The Wander Years

“Lonnie Donegan is my granny’s cousin”, laughs Mark McCausland almost sheepishly. “That’s on my dad’s side, and on my mum’s side everyone is a musician.”

“My granny used to have a dancehall in Buncrana called The Plaza,” states Oisin Leech. “We only found this out a couple of years ago but Mark’s family band actually came and played there, way before we were even born. So my granny would have been collecting the glasses and Mark’s family band, The Moore Family, were playing.”
The Lost Brothers are ensconced in a quiet corner of Dublin’s Library Bar with Hot Press, discussing their musical heritage and current opus So Long John Fante over afternoon tea.
The album, an immaculate long-player of finely-wrought country gems, could only be created by musicians who live, breathe and perhaps have an inherited predisposition towards their craft, such is its potency.
Over the last few years they have released lauded debut Trails Of The Lonely, worked with Brendan Benson and musicians from M. Ward and Richard Hawley’s band and also contributed to a Roy Orbison tribute album at the behest of his widow Barbara.
This year (amongst sundry other live duties) they played the London Feis where they were joined on stage by The Waterboys’ Steve Wickham and Mike Scott, and they have recently returned from Other Voices New York.
“It has been a good year actually!” smiles Mark as they chronicle their various adventures over the course of our chat.
Although both Brothers hail from Ireland (Leech from Navan and McCausland from Omagh) it was as ex-pat musicians in Liverpool that the seeds of the current guise were sown. Both have experienced noteworthy levels of acclaim with previous outfits, Oisin in The 747s who toured with Brendan Benson, The Strokes and The Thrills, and Mark in The Basement whose album Illicit Hugs And Playground Thugs garnered rave reviews.
“We always kind of joked that we should start a band some day. The Basement and The 747s used to tour together a lot and after a tour we would meet up and jam,” explains Mark.
Following mutual bad experiences with their respective labels, the pair decided to join forces.
“When there’s too much money involved, there’s too much pressure and there’s too much bullshit surrounding everything,” notes Mark.
“That’s when we said, ‘Right, let’s do this our own way and just focus on the music and the fans and nothing else,” nods Oisin. “Let’s put out records ourselves without all the inbetween bits, because they’re just headaches’.”
Their debut album, the stunning Trails Of The Lonely, came together before the outfit had officially taken shape.
“The Basement had toured with M. Ward,” says Mark. “I was chatting to his producer in Portland regularly, I wanted to go over there and just hang out, and then I mentioned it to Oisin who was like, ‘I love M. Ward’s stuff!’”
“So in August we were in two separate bands, and then by November we were in Portland with an album recorded and mixed” he says.
This readiness to uproot and explore new frontiers seems to be part of The Lost Brothers’ modus operandi.
“We spent a good couple of years just going where the vibe took us,” reveals Mark. “We’d be in London and we’d get a phonecall saying, ‘I’ve got a house in Scotland and we’d really like you to play our kitchen tomorrow at noon!’ And we’d just go!”
“I remember another time we were in a house in Scotland and we got a phonecall to say Pete Doherty wanted us to open for him in Liverpool the next day. There was no way we could make it, so we said, ‘No thanks’. But somebody passed a hat around and gathered £500 and flew us down to Liverpool. So we were lucky!” chuckles Oisin.
Fortune seems to favour the band, whose work with Richard Hawley & Co. came around in similarly auspicious circumstances.
“We did a little pub gig in Sheffield and a guy called Nort – sort of a local Sheffield legend – was doing sound,” says Oisin. “After the show he said, ‘There’s a mate of mine that would really love this, and his name is Richard Hawley’. He texted Richard and that led to The Olympia support. It was that night we started chatting about making an album and we ended up recording (So Long John Fante) with the band and Colin Elliot (Hawley’s bassplayer) agreed to produce.”
Another result of their nomadic tendencies is that they have established friendships with a wide network of musicians on both sides of the Atlantic which has resulted in many fruitful projects, such as their contribution to the forthcoming Roy Orbison tribute album.
“That came about through a friend of ours called Paul Brainard (who has previously played with Richmond Fontaine). We just went to Barbara Orbison’s office in Nashville and they asked us to record a tune. They took us to the basement and gave us Roy’s back catalogue and said, ‘Pick a song!” says Oisin.
It was also Brainard who facilitated a meeting with Band veteran Levon Helm when Oisin and Mark attended a show in his home studio in Woodstock.
“He’s a complete legend and a complete gentleman as well,” beams Mark. “It was unbelievable just sitting and watching him play, he’s nearly better than he’s ever been.”
“He played for three hours and sang ‘Ophelia’ too,” chips in Oisin.
“It was like meeting Ringo,” continues Mark. “He didn’t know we were in a band, when he found out he asked us to come out and play next time we were in town.”
Another Stateside friend is Brendan Benson, who Oisin toured with on numerous occasion in The 747s.
“We just became friends over the years,” says Oisin. “ A few years ago he asked The Lost Brothers to open for him in Whelan’s. This led to an invitation to go to Nashville and record a song which just happened to turn into an album.”
So the group have another long-player ready to go?
“We’ve actually recorded four albums in total,” smiles Oisin. “One is out (Trails Of The Lonely), one is the new album (So Long John Fante) and the other two will come over the next year or so.”
Their most recent visit to the US was to Other Voices New York which saw them take to the stage with Martha Wainwright, Roddy Doyle and a host of other luminaries.
“It was great just to watch people like that,” observes Oisin. “It was a room full of emotion and everyone was there to make something special happen.”
“There was a greenroom in the back and everyone was just hanging out after the show chatting,” says Mark. “Lou Reed was there and nobody spoke to him! There was everybody and then there was Lou Reed!”
One of their other highlights of the year was the London Feis, which saw them on a bill which included Bob Dylan and Van Morrison.
“That was really cool when Mike Scott and Steve Wickham played with us,” says Mark. “They had just finished their set and then we came on and a while later we turned around and Steve was tuning his fiddle. We knew they knew the Hank Williams song we were about to play (‘Lost Highway’) and then Mike Scott jumped up on drums for ‘Under The Turquoise Sky’.
Interestingly, their debut Lost Brothers performance occurred in rather unusual circumstances.
“The first time we played together was at Electric Picnic a few years ago. We were there as punters with a bunch of friends,” Mark explains. “It was early and all the stages were closed. We just hijacked a stage and someone handed us a guitar and that’s when we first started to sing together. It sounded pretty good!”
It’s a reflection of the speed of their upward trajectory that the band opened proceedings on the Main Stage at Electric Picnic this year.
“Aye, that was a big step up from the 7 o’clock in the morning gig anyway!” laughs Mark.

So Long John Fante is out now on Bird Dog Recordings.