Music Is The Only Place I Feel Confident

It’s a warm, lilac-scented spring day in Paris. I’m here to intercept Conor J. O’Brien of Irish act, Villagers, who are playing a gig tonight in La Maroquinerie. As missions go, it’s a hugely attractive one.

In 2010, Villagers’ beautiful debut album, Becoming A Jackal, was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, catapulting the act to well-deserved and rapidly expanding international acclaim. Better still, it was named the Hot Press Album of the Year, seeing off every other contender, both Irish and international. This guy is on a hot streak, but one that is fuelled by O’Brien’s own special brand of deeply emotional misanthropy.
Appropriately, Hot Press photographer Mark Nixon and I meet O’Brien and his band near the famous yew-forested cemetery of Pére Lachaise, wherein lie the graves of Oscar Wilde, Collette, Chopin, Proust, Jim Morrison and other cultural luminaries. What better backdrop for a conversation with the man behind the dramatic poetry of Villagers?
The quality of presence is noticeable in O’Brien the moment we shake hands. He has a warm smile and intelligent eyes, framed by unusually long eye-lashes. Immediately I feel at ease in his company – there’s no big ego to contend with here. As we stroll along Parisian walkways, he asks politely how my journey was, and quietly describes the big house in Malahide, County Dublin, that he shares with six friends and Casey, his dog.
O’Brien’s aura extends way beyond his petite, well-proportioned physique. He has the clear skin of a vegetarian, and could pass as a decade younger than his 28 years, although he’s clearly a very old soul.
“I have to bring my ID everywhere,” he smiles. “My dad said he had to do the same till he was about 35. Although this year I’ve started getting proper white hairs, so it’s not gonna last for much longer! My plan is to grow a beard and get really fat for the next album. Actually no, that’s probably more of a third album thing. I’ll call it Steak And Bourbon!”
Wry humour and gentle irony seem to inform Conor O’Brien’s view of the world. But there is, as we will discover, more to his take on human life and its vicissitudes than that. Both interested and interesting, he strikes me as an observer and a listener by nature, and someone who is very kind. As we take seats at a table in a streetside café, I notice the close rapport and stream of in-jokes between O’Brien and his band members, Tommy McLaughlin, James Byrne, Danny Snow and Cormac Curran.
The talk turns to how overtly political the French are compared to the Irish, and how musicians and artists generally tend to be left-leaning. Does O’Brien see himself as a political beast?
“Peace, love and understanding are my politics,” he says. “But I don’t even like the word ‘politics’; my brain doesn’t really work that way. When I was a teenager I devoured Noam Chomsky and No Logo by Naomi Klein, and all that stuff, and I still go on demonstrations, but I’m not interested in making pronouncements in Hot Press about politics. The only thing I’m interested in publicly is giving my songs to people. I’m uncomfortable with anything outside of that. So you’re in for a good interview!”
He laughs. “Music is the only place I feel confident. I don’t feel that confident in any other aspects of things that people might hear that I’ve said or done.”
“Do you get nervous doing interviews?” I ask.
“I hate them, to be honest. I don’t feel particularly articulate.”
“You actually are very articulate,” I parry. “And it’s obvious that you’re well read.”
“I think people have this idea that I’m well read,” O’Brien responds with genuine humility. “Last year when Becoming A Jackal came out, I talked about the author Herman Hesse, because I was reading his stuff when I was making it. And suddenly every interview I did after that, everyone was, ‘So, you read loads of books?’ But I have friends who’ve read a hell of a lot more than I have.
“A lot of my songs, if you listen to the lyrics, they deal with the self relating to society, and problems with dealing with that, and de-personalisation. So if you were going to interview somebody who has all these problems, there must be something in the songs that shows I’m not going to have an easy time talking about myself to people. Because that’s what I write about and that’s what I sing about. “The reason that I put those words into songs is because I can’t express them any other way,” he adds. “I’m not particularly social as a person; I don’t go out very much, and I have a very small group of friends. I’m quite private. And I’m not really interested in anything other than presenting my songs to people. So as you can imagine, the interview process is quite strange for me.”
He freewheels on.
“I don’t know if I’d be able to do anything other than music. I don’t know if I’d survive. I think it’s the only way I can communicate. Which is why I’m doing it.”
But this is where the story starts to get interesting.

