Declan O'Rourke: "For a while, music simply wasn’t my daily MO. I didn’t write anything musical for two or three years"

One of the most acclaimed Irish artists of his generation, whose fans have numbered such luminaries as Paul Weller, Paul Brady and Chris Rea, following the release of 2021’s Arrivals, Declan O’Rourke decided to take a well-earned break from music.

However, the singer-songwriter – a Dublin native based for many years in Galway – certainly kept busy in the ensuing years, first publishing the novel that had always half-threatened to emerge from his lyrics anyway, titled The Pawnbroker’s Reward. A couple of years later, O’Rourke would also publish an equally well-received follow-up, A Whisper From Oblivion.

Although the singer returns to the musical fold with this month’s Oceanic, he clearly enjoyed the different perspective afforded by his years away from the studio.

“For a while, music simply wasn’t my daily MO,” explains O’Rourke. “I didn’t write anything musical for two or three years. That disruption to the songwriting cycle was a huge gap for me. But writing prose filled that creative need and ticked the same box, artistically speaking. It’s funny, when  I came out of that phase, I was like, ‘How do you do this again? What is songwriting?!’

“I knew I had to let the music find its way back to me. Eventually, these songs for Oceanic began to sketch themselves and inch along as musings in a hobbyist way. Before I knew it, I had a whole bunch of songs.”

Even still, he struggled to bring them to fruition at home in Ireland. It wasn’t until he received a call from Irish folk giant Luka Bloom that O’Rourke began to see a home for his songs. Bloom phoned O’Rourke to tell him about an upcoming film that he thought he was perfect for.

The film, Almost With You, follows an Irish folk singer in Australia, much like O’Rourke himself, who struggles with loss and performance paralysis, only to find the solution through community and love. Despite never having acted, O’Rourke decided to audition for the lead role, and got it, travelling to Australia to film. In the meantime, the singer looked for a studio to bring his new music to life.

At once, the wider project started to fall into place. O’Rourke tapped his longtime friend Jim Moginie, of the Aussie rock band Midnight Oil, to aid in the helming of Oceanic, who offered up his home studio. Journeying back to the land that inspired his first album, Declan says it’s been, “a long and winding road leading to the studio in Sydney where we recorded Oceanic”.

Jim Moginie

“It was a beautiful album to make, in terms of the energy around it,” he continues. “Then there was the environment it was created in and the people involved. Jim and I always talked about doing something together. We had written songs, hung out many times, even shared stages together. He assembled a band for me based on the demos I sent and what we thought they needed.”

While O’Rourke may have already been familiar with Australia, Oceanic nonetheless saw him venture into some fresh creative terrain. To start, it’s the first time we hear the guitar virtuoso go all in on the piano.

“When the time came to record with the band, I was worried the piano songs I worked on were too slow or dragging,” O’Rourke says bashfully. “But there was a lovely experience where we all sat together and they asked me to play through the song ‘O Deepest Sorrow’ for them.

“Slowly, they started adding little notes here and there, and then they just hit it on the nose. All in one take. It moved the needle so much that the tempo felt absolutely right and had a real gravity to it. The band knew exactly how to fill the space and not make it sound too slow. The hairs were standing on the back of my neck. I felt so uplifted.”

He warms to the theme.

“My shift towards piano for this album wasn’t a conscious effort,” Declan resumes. “After the last record, I was finally able to buy a piano, which I had always wanted to do. I went to Germany and found this old Blüthner one that had such beautiful character, and it even survived two world wars.

“I moved it over here to Ireland and had been tinkering on it ever since. Eventually the songs started to fall out. I’ve said to people this record wrote itself, and that’s a prime example of it.”

Whether you call it “divine inspiration”, “flow state” or simply letting the thing write itself, the tension between conscious creation and an unconscious channelling of the muse speaks to the magic of making music. Woody Guthrie used to maintain his songs had already existed for millenia, and that he plucked them from the air. Music’s great sage Bob Dylan even once said that Van Morrison’s song ‘Astral Weeks’ “might have been there for thousands of years, sailing around in the mist, and one day… Van Morrison came by”. I’m curious if O’Rourke considers himself a leader or a follower of his own craft.

“Interesting,” he says, pausing to mull over the question. “It’s a combination of actively engaging with the music and letting it wash over you. You’re constantly waiting for inspiration. A number of years ago, I learned that you’re basically in control of the music. You can wait for it like a bolt of lightning, or you can look at it like a tap. All you have to do is reach out to turn on the tap.

“You have to engage with your musical craft to keep the wheels greased and the gears turning, but if we’re talking about lyrical content, that’s different. A long time ago, I made the conscious decision to be a driver of my own writing. When I was trying to become a songwriter at 19, I found myself with this little collection of songs, but I didn’t quite know what they were about.”

Subsequently, the singer had something of an artistic breakthrough.

“When I wrote them, I let them just roll out and it was only after writing that I’d try to find their meaning,” he notes. “Some of them might’ve stemmed from passing thoughts, or maybe an argument I’d had with somebody. But I told myself that I wasn’t going to continue doing that.

“I stopped writing for about a year, and figured I would approach it in a way where I know exactly what I’m trying to say and achieve. Today, I approach music methodically, but I’ll always leave room for inspiration to spark.”

Much of O’Rourke’s music is unflinchingly personal, and Oceanic dives especially deep. Indeed, in his search for genuinely powerful songs, he at times struggled. One of the standouts,  ‘The Magic Road To Anywhere’, is a case in point.

“That song was a real struggle for me,” he reflects. “I’ll share a moment with you I haven’t really told anyone else. The day I arrived at Jim’s home studio, we played through all the songs. But when I played him ‘The Magic Road To Anywhere’, I broke down immediately afterwards. I found it very hard to speak about. It wouldn’t have made it on the album if Jim didn’t push me. I’m very glad he did.

“The song is about a childhood friend of mine who struggled with addiction, and that magic road is the escape that substance abuse can offer. I wrote it many years ago. I had this idea that I’d play it for him and ask if he’d be alright with me putting it out, out of respect to him and his feelings. Sadly, he passed away before I got to do that. It didn’t feel right to put it out for a while. The song always hung around and kept saying, ‘Hey, look at me!’, but I struggled any time I tried to play it.

“But one day, my eight-year-old son was sitting in the car with me as I was playing through the mixes on the stereo. ‘The Magic Road To Anywhere’ came on and he went quiet, just listening to it. When it got to the line, ‘I lost my little brother when a stolen car rolled over’, he said, ‘No, you didn’t! That never happened!’ I tried to explain to him that I was singing as my friend and telling his story.”

Whether on screen, record or page, O’Rourke’s art carries a shape-shifting quality, as he sometimes settles into the voices of other characters to relay his stories. Music was his preferred medium for a long time, but as he’s ventured into new creative realms, O’Rourke finds that the title “singer-songwriter” doesn’t quite encapsulate the breadth of his output.

But I’m curious if his art ultimately all stems from the same source.

“Yes, definitely,” he nods. “I realised that when I was writing literature. Before that, I wouldn’t have seen music and literature as similar, and I never had any great desire to write a book. But once I got into that vein of writing prose, it felt very familiar.

“I had always identified myself as a songwriter, but I realised I’m actually just a creative person, and that the medium is not so critical. Other people want to put you in boxes, and decide you’re better at one thing than another. But the creative process is bigger than that – it’s a form of expression through whichever means. It should have no limits.”

• Oceanic is out now. Declan O’Rourke plays Vicar Street, Dublin tonight, October 17.