The Full Picture This Cover Story

Ryan Hennessy doesn’t appear particularly tortured when you meet him, but this man has suffered for his art. Severely.

“I got this tattoo done in honour of the new record,” says the Picture This singer, as he pulls back his bottom lip to reveal both gleaming gnashers and ‘MDRN LV’ inked there in spidery blue lettering. “I’ve never felt pain like it. It hurt sooooo bad!”

Worse than childbirth, I imagine.

“Probably not,” he laughs, “but it’s the sorest thing I’ve ever experienced! Like most of my tattoos, I got it done in Live Fast on College Green. They’re great in there.”

Since the last time our paths crossed at Electric Picnic – more of which anon – Ryan has also had ‘L_VE’ tattooed onto his right hand.

“He did it for me when we were in America,” Ryan says nodding at his bandmate Jimmy Rainsford, who turns out to be as adept with a needle as he is a drumstick. I assume there was drink involved…

“No, we were totally sober,” he insists. “Jimmy sterilised everything and did it sort of prison-style. We’ve got all the needles and other kit from my guy in Dublin. I love it because it’s so simple. I also have one on up here that says ‘LA’ and some flowers on my knee, that Owen (Cardiff, the band’s second guitarist) did.”

6ix9ine eat your heart out!

WALKING THE LINE

Getting its title inked onto one of his tactile sensory organs might seem extreme, but Ryan and the chaps are right to be excited about Picture This’ new album. From thumping vocodery start (‘Modern Love’) to romantic card on the tables finish (‘Everything Or Nothing’), it’s an all killer, no filler collection of pop tunes that matches the band’s stated ambition of becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. They proved they’ve got the live chops to do that last September when they played the gig of their young lives so far at Electric Picnic.

“It was crazy,” Ryan reminisces. “That was the most emotional I’ve ever felt on stage. There were a couple of times I nearly started crying. We sat in silence in the dressing room afterwards for like twenty minutes, maybe longer, and then just broke into laughter. Growing up, I never thought I’d be in a band, yet alone playing the Main Stage at something like Electric Picnic. To look out and see that sea of faces singing every word back to us was so surreal.”

Picture This. Copyright Miguel Ruiz

Popping into the Hot Press Chatroom, Ryan teased us by mentioning “a massive thing we’ve got coming up.” But even when waterboarding was threatened he wouldn’t elaborate.

That ‘massive thing’ turned out to be a record breaking run of five consecutive nights in Dublin’s 3Arena this March. Which given that Picture This’ last show in the capital was a 30,000 RDS sellout is almost their version of playing an intimate Whelan’s gig.

“We’ve never actually played Whelan’s,” Ryan says. “We completely skipped it. We started off in The Academy, so we’ll have to go back some time and do it retrospectively. With venues like that you can feel the history. I was confident that the 3Arena shows would sell-out, but not as fast as they did. Jimmy, who’s really good at gauging these things, thought it’d take weeks but it was hours. We were shocked.”

Copping a pre-release earful of MDRN LV in Stately Clark Mansions, my fiancée – yes, somebody is daft enough to want to marry me – was of the opinion, listening to its string of love/lust songs that Ryan’s “a right horny bastard.” Fair comment or will he be contacting his lawyer?

“I’m a particularly horny man,” he agrees enthusiastically. “I fucking love women. People sometimes say, ‘Oh, they only write love songs’ – but relationships and friendships are all I want to write about.”

So, he hasn’t been working on a coruscating critique of the Trump administration?

“I can’t flippantly say, ‘Fuck Trump!’ or whatever because I’m not educated enough on the subject,” Ryan reasons. “I’m not going to pretend otherwise and make an idiot of myself.”

“I think it’s something you have to be interested in, and I’m just not interested,” Jimmy adds.

Returning to this horny bastard business; will there be women going, “Jayz, that’s about me!” when they hear MDRN LV for the first time? “Yeah, ‘cause the lyrics are very to the point,” Ryan says. “They’ll 100% know that the song’s about them. Some of them will be warned and some maybe I don’t talk to anymore. I’m a very ‘put it all in there’ sort of writer.”

Picture This are looking forward to their 3Arena run.

“Because they immediately find their way onto YouTube, we don’t play songs live that we haven’t released,” Ryan explains. “The 3Arena will be the first time we’ve played most of the MDRN LV songs to an Irish audience. We’ve the whole album rehearsed and it sounds fucking great!” When you’ve only one album your set-list writes itself, but Picture This have some serious agonising to do re: what gets played in the 3Arena and what gets left out.

“I was trying to work it out the other day and it’s really fucking tough,” Ryan admits. “I’ve no idea how bands like U2 who’ve been making records since the ‘70s do their set-lists. They must have some serious arguments!”

One of the more bizarre rock’n’roll conversations I’ve had recently was with Mani – of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream – who, on his way to Kildare to pick up his Made Of Athy award, wanted to know all about these young Picture This whippersnappers who are also from Knockroe, Maganey.

