Michael D’Arcy, the driving force behind Wexford five-piece Corner Boy, is speaking tentatively about their traditional roots. “It seemed to us that Irish trad music has almost become ‘uncool’ for a lot of people,” he admits. “Young people, anyway. It’s something that they can’t relate to. We’ve a fi ddle and a banjo, and it’s tough for folk bands to have a banjo. The second you start playing, people go, ‘Oh yeah, Marcus Mumford!’”
You’ll be pleased to know that, when questioned, he can confi rm no member of Corner Boy will be found dead in tweed. These are no musicians permanently dressed for a barn dance. D’Arcy allows himself a laugh. And then he gets serious.
“It’s a shame that he’s [Marcus Mumford] kinda monopolised it. We’re trying to claim folk music back. With an Irish twist!” Fighting words, but you’ll forgive the young songwriter for the audible pep in his step. He’s stood on the isolated grounds of The Grouse Lodge, the storied Westmeath studio that has entertained the likes of REM and, for six months in 2006, Michael Jackson. Any single white gloves still lying around?
“Yeah, there actually is! I actually wrote about him in a song, in his room. They still have all his paintings and signatures around. It’s mad.”
D’Arcy and his Corner Boy comrades are currently treading the same ground as the late King Of Pop thanks to their summer success in this year’s Red Bull Bedroom Jam. Beating hundreds of hopefuls en route to the live final, they fended off two others at an August battle in Whelan’s to secure the week-long recording session with producer Joe Chester (“a massive gentleman”).
They’ve awoken to snowfall on day three, and D’Arcy is clearly revelling in the experience. Together only ten months, they’re more used to laying tracks down in their bedrooms.This is another level.
“Even the history of the place, the calibre of acts that have been here...” he muses. “The set-up is just second-to-none really.” He’s likely talking about the bar...
“They have a bar! They have their own library, swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi...
Their own private cinema! We haven’t used the cinema or the pool or anything like that. We’re too busy working.”
The results, to be heard in the new year, will form the band’s second EP. Known for channelling the rustic, acoustic shoutand-stomp of The Lumineers and lending it a smidgen of Irish authenticity on stage, they’re aiming to expand on that. “People are going to be very shocked when they hear our next EP. We’ve progressed and it’s a much more mature sound. We have all five of the musicians playing on the record, as opposed to two or three dropping in and out over the space of a couple of months.”
Their first release was recorded between Wexford and Montreal. Presented with the opportunity to travel abroad whilst studying in DIT a couple of years back, D’Arcy had his sights set on Canada. It appealed because of its music scene – the land of Arcade Fire and Neil Young.
From a big sporting family, while his sister was winning Camogie All-stars, a teenage D’Arcy was strumming a guitar.
“I’m kinda the black sheep!” he jokes. “I remember spending a lot of time outside of the house when I was young. I like hanging out with friends because that’s where the music was.”
A few years later, North America was offering an escape from a Wexford live scene that had become stale. “I initially went over to take a break from music. Back home I’d become disenfranchised playing the same bars or whatever.”
The change of scenery served him well.
“Instead of playing to ten people in a pub in Wexford, you’d go over there to a folk night and you’d be playing to 150 people, all listening with the most silent intent. They’d be hanging on every single word, they really cared for their music. I suppose when you surround yourself with people of a certain creative ability, you become better and stronger. The bars we were playing in were real ‘Western’ towns. Cowboys would come up and they’d leave their guns on the counter!
I was used to the same kind of introverted sort of musicians playing in the south- east. I started to think bigger and I actually became far more poetic with my lyrics.”
Armed with new material, he knew it was time to head home.
“The Irish music scene is absolutely fantastic and you don’t realise how good it is until you step out of it. So going to America... if you mention that you’re Irish or you play any sort of Irish music, you’re automatically lauded and treated like royalty. The venues that I played were incredible – 800 people at a time. Just because I was an Irish guy with a guitar! I brought that back with me.”
It instilled a sense of identity in the nascent band and filled him with a fire to challenge other folk acts with his distinctly Celtic brand of folk.
“Personally we think ‘folk’ is a dirty word. We’re trying to cultivate an Irish contemporary folk sound. The States have Edward Sharpe, The Lumineers. Britain has Mumford & Sons...”
His confidence completes the sentence for him. Not that far-fl ung ambition will lead to artistic compromise.
“We don’t want to be the next U2, none of that nonsense,” D’Arcy concludes. “We want to be happy within our own sound. To develop, progress, as musicians and songwriters. All systems go for next year.”