Bacharach to basics

Last year Saville released Somnambular Ballads, the long awaited follow-up to their acclaimed 2000 debut, Is Anybody Happier Today? Like its predecessor, it contained a veritable cornucopia of jangly, Rickenbacker-driven, infectiously memorable tunes – not all of them ballads despite the title. Exquisitely arranged, beautifully produced and deftly performed it contained more than its fair share of shining pop gems, including live favourites such as, ‘I’ve Lost Touch With The World’, ‘What’s On My Mind’ and the slow-burner, ‘There’s No Getting Over You’ (a hit-single-in-the-making if ever there was one). For the north Dublin 4-piece it represented a quantum leap in terms of song-writing and quality control and it was hailed as one of the Irish albums of the year.

But what is possibly even more impressive about Saville is their innate ability to traverse a wide range of styles and genres with apparent ease. They can not only turn their collective hands to Burt Bacharach inspired pop, (‘The End of The Affair’), Byrdsian rock (‘Don’t Let The Light Burn Out In Your Eye’) and guitar-driven indie tunes (‘Beside Myself’) but can come up with something as unexpected as the Jacques Brel-like ‘City of Engineers’ and even throw in the odd stray reggae rhythm (‘Circling The Sun’). The fact they can cut it equally well in a live context – as their recent run of Sugar Club appearances confirmed – must surely mark them as true contenders.
“I think we’re purposefully eclectic,” says the band’s frontman Ken O’Duffy, who along with his brother Vinny (bass), Tony “Tosh” Flood (guitars) and drummer Joe Fitzgerald have comprised the band’s line-up since they started. “We’ve deliberately tried not to have a definitive sound. We’d just get bored playing the same thing over and over again. My favourite album is The Beatles’ White Album, which, when you think of it, covers all of the ground musically. It goes from the folk and country of ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Rocky Racoon’ to the rock of ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Revolution 9’ - it even takes in waltz tunes and lullabies along the way. I just love the ambition and scope of that album. That’s how we like to work.”
He does accept however that Saville’s wide-ranging musical palette might occasionally work against them in today’s highly fragmented, fashion-conscious market. “Yeah I know what you mean by that,” he says. “Some people might be inclined to think that Saville as a band have no sense of direction, musically speaking. But that’s not the way we would see it. I think we have our own sound and we still use guitars on every track. It all holds together well and makes sense to us. But we will always need to try different things to keep it interesting.”
Unlike half a dozen bands we could mention, Saville aren’t part of any big movement or cosy local scene, which could be another disadvantage in terms reaching audiences. For his part, O’Duffy feels that Irish audiences don’t always seem to appreciate the merits of finely crafted pop music as much as he would like.
“Put it this way,” he says. “I go and see a band like Pugwash whenever they play live and I think they’re absolutely amazing. But they don’t get the huge crowds that other, far lesser bands seem to attract. I just don’t understand why that is. I know if they went off to England and got on the cover of whatever hip magazine they’d be huge.
“It can be frustrating. I’ve seen other bands that wouldn’t be a million miles away from us in style and it’s the same thing. But the reviewers and radio in particular have been really good to us and that has encouraged us a lot. Thank God for people like Eamon Carr and George Byrne who genuinely like the music for what it is and are prepared to stick their heads out for us. Radio has been quite good to us too. It’s been a bit surprising to us that we’ve had more daytime airplay than we’ve had on the evening shows. People like Larry Gogan and Ronan Collins have played us quite a bit and John Kelly has been very helpful as well, offering us a live session.”
Ultimately O’Duffy feels that if the band is to progress in the near future it will probably happen outside of Ireland, most likely across the Atlantic. Somnambular Ballads will be released in the US later this year and Saville are heading over to New York in October for some dates, returning again early in 2005. “We’re with Red Eye Records in the States,” explains Ken. “They look after people like Paul Weller and they’re really keen on getting us over. We’re ready for it. Apart from that there isn’t any pressure on us. We have all the songs for the next album written – it’s just a matter of getting into the studio.

Saville play at the Oxegen festival.>