“Mani from the Stone Roses was asking about us?!” Ryan splutters increduously. “That he even knows our name is insane. Them and Oasis are my two favourite bands of all time. Listening to (What’s The Story) Morning Glory aged nine or ten was my first ‘Wow, I know what they’re talking about here!’ moment. They were about really normal working-class stuff and I thought, ‘This is cool, this is amazing.’ I hadn’t really paid attention to music before then – it was just kind of on the radio – but Noel and Liam changed all that.”

Knowing them to be Picture This’ favourite Athy watering holes, I told Mani to pop into Anderson’s on Emily Square and the C.I. Bar on Leinster Street for pints.

“Class!” Ryan nods approvingly. “We were out of town, otherwise I’d have gone down and met him and Johnny Marr, who was over the week before. I did see Frances Bean Cobain who was in Newbridge last summer for the Kurt Cobain exhibition. The Made In Athy thing is so cool.”

“Johnny Cash’s family is from there too,” Jimmy notes. “‘Walking the line’ is what we call it locally when you go walking down by the river. Johnny played a gig in the Dreamland Ballroom in Athy in the early ‘60s, apparently heard the phrase and shortly afterwards brought out ‘Walk The Line’.”

Picture This. Copyright Miguel Ruiz

THE COLLABORATION GAME

Picture This will be spending a goodly part of 2019 in the US where they’re signed to Republic, the New York label whose roster also includes such other up and comers as Drake, Lorde, The Weeknd, Florence + The Machine, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande. They must throw one hell of a Christmas party.

“We didn’t make 2018’s, but we were at a previous one when Ryan and I had just signed to Republic,” Jimmy smiles. “It was in this weird little Asian place called Megu, which is gone now. There were loads of famous actors there and Joe Jonas’ new band, DNCE. We kept expecting somebody to tap us on the shoulder and say, ‘You shouldn’t be here!’”

It was through Republic that Picture This were introduced to Jayson DeZuzio, the Tame Impala, Jason Derulo, Dua Lipa and AlunaGeorge co-writer/producer, who’s also sprinkled his magic sonic dust on MDRN LV.

“We actually recorded an album between December 2017 and the end of January 2018,” Ryan reveals. “It was quite similar – actually, too similar – to the first record, except for the song that came last, ‘If You Wanna Be Loved’, which has made it onto MDRN LV. We stumbled on this different sound and approach and started leaning towards that. Because we’d finished so early, Republic said, ‘Look, we know you don’t write with other people, but seeing as you’ve time on your hands why don’t you come to LA and try it?’ So we did this writing session, and I absolutely hated it. It was some guy on a laptop doing all this crap. It took us six hours to do a verse and a pre-chorus.

“Angry because of that, and the fact they’d lined somebody else up for us to write with, I rang our label guy and said, ‘I’m not doing another fucking session!’ He was like, ‘Well, we have one booked and it’d be rude to cancel’. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do the session, but we’ll cap it at three hours, okay?’ Anyway, the next person turned out to be Jayson. I said, ‘Look, we’re not starting a song from scratch here. We have songs, let’s just work on some’. So we worked on ‘Magnet’, which is also on MDRN LV, and straight away said, ‘Holy shite, this guy has to do the whole album!’”

“He’s like the extra 20%, isn’t he?” Jimmy proffers.

“The things he was doing production-wise were so shocking,” Ryan resumes. “Within 10 minutes he was on a laptop, taking our ideas and running with them. He was just so in-sync with our brains and had so much common sense when it came to what sounds good and what sounds shit. He was so positive. Not once did he say, ‘I don’t like that chorus, I don’t like that lyric’. It was, ‘That’s great, but we can make it even better by trying this…’ The confidence you get from somebody who works at that level telling you, ‘This is a brilliant song!’ is incredible. Jayson literally changed my life.”

It’s a tough call but my MDRN LV favourite is ‘Nevada’, an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink rocker, which builds and builds – and then builds some more!

“We were on tour at the time in Spain supporting J. Cooper,” Ryan recalls. “I have thousands of musical notes and ideas recorded on my phone. We stopped off in this desert-y place – we were getting diesel for the van – and for some reason I said to Jimmy, ‘Have a listen to this…’” “You had the verse and the chorus, didn’t you?” Jimmy says. “I was straight onto my laptop and, with a mouse, drew the melody (hums the tune). I knocked it all out on the piano. I still have it somewhere.”

That’s definitely one for the Picture This rarities box-set in twenty years time. When I confide that Edwin McFee has described ‘Nevada’ as “the kind of song Gary Lightbody would’ve written had he grown up listening to Justin Timberlake” in his Hot Press review, a chuffed Ryan fires back: “That’s my favourite quote about anything I’ve ever done!”

It’s only February, and already Edwin has his Christmas bonus earned. Whilst happy to bounce ideas around with Jayson DeZuzio, the singer by his own admission remains a control freak.

“Oh, totally!” Ryan concurs. “I’m a very controlling person; it has to be my way sometimes. We’re all the same. I think it’s a great trait that we’re so passionate about the band, but I have to calm down a bit!”