Conor O’Brien makes no bones about the fact that his background was a relatively privileged one. Still the origins of his art lie in his childhood. Haltingly, he recalls how he was a big talker in school until he was about 12-years-old. But there was a moment when he began to suffer from intense anxiety around social situations. Luckily, while he was losing his social voice, he was finding his feet as a musician.
“I was popular in school when I was very young,” he recalls, “but when I became a teenager I completely shut down, and I didn’t enjoy secondary school at all. It was a real struggle for me to go to college too – I studied English and Sociology at UCD – because I was so sick of institutions. In college I just kept my head down and got through it. But I used to have to refuse to do presentations, because I would physically clam up. I had huge problems with speaking in public, and I still have. I remember I had an amazing English tutor in college who I told all this to. I said, ‘Look, I know you want me to do presentations every week, but I’m telling you now I’m not going to, because I can’t. I’m gonna put a hell of a lot of work into my written essays instead’. He accepted that, and we actually had a really good relationship after that. When my previous band, The Immediate, started getting into the press, this tutor started following us, and we discussed the weirdness of how I’m sort of pushing myself into the public sphere to a certain degree, whilst completely running away from it at the same time! So I’ve got that dichotomy going on I guess.
“The strange thing is that a lot of the songs I write actually deal with that – with presenting yourself in every day life and being a social creature, a part of society, and how you relate to that.”
I comment on how he’s very open about expressing what a lot of people might see as an admission of vulnerability.
“I think a lot of people suffer from social anxiety, big style,” he proffers. “Way more than many of us admit.”
Since we’re on the subject of social anxiety, and knowing that O’Brien is an animal-lover, I tell him about my seven-year-old autistic son, who is being helped enormously with his confidence in social situations by Cosmo, our specially-trained autism assistance dog. I notice how compassionate and non-judgemental O’Brien is as I describe my son’s immense difficulties and challenges. It triggers an important memory for him.
“I used to have a friend in primary school who was autistic,” he recalls. “And everyone bullied him. I’ll never forget it. You know one of those memories when you’re a kid? You really remember those moments that form the rest of your life. You’re at a crossroads and you either turn one way or the other. I remember my autistic friend being so much a part of that. A lot of my songs are directed towards him; because a lot of my songs are directed towards things that happened in my childhood.
“I would’ve gone to school with this boy from the age of 7 to 10 or 11, in Booterstown, near Dun Laoghaire where I grew up. It’s one thing that always stuck in my head, the way a crowd gathered. I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing that happen. The other kids were just completely verbally and physically abusive to him. They recognised that he had a disability; he would be quite slow about picking things up, and a bit confused sometimes about things in the playground.”
Suddenly concern spreads across the singer-songwriter’s face. He’s worried that the boy’s family might read this interview and feel upset by what he’s saying. Concern for others crops up regularly when you’re talking to Conor O’Brien. I reassure him that he’s only speaking out of respect for his childhood friend, and urge him to go on describing what was clearly a hugely formative experience.
“I’m not saying I was a saint,” he adds, “but I do remember making a conscious effort to be friends with this boy. And I remember that seeing the way he was bullied was a formative thing in my brain, and I think it’s quite connected to the themes the album has…”
He pauses.
“What themes?, I prompt”
“About the negative aspects of humanity!” O’Brien laughs, as if there’s nothing else to do. “Sometimes I see life as a continual trampling on your initial rosy-tinted view of the world. And your way of dealing with that is how you conduct yourself in the world. So, I guess I write songs. Not that I’ve been trampled all over – I’ve had a relatively privileged life compared to a hell of a lot of people. I don’t want to give a boo-hoo story. I had an immaculately amazing childhood. I had a beautiful family, lovely friends, but I just had a few social anxiety problems, which I probably haven’t fully dealt with at all. But in terms of life’s problems, that’s pretty low on the radar. I’ve been incredibly lucky. Which is probably why I’ve had the time to hone a certain art, and I’m very grateful and thankful for that.
“But the reason I wrote the songs on Becoming A Jackal, and the reason it deals with a lot of the most negative aspects of human beings, such as their scavenging, is because that’s all I could see for a while. And I needed to write about it, so that’s what I did. I hope it wasn’t just therapy, because that’s a bad reason to make art. I really made an effort not to just give something that would make sense to only me. I wanted the music to form a bridge to the listener, so that ultimately this thing which comes from a negative place would have a significance in a social world. So every time I wrote a song, I would imagine singing it to a group of people. I wanted to be helpful – I had these really vague ideas about being helpful through the words. I wanted to imagine being able to hear it when I was sixteen or seventeen or eighteen. Because music was my complete lifeline back then. I was 100% obsessed with it since I was quite young. I just finished reading this Kurt Vonnegut book – here I’m sounding like a reading man again! – and one of the quotes in it is that music is the only proof of the existence of God.
