Killin' Time

We chat to Rónán O'Snodaigh, lead singer of Kila, ahead of their St Patrick's Day gig

Trad-fusion heroes Kila have been around the block, burnishing their reputation as an excellent live band and consistently putting out original, innovative music. We interviewed lead singer Rónán O'Snodaigh in our March issue ahead of their St Patrick's Day gig at The Olympia. Here's the full run-down of our interview.


To start off, how would you describe your music to people?
Passionate! As soon as I start leaving that word, it gets a bit hazy. 

And would you still use that to describe the new album, Sóisín?
It is very passionate – it’s just very quiet and reflective. People sometimes associate passion with rage and all that.

Was it difficult to go into a more reflective, mellow place with your music?
No, it’s very easy. It was difficult to release it, to get everyone behind it and saying ‘we’re going to do it’. That was the tough part, as we’d maybe be more of a party band.

When you say ‘get everyone behind it’, do you mean within your band?
Yeah, within ourselves. We don’t usually move unless we get a united front.

Is that the policy you adopt to issues in general within the band? Because you’ve been playing together so long, I’m sure things have come up.
I suppose so, yeah. We’d generally work together, or people would go and do solo projects. If we’re doing something, we’re all in.

For you personally, going to an all-instrumental approach after being the primary singer, was it difficult, easy or a relief?
Relief is the word! Sure, you can have thoughts scratching your head like ‘am I used up? Is this all I’ve got to say?’ But music is simple, you just go with it. That’s the theory anyway: music commands, we follow.

Looking at that album, where you were really able to decide the direction, what was it like by contrast collaborating on the soundtrack for The Secret of Kells?
That was gorgeous. We’ve been doing that since our college days – it’s easy peazy.

But what’s it like? Do you have an outline of what the film is? 
Ah yeah, you get as much information as you can. Each project is different, though. 

Another thing coming up, of course, is the Paddy’s Day gig here. Is there a different atmosphere playing on Paddy’s Day as opposed to other concerts?
You might go into fifth gear a little more. You’re not reflective, you’re celebrating. There are people who need a lift-off – on Paddy’s night, people are already out and on a high. You’re just coming in to swing them. 

Do you think you’ll park some of the material you used for Sóisín?
Some, but we’ll use some of it! There’s a delicate balance – at each gig, you’ve got to hope that you’re in tune with your music and the people you’re going to play for, because you can get it completely wrong. Sometimes people want to hear stuff that’s quiet or emotional, and sometimes they don’t want to hear it at all. Sometimes, after hearing the reaction to one tune, you’ll go ‘ok, skip the next one’ and move. You’re tweaking it as you go.

At this stage you guys have mastered it better than most.
Yeah, but it’s not an exactly science. You can get cocky and think you know better, but you can still make really silly mistakes. 
Sometimes with people starting out – great musicians and writers that to wonderful things in the studio – do you find that they’d struggle to get that feeling to doing live shows?
Of course. When you’re doing live shows, you’ve interference in your mind: there are people in front of you. In a studio, you’ve just got to deal with yourself, your music, and maybe the engineer. But in a gig, somebody might turn around and talk to someone at the left hand side of your viewpoint. That might completely distract you, make you forget your words or make you think you’re crap and want to give up. You need live practice to do live gigs, because it’s not a television show. There are real life people there and real things happening in front of you.

What was the last ‘howler’ onstage that you had?
I’d say that’s in the pit of my memory, not to be dragged up. I’ve done any daft thing you can remember: fallen on my back, sang my lines in the wrong place, anything. You just get over it.

One of the areas where you guys really cut your live teeth was the Dublin street scene of the 80s. Do you think there’s a similar vibe today?
I can’t really speak because I haven’t been busking for a few years. If there’s something going on, I can’t say it’s not up to the standard of what we were at. But at the time when we were there, people went off and they did their busk for a tenner or whatever money they needed, and then they joined forces for fun. You played 90 per cent of the time for fun and about 10 per cent for money. That’s a bit of a change. What we did, I suppose, was that loads of us got together. It’s hard to explain – I suppose it’s like you’re playing football with a friend and, all of a sudden, you go out and there’s another eight people every week waiting for that game of football. It amplifies the whole feeling and the fun of it so much more. 

Do you enjoy it as much as you did then?
Sometimes, yeah. Life gets a bit bigger, when you’ve other responsibilities and other things to attend to. And you’ve other aims. Sometimes, people have an aim and, when they get to it, they put it aside and say ‘that’s done now’. Before, their whole focus was that aim, that jump, that thing you wanted to do – all of a sudden, that’s not your focus anymore. But I’m still in love with music, very much so.