

Rocky - Thank you very much. It was incredible - I’d heard so much about it that we were really afraid that when we got there, it’d be a case of everyone talking it up but it was so much more than I thought it would be. It was a good couple of weeks - it’s very strange, it’s the first break I’ve taken from everyday life since I started Oppenheimer. It’s the first full day when I hadn’t checked my Oppenheimer email. It was very strange.

Strange but nice?

R - Strange but fantastic. It’s got me back, like I’m in the studio every day, I’m recording and thinking of a million stupid ideas for us to try so I’m feeling really refreshed and inspired.

But also of course, congratulations on the Choice nomination - is it particularly gratifying given the competition this year (RW couldn‘t whittle ten down very easily)?

R - It’s unthinkable, we weren’t expecting a call. There are albums that were released like the Dudley Corporation, Ham Sandwich, both of which were among my favourites for the year and I can’t believe someone chose to put us on a list ahead of them. It’s made us feel very good about ourselves and about the band and about the album ‘cause we’ve done the tour and been kind of quiet for a couple of months which gave time to think was that album any good or was it the difficult second album and it’s really nice to get it just when we’re starting to record the next one.

Is it particularly pleasing to be representing Northern Ireland alongside David Holmes given there was no Northern acts nominated last year and only Duke Special and Snow Patrol before that.

R - Really? Yeah, again, very strangely Fighting With Wire, a band from Derry, weren’t on that list and they released an album on Smalltown America this year. I don’t know, I find the whole situation very bizarre that we’re included in this and other people aren’t. I think hopefully next year there should be two Northern Ireland acts there - there’s a band called In Case Of Fire who have an album out next year and maybe General Fiasco will be doing something too so hopefully we’ll be taking over down there!

You were wondering if the album was the difficult second one but to me certainly it sounds like a step up. Was there anything that helped that if in fact you agree - did you have more at your disposal? More time with it?

R - We dedicated every day of the summer to recording it. We found this shell of a recording studio that I’m actually in now and it was this fantastic old room where loads of old Northern Irish country music was made in the 70’s. We had a warehouse worth of space to explore and we bought loads of new instruments and tried loads of new things. We just wanted to push things as far as we could - and because we got to that point where we’d been on the road for so long playing the same songs - and we love those songs but we just wanted to do something new and experimental that would keep us entertained.

The release of the album was difficult. We put it out in the UK and had terrible luck there - we had a car crash, couldn’t afford to tour and had to cancel some dates so there was definitely a good three month period where we nearly lost our minds and almost lost our interest in pursuing this band. Sean walked away with his hands on his head one day and said ‘I don’t want to see your face again’ and now for someone to say I get what you were doing there, I get the album, I can’t overestimate how exciting that truly is.

You were at breaking point then?

R - Absolutely and maybe two steps beyond it, just the struggles of trying to be a small band on tour and paying rent, and when six bad things in a row happen to you, you think what’s around the corner and should I bother turning it but I’m so glad that we have at every point.

Certainly of Irish bands, I can’t think of many bands that tour as much or certainly as widely, you’ve been to the States an awaful lot and UK, Europe. Is it getting harder to do so and, like you say, pay the bills?

R - It can be. We’ve been fantastically lucky that every time it seems like it’s all over and we have to sell everything to pay somebody back , something ridiculous happens. We’ve had so many songs used in TV shows that were totally unexpected. That for us has been our means of staying afloat and then also finding new fans and opportunities to go on tour. I know that there are bands who have it worse than us and I know that anyone who is trying to record their own music and get it out to people are of course having a tough time but as long as it’s still worth it every day then you’re doing ok.

I’m always curious about getting music on TV shows, does that financially keep you going for a number of months or is it overstated?

I don’t think it’s overstated. I mean it doesn’t keep us in fancy clothes and beautiful food but it pays the bills and keeps the guys who are coming around to break your legs away for a couple of weeks. I think the biggest thing I could say about it is I can’t imagine what we’d be doing if it wasn’t for that because royalties from sales and indeed sales aren’t happening. And we don’t get too fussed or upset about that because it’s just an adventure and I honestly don’t mind if someone doesn’t buy our album and downloads it instead as long as they’re getting it but the knock on effect is finding the money in other ways and I actually like that ‘cause outside of Oppenheimer I record and produce other bands to be able to record my band, and we do each others videos so there’s a beautiful community in Northern Ireland.

You certainly seem to enjoy a relatively bigger profile in the US. How was your late night television debut on Craig Ferguson?

R - The most bizarre day of our lives, I hope it never gets any stranger than that. We actually filmed the Rockville show (OC man Joson Schwartz new project) on the same day so we were in this venue called the Echoplex at 8am playing in front of a hundred extras who were all really beautiful people watching us two. And from there we went across town to do the Craig Ferguson show and it’s just the most bizarre experience. The TV studio is really cold I suppose so you don’t sweat, the audience is really packed in and there’s this fat Elvis impersonator warming them up and taking the piss out of you while you’re warming up. Coolio was on that show and this actor called Tim Reed who was on the show Sister Sister which I remember from when I was a kid so we were in the greenroom thinking does anyone know we’re here.

And then right back down to earth when you get back to Belfast.

R - Yeah absolutely (laughs) but I think it’s incredible two guys like us - Sean was a teacher and I worked in a recording studio - get to go out and do stuff like that and we get to come back to our studios or teaching. That’s the thing I think about when I think this is really difficult and boy we don’t have a lot of money.

With the US link - do you think you’ve more in common with US bands? I remember speaking to Crayonsmith and Ciaran saying there were a bunch of Irish bands - Hooray For Humans etc - being informed by American acts

R - I would say so yeah, absolutely. Both those bands you’ve mentioned we’d consider really good Irish bands who we’d like to play with because I think they certainly aren’t listening to London bands, they’re listening to Vagrant and Polyvinyl and Sub Pop. I love the bands on those labels and I listen to a lot of electronic stuff off Morr Music in Berlin so between that is where we’re coming from. I feel like we’ve got nothing in common with the bands who are in the NME or on MTV2 at the minute.

I read on your blog that you’ve an interesting writing schedule that falls between 2am and 8am - is that the case right now you‘re writing and recording again?

Yep - although when I was away on honeymoon, and I don’t usually write many of the lyrics for the Oppenheimer songs, but I wrote three in the daytime and now I’m working evenings, I’m actually finishing up now (7.30pm), so it kind of has changed a bit. But the initial ideas for songs usually come between 2 and 8 and then I’ll sort them out in the cold light of day.

Is Sean made to keep the same hours then aswell?

No Sean has a tendency to drop off around one o’clock , I’ve got a really good memory of spending three hours on a really tricky vocal part and I’d occasionally look back and see Sean asleep on two office chairs with his mouth open. He doesn’t seem to function in the same hours that I do.

And you’re touring with OK Go this month, does that mean you’ll miss the Choice ceremony?

It does, we’re going to be America from the 26th which is a real shame but I can’t imagine they’re going to need a video link with us.

Ragged Words, who incidentally are torn between five or six winners, wouldn’t be so sure…