“I don’t think what we’re doing as a band is particularly profound or new, and I don’t care. I don’t want to be self-consciously modern. I feel very much tied to a tradition or a lineage. Sometimes I feel like I’m part of the original American blues tradition, or sometimes I feel like I’m part of a folk tradition. Recently I’ve been listening to old Irish folk songs, like The Dubliners’ and Christy Moore’s take on traditional songs, because I’ve been looking for one to learn. I guess when you grow up in suburban Dublin during the Celtic Tiger, you don’t really have any tradition to follow. You can á la carte pick things from here and there, so you’re kind of forging your own one. But I feel that’s OK; I don’t feel that I want to be part of a new movement, and I don’t feel that our album sounds particularly modern.
“To me, the blues is the root of everything. It’s the most natural thing. They did a survey on slave owners in 18th century America, and they found out there was a higher proportion of suicides among the slave owners than there was among the slaves. And the reason was because the slaves had the blues – they sang it, and they knew how to bring it out. I think that’s a pretty accurate definition of the blues. It’s a social medium, a way of showing other people that you’re not alone in the feelings and the hardship.
“At the time when I was writing the album, all I could see in people was these pitiful creatures, scrounging, pretending that our civilisation is making us better than other creatures in the world, when in fact we’re exactly the same. Or worse – in fact we are worse, because we’re actually killing the world, we’re destroying it. The people in power don’t have the masses in their heart at all, they just have themselves. And everyone knows this – it isn’t a new, profound thought that I’m having, but I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I just thought I’ll do what I do best and I’ll try to make some music out of it. The album came from that. I wanted to make something beautiful out of these ugly thoughts, because I didn’t know what else to do with them. I think they’re quite emotional songs. The reason I wrote them was because it was the only place I could put these emotions. I had a lovely gift of being able to use instruments and stuff, and so I could make a little home for these difficult feelings.”
Art out of ugliness. It is what you might describe as more than a fair trade. But is there another dimension to it, a more personal one? I ask whether O’Brien suffers from depression.
“I’ve never known whether it’s depression,” he says. “I’ve personally had really dark moments, as does everyone. I wouldn’t want to over dramatise though. There’s certain songs on the album, like one called ‘The Meaning Of The Ritual’, which says, ‘My love is selfish, and I bet yours is too/ What is this peculiar word called truth/ My love is selfish and it cares not who it hurts/ It will cut you out to satisfy its thirst’. Which sounds incredibly cynical and horrible. But I’ve had some people come up to me after shows saying, ‘I’m so happy that you sang those words, because that’s the way I’ve felt but I haven’t wanted to say it’. I’m not blowing my own trumpet at all, but it’s really affected me when someone says that, I’m like, ‘Awesome, thank you, I’m so happy that you said that’. So I think songs like that aren’t really depressing at all, because you’re taking them from a place that you feel is a shared place that other people have.
“The most depressing music is shit like this.” O’Brien waves his hands at the commercial pop playing in the background of the café that we’re sitting in. “It actually builds up barriers and walls and makes people feel even more isolated. It sounds like money talking.”
Continuing with alienation as a theme, O’Brien says he feels more like an onlooker than a full participant.
“I haven’t really felt part of the whole game that everyone plays. Ever since I was a kid I’ve felt like I’ve been standing at the side watching things. Even when I’m with like-minded people, I feel strangely alone in the crowd. I’d love to have a cause where I feel part of something bigger. Maybe I’m still searching for it; I’ve still got time.”
What do you mean by “a cause”?
“Something you’d want to die for. I used to read loads of George Orwell – Homage To Catalonia, that’s my favourite. The Spanish Civil War, I remember getting really into that, imagining the English and Irish people who went over and helped. I recently did a gig for the Mariners Museum in Dun Laoghaire, and through that I found out from a friend of mine, a really good singer-songwriter called Rhob Cunningham, about this guy called John de Courcy Ireland. He was a famous mariner and socialist and academic, and he wrote a lot of essays about the importance of the sea on civilisation. And his wife – they were a totally right-on couple – when the Spanish Civil War started, she went over and became a cook for the resistance. He was an honorary fellow of so many different socialist organisations around the world.