MDRN LV’s big ‘phones in the air’ song is ‘Somebody To Love’ – “Is there somebody with you/ Does he make you feel warm and secure/ Just how I used to do” – which finds Ryan pouring his broken heart out in the studio to Australian starlet CXLOE. All manner of emotional turmoil occurs before, phew, the girl gets won back at the end. I’m telling you now, oceans of tears are going to be shed over it.

“CXLOE is a star in the making,” Ryan notes. “People have crazy connections to our songs. They really relate to them, which is exactly what I want as a writer. When we put ‘Everything Or Nothing’ out at Christmas, I was shocked by the number of tweets we got saying, ‘Wow, you’ve exactly described my situation’. It’s all down to being honest and writing from a personal place.”

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Normally, Hot Press tries to break bad news to its readers gently, but not this time – Picture This’ LA romance has developed to the point where they’re thinking of moving over.

“It’s funny because the first time we touched down in LA, I fucking hated it,” Ryan says. “Then when we went back I was like, ‘I want to live here’. I hate saying it because it sounds wanky, but I find I’m much more creative when I’m there. Although it’s not easy writing a heart-wrenching break-up song when it’s 30 degrees and sunny outside!”

Have they had any ‘LA moments’?

“Loads!” Ryan laughs. “The first famous person we saw there was Chris Jericho, the wrestler. Then we were at dinner and Billy Bob Thornton was sat across from us.”

“We were at a party in West Hollywood,” Jimmy recounts, “and when we got home the next day my bed in the Airbnb we were staying in had disappeared. We eventually discovered it in a dumpster down the street, so we brought it back, got new sheets and pretended that it never happened. We suspect it was two other Irish lads we’d met over there that did it, but we’re not sure!”

The band have also managed to fit in couple of epic North American road trips.

“On one of our first tours there, Ryan drove the van all the way from New York to Toronto, which is a ten hour trip and we couldn’t believe some of the places we went through – it’s so desolate and odd. You’re like, ‘This is the real America!’ When we’re over next in April, we’ve got gigs in Montana and Utah, which I’m sure will be eye-openers too.”

There was also a video shoot before Christmas in the backwoods of Virginia.

“Yeah, the scenes with the girl in the ‘Everything Or Nothing’ promo were filmed in Virginia,” Jimmy says. “We actually shot the whole video there, but when we got back to New York and had a proper look at it, some of the scenes just weren’t right. The label needed it now, so we couldn’t go back down and, anyway, it would’ve been stupidly expensive. I had my camera with me so I re-shot all of Ryan’s parts in a hotel room, stayed up ‘til 6am editing it and that’s the video.”

Picture This. Copyright Miguel Ruiz

All very MacGyver-like! With its “Did I really fucking love you or just the image in my head” line, I’m not sure it’s going to get a whole load of airplay.

“Radio stations have this piece of software that removes swear words so they can use that if they want,” Jimmy chuckles. “We stand by the artistic statement, though!”

Ryan and him thought they’d died and gone to heaven last month when their RTÉ 2fm pal Eoghan McDermott asked them to interview The 1975.

“We’ve a serious bromance going on with The 1975!” Mr. Hennessy admits. “Eoin couldn’t make it down to the 3Arena, so he sent us in his place.”

The lads doubtless switched into tabloid hack mode and pumped Matt Healy and the boys for salacious rock ‘n’ roll tales.

“Er, no, we got a bit muso-ish and asked them stuff about tour production and what goes on in their heads during the creative process,” Ryan confesses. “The fine balance they’ve achieved of being mainstream whilst at the same time extremely artistic is what we aspire to. From the artwork and the videos, to the stage sets and the songs themselves, everything is so meticulously planned.”

Nodding in agremment, Jimmy adds: “The first time we met The 1975 was two years ago when we supported them at Belsonic. Sometimes really creative people can be a bit, well, crazy but they were really down to earth, normal guys. Matty knew we were from Athy, which was cool.”

Any other bromances we should be aware of?

“I’m blown away by Charlie Puth,” Jimmy shoots back. “I just assumed he was a manufactured pop act, but he writes all these brilliant songs and produces them himself. He’s been a big influence on me.”

“Snow Patrol last year in 3Arena were amazing,” Ryan adds. “My first time being blown away by them was in the Olympia. They’re able to go from 1,500-capacity venues to 14,000 ones and still make it feel intimate.”

Matt Healy and Gary Lightbody have both overcome serious addiction issues. Do Picture This understand how musicians can run into difficulty, as Matt and Gary respectively did, with heroin and booze?

“There are a lot of pressures that come with being in a band,” Ryan responds. “There are also a lot of pressures that come with being in a 9 to 5 or being unemployed and needing a job. It all depends, I guess, on your circumstances. I’m glad that at this point in our career we’re in our twenties rather than our teens – you do learn from experience – and have a great crew, manager (former Olympia Theatre major-domo, Brian Whitehead) and each other to fall back on. The friendships in Picture This are really strong.”

These are wise heads on relatively young shoulders.

MDRN LV is out now.