Boys To Men

I’m sitting in a corner of a Dublin hotel with The Original Rudeboys. Except that I’m not. I’m seated with a trio of young Dubliners now known – henceforth and forevermore – as O.R.B. Okay lads, let’s get this name change out of the way. Why the abbreviation?

“The fans gave us the idea,” says guitarist and singer (and Gerard Piqué dead ringer) Robert Burch. So the abbreviation is no brainwave from a marketing meeting. That’s heartening.
“Since day one it’s always been abbreviated: The ORBs, O.R.B…”
“It’s a teenage thing,” interjects rapper Sean “Neddy” Arkins with a smirk. “They have to shorten everything! If you started with O.R.B, no doubt they’d change that down to O.B! Or ‘O’!”
In fact, it was the band themselves that approached the label over the moniker switch. They were initially hesitant given the commercial success of 2012 debut, This Life, but the trio knew it made logical sense for fans and, most importantly, would stop cabbies wondering if they were a Specials cover act.
“When you’re getting a taxi, like we were today, you get: ‘What are you doing today lads? Ah, interviews? Oh, you’re in a band? Original Rudeboys? What’s that, ska music?’ It is mainly the older generation.”
And, as ukulele man Sean Walsh, points out: “We never expected it to go beyond Ned’s couch!”
It’s gone a whole lot further than that. Since the release of that platinum-selling album in March 2012, these hip-hop enthusiasts from Dublin’s East Wall have been earning fans left, right and centre. Near-hysterical teens flocked in their droves to a public interview with yours truly at last year’s Indiependence, and it wasn’t the journo they were there to see (incredibly).
“Before the band we were getting screamed at,” deadpans Arkins. “But it was ‘ya bastard! Ya prick!”
“That was from our mas!” says Walsh, who also confesses to have been using the online wing of their fanbase – “the tweejits” as he likes to call them – as a kind of collective conscious Google. “For instance, yesterday I asked where you can buy a USB stick in town. I had replies two minutes later. Genuinely, everything you need you can get!”
They’ve established a close connection with the audience since day one.
“We have a weird relationship with the fans. They don’t look at us like superstars, they look at us like we’re mates… You don’t want to treat anybody any differently, that’s the way we look at it. We want to spend as much time with these people as we would with the likes of The Script.”
As the sole single member of the band, you imagine Walsh is also enjoying the attentions of their of-the-age female admirers.
“I get a lot of propositions via-Facebook mails, is all I’ll say. Not that I take up on them!”
Arkins smiles. “Everything’s just for him. All the birds for Walshy! Any propositions for the band are always just sent on to Walshy! We filter them for him, the good and the bad.”
“It’s nice, to say the least!” beams Walsh. “It’s 
less work.”
In fairness, he’s had quite the workload of late. Turning around a second album two years on from a debut is a relatively brisk rate these days, when you consider they’ve been touring like the clappers in the intervening period. Most notably – for many reasons – was a support slot on The Script’s European tour last year.
Danny O’Donoghue and co have taken the younger act under their wing. Their work rate alone has been an inspiration.
“Every day they were writing, recording…” says Walsh. “Every single day on the road. They just wanted to knock it out, knock it out. That’s the way we want to keep on working, we don’t want to lose the momentum. Just keep the ball rolling.”
Not that that stops O.R.B. continuing to rubbish claims from The Script’s camp that they can drink them under the table.
“We’ve trashed them on numerous occasions on tour,” says Burch. “We’ll let them save face…”
Arkins announces dramatically: “All I’ll say is that talk is cheap. And a pint of Guinness is cheaper!”
Burch: “That being said, they are serious session heads alright.”
Walsh: “They don’t look it… but they definitely are!”
Burch: “It was the wee hours of the morning every night.”
Walsh: “Every night. And this was on a 30-
date tour!”
Burch: “Getting back on the tour bus at six in the morning absolutely smashed drunk!”
Arkins reins in his bandmates with a nod to my tape recorder. “I think you’re giving away too much there lads!”
To matters musical then. All We Are finds O.R.B. less green and more confident in their studio surroundings. They’ve added textures, trying to capture a big sound befitting the stages they grace these days. Recording took place between August and November with This Life producer Jake Gosling, with Mark ‘Duck’ Blackwell at the helm for several tracks including the two singles thus far. The first of those, ‘Never Gonna Walk Away’ arrived late last year and scooped Meteor Song Of The Year in February.
In terms of album influences, everything from Rage Against The Machine to The 1975’s brand of hooky guitar-pop has gone into the mix. On ‘Never Alone‘, usual MC Arkins even tries his hand at some old-fashioned crooning.
“Not only is it a bigger sound than what we had on the first album,” says Burch, “but we’re doing something new. Showcasing Ned’s ability to sing. It’ll be interesting to see what fans think about Ned switching it up. I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised. But as a band, no matter what, we can’t get away from the Irish hip hop thing. It’s always going to be Irish hip hop.”
Still a strange concept to some in this country, Arkins’ ’straight outta East Wall’ rapping has occasionally been subject to criticism.
“What are the options?” Arkins says to the hypothetical haters. “Do you want me to do it in an American accent? Would that fit into your little commercial world? Or should we just make the songs that you’re hearing on the radio? In that case, knock us off when you’re listening to your radio!”
Walsh notes that it is chiefly an issue in 
their hometown.
“When we got criticised over the ‘Dublin rapping’, it was only in Dublin that it was happening. Everywhere outside loved it: ‘Oh, I love your accent!’”
Central to the O.R.B ethos is creating a vibe that brings the reality of their Northside lives to the four corners of the world. They want their records to be evocative of Dublin in the 21st Century.
“You want music to bring you to a place when you listen to it,” says Walsh. “You listen to Tupac and you’re in California, you listen to Wu Tang and you’re in New York City. We wanted to bring people to Dublin City. Let people know what’s happening in our lives.”
“It’s true that when you listen to certain songs, they give you an idea of what that place is,” says Burch. “Like Walshy said, when you listen to Tupac’s ‘To Live & Die In LA’, it’s like you’re walking down the streets of LA. It captures the whole vibe of the city in a song. That’s a credit to the artist, to the songwriter, to get that across. So I think with (All We Are track) ‘Last Of A Nation’, we were definitely trying to get across what Ireland has been like for the past five years. Where people are just heading off and living their life somewhere else.”
“Everyone you talk to nowadays, especially the younger ones, 99% of them will answer you differently when you ask them what they want to do in life,” says Arkins. “But the majority of them will say, ‘I don’t want to do it here’. Or ‘I have to go to do it’… Friends of ours. When we played Australia, there were more of the lads over there than there is here.”
O.R.B have taken This Life around the world. As 
they prepare to do it all again with album number two, you know the difference is that they’ll always come back.
Two years on from our first meeting in the Library Bar, Burch admits that “it’s like nothing has changed at all. I don’t even feel older.”
Arkins doesn’t miss a beat: “You certainly look it!”
“I definitely have got more wrinkles on the old face,” Burch continues. “But you don’t feel like you’ve changed yourself at all, you just watch the progression of your music. Which is really cool.”
Walsh reckons their ability to remember where they came from probably has a lot to do with the fact that, well… they still live there.
“The area we live in is very run-of-the-mill, everyone knows everyone. I moved back recently. We came back from a three month tour with The Script and the first thing people are asking me is if I’m playing football on Monday night. They’re not asking you about the tours, about the lifestyle. It brings you back down to Earth, coming from the area we’re from. People won’t let you lose the head. That’s a beautiful thing, it’s hard to get lost in it. The working classes we live with will always keep you grounded.”