“I remember reading all about this guy and going ‘wow, what a life!’ What am I doing with my life? He had a cause from when he was very young. And maybe that’s the sign of the times. I think technology is turning us into drones. I never wanted a Twitter and a Facebook and all that stuff, but I was kind of forced to by the music industry. But now I do it because it’s a good way of keeping in touch with people, it’s all good. But then I’m thinking, a year and a half ago I wasn’t spending all my time doing this, I would’ve been writing a song instead. So I’m gonna give it up again in a couple of months. I’m gonna say ‘bye bye’ to the internet and return to my little wooden guitar and write some more songs.”
Recently, O’Brien has found himself drawn to reading about world religions.
“I’ve started a notebook about different religions; their practices, and their beliefs about the soul. I’m interested to see how Ancient Egypt viewed the soul, and their ideas about death, or the lack thereof. And all the symbolism attached to that, and any sort of patterns that keep re-emerging over the history of human culture about the way we deal with ideas of the soul and the afterlife. The most beautiful things in the world can come from religion, and the most ugly evil things as well. That also interests me.”
What are your studies leading you to conclude?
“I’m very happy to have no conclusions,” O’Brien states. “I think if I had to label myself, I’d just be a humanist. I don’t see the reason for tagging ourselves, or deciding that we know everything about the world we live in. I’m very aware of my ignorance, and how small and tiny I am. Not just physically (laughs) but metaphysically. I don’t want to tread in any way on the idea of worshipping a god or religion, because if your intentions for doing that are pure, that can be the most beautiful thing in the world – having a higher order, or something transcending your physical being, or the idea of an overall creator.”
Last year, during the same week that saw the release of Becoming A Jackal, O’Brien’s older sister passed away. Did the notion of the soul and the afterlife become more of a burning question as a result, and is that why O’Brien is on that path of study now?
“Yes, probably,” he says, and falls silent.
“Is it something you feel you can talk about?” I ask.
“I probably could, but I’d prefer not to have my family bothered. Having said that, I probably will end up talking about it eventually, because you can’t help but write about big things like that, which change your life. As a writer, there’s no way it’s not going to enter into my work. But I’d prefer to figure it out through the medium of songs, rather than through the medium of interviews.
“Also, I don’t think I’d have anything helpful to say about it at the moment. I haven’t really come out of it. I think once you can sort of look back on something, you can objectify it a little bit. But grief does bring families together in a really weird way. It makes everyone realise how important we are to each other. And the one thing that I’ve gotten from last year, is the importance of a sense of humour. I think if you don’t laugh at life, you’re fucked.”

Darkness into light. The ability to laugh is so important – and there’s humour in abundance in the way O’Brien and the other band members interact.
“The band is getting so good now, I feel that it’s a shame not to present us as a band rather than just me on my own,” O’Brien says. “Even though I wrote the songs, it becomes a completely different beast with their influence. Their influence is a huge part of this thing. I couldn’t have found a better group of guys. To be honest, I thought the band would be much more fluid when I first started. I thought there’d be people coming and going. But things have settled down, and now this is the best band I could possibly ask for. And they’re very laid back. We’re not old men, but we’ve all paid our dues on the circuit to a certain degree, so we don’t have that uptightness which you have when you’re first in a band, when you feel that everything needs to go a certain way. We’ve done all that, so it’s much more loose.”
In the dressing room just before Villagers take to the Parisian stage, I observe the band’s close solidarity, and I see how they support O’Brien. In his ability to admit his social vulnerabilities, he’s actually very strong. Now I watch him step into his real power, as a performer and a channeller of transformative emotion onstage.
“OK guys, I think it’s hug time,” he says, moments before the show opens. In a tender display of camaraderie, the whole band, their sound engineer and tour manager put their arms around each others’ shoulders and their heads together. They hum in unison for a few seconds; then O’Brien breaks free and runs out , alone for now.
What follows is a blazing storm of a gig that thrills and elates. There’s an extra ingredient in O’Brien’s voice – a howling intensity and depth – that lifts his music beyond the realms of excellence. What really speaks to these French fans is his empathy for and understanding of human alienation.
Because who of us hasn’t felt it?

Becoming A Jackal is out now on Domino. Villagers play @ The Park in Marlay Park, Dublin (July 23) with Beach House and then head to the Sea Sessions, Bundoran (24 to 26)