Paul Noonan Interview- The Bell Season

As Bell X1 prepare for their Forbidden Fruit headline performance they can reflect on a job well done. One of Ireland’s most successful bands of the past decade, last year saw them release a fantastic new LP, Chop Chop, and celebrate the tenth anniversary of what many regard as their finest LP, Music In Mouth.

That album, of course, yielded fan favourite ‘Eve, The Apple Of My Eye’, as famously repurposed to soundtrack the girl-on-girl snog scene in The OC. Rather than bask in their laurels, however, the Kildare three-piece continue to push onwards. Stripped down and contemplative, Chop Chop showcased a different side to the ‘Bellies’: with its spectral songs and barely-there melodies, the album was a triumph of understatement and a deserving nominee for the Choice Music Prize.
Of course, it’s in the live realm that the band have truly made their mark. Though each of their LPs is meticluous and forward-thinking, for Bell X1 devotees nothing compares to seeing the group in the flesh. They were the first Irish act of their generation to headline The O2 (in its previous incarnation as The Point) and went on enthrall audiences at Malahide Castle and Electric Picnic.
“I really don’t feel like Chop Chop has fully flown its course yet at all,” ventures singer Paul Noonan. “We’re going to make another record and we hope to start by the end of the year. I always feel we have to fully exercise the last one and I hope there are legs in Chop Chop. I don’t feel we’ve got to enough ears with it.
“There was an incredibly buoyant mood in the band when we finished that LP," he adds. "We only did three weeks in the States with it, so that’s why we’re going back.”
Alongside their Bell X1 duties, the band continue to expand their horizons in intriguing ways. As he sits down with Hot Press ahead of Forbidden Fruit, singer Paul Noonan is fizzing with enthusiasm for his new side-project, in which he duets with a variety of female vocalists.
“I’ve always loved singing with girls,” he smiles. “There’s something about a duet that's more than a harmony, more than the sum of its parts. What epitomised that for me was seeing Gillian Welch for the first time. I realised the strength of two voices and a guitar, the unspoken intuition between two people.”
The singer impressively breaks out of his comfort zone on Printer Clips, with an illustrious cast of leading ladies, including Danielle Harrison, Lisa Hannigan, Joan As Policewoman, Martha Wainwright, Amy Milan from Stars, Gemma Hayes, Cathy Davey, Julia Stone and Maria Doyle-Kennedy. Noonan explains the genesis of his new album is partly a reaction to what he was doing with his day-job.
“I started it in summer 2009. The band were doing very layered music and exploring many avenues at the same time. In some ways this became a reaction to that. My head was hurting a little bit. The idea of simply recording two voices and two guitars at the same time was refreshing. I’d leave it at that and let the songs stand up.
“So I went around grabbing people to record in hotel rooms or at their kitchen table. The simplicity and purity appealed. Printer Clips became this delicate thing that I turned to in my potting shed, every now and again. I'm lucky that I played drums for Gemma Hayes and Cathy Davey for a while. I recorded it in my house, or various people’s houses. I flew to New York and met Joan Wasser in a friend’s apartment. It also turned out that friends of mine from here were subletting Martha Wainwright’s apartment, completely coincidentally.”
Printer Clips, the album, is full of very happy coincidences and encounters in various hallways, basements and bedrooms in Montreal, New York, Dublin and London. It also manages to coalesce perfectly as a compelling album.
“We ended up recording in Rufus Wainwright’s apartment,” Noonan continues. “People I didn’t know who were just a few degrees of separation away were incredibly open to the idea. I’d show up at their door with a laptop and a microphone foisting lyrics into their faces.”
The project’s name has intriguing origins.
“A friend of mine sent a photograph of his grandfather, a printer in the '50s,” Paul reveals. “It’s a beautiful black and white photograph of him in a three-piece suit. He had his sleeves rolled up, in case they got caught in the machine and, specifically, in these metal bands called printer clips.”
Noonan will premiere Paper Clips with a performance in the National Concert Hall that will feature all the European-based ladies involved, including Gemma Hayes and Lisa Hannigan. However, don’t fret, Bell X1 fans: there's plenty in the band's diary, including festival appearances at Forbidden Fruit, and a US tour.
Meanwhile, Paul is putting in the hours in a new writing space for musicians in the National Concert Hall. He also fondly recalls Bell X1’s headline appearance there last year as one of the highlights of the band’s career.
“James Vincent McMorrow, Neil Hannon, Cathy Davey and I approached the Concert Hall for a writing space,” he reveals. “Now, we’ve got a great place in the wing of the second floor. I try and get in there every day and be disciplined. Not necessarily nine to five, but at least showing up. Sometimes I might just stare out the window a while. I used to be more of a 'waiting for the gods to strike and be their willing conduit' guy. It's a load of bollocks. If you don’t show up, it won’t happen.”

Bell X1 play Forbidden Fruit on the Saturday. Printer Clips play the National Concert Hall on May 24.