Rural and the gang

Three years after the release of his last album, Mark Geary is back with his third collection, Opium. Why such a lengthy hiatus?

“After recording and touring Ghosts I had no songs,” he admits. “It’s a scary place to be in. So I stopped and took a break. It took a while – I kind of feel like I’ve been living in a bat cave the last year and a half.”
Determined not to repeat himself, the NYC-based Dubliner relocated to rural Ireland.
“I went down to Kerry to try something different," he says. “I had a band and wanted to see how the songs would sound sonically after working them through on a daily basis with other musicians. When I listen to Radiohead or Arcade Fire, there’s a performance, an element there which I wanted to capture on this record.”
The wholesome full-band approach pays off particularly well on the mournful ‘Not On Your Life’ and lead single ‘Tuesday’. The latter, a lilting, Dylan-esque shuffle recalls Modern Times opener ‘Thunder On The Mountain’ as sung by a younger, less gravel-toned vocalist. It’s a stride away from his earlier sound; one rooted in alt-folk and often pruned back to the bare branches of guitar and vocals.
“You sell a bunch of records and you build a fan base but you can’t pander to them," he says. “It’s only an audience that you think you know.”
Geary makes a similar observation in the Opium press release, to whit: “You tour two records, see the world and you build up, somehow, a fan base and records get sold.”
“I was saying that in a brutal ‘This is how fucking hard it is’ way," he explains. “You make the records, you book the gigs – but then you’re bombarded with industry. It’s a real battle.
“At this point I’m definitely a romantic,” he laughs. “I’m doing this in spite of everything.”
There's no shortage of singer-songwriters plying their wares today of course. In fact many people think we suffer from an excess of misty-eyed strummers.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it's a point of view for which Geary has some sympathy.
“With the incredible amount of singer-songwriters that are around, I think sometimes I’m kind of guilty by association,” he ventures. “A lot of the criticism is valid, though. I agree with some of it.”
In 2005 Mark scored the US film Loggerheads, taking a brief leap from indie-dom to soundtracking celluloid, like Johnny Greenwood and Damon Gough before him. It's an area he's keen to explore further.
“It appeals to me definitely," he enthuses. “I recently went to see There Will Be Blood, which Jonny Greenwood scored – I think he did a fantastic job, really amazing. The big thing with Once was that it was showing in multiplex cinemas in the middle of Chicago or wherever, and their bit of magic was that you have this thing about Dublin and you have this little love affair. Then at the end of the film, the two main characters literally come out of the screen and perform live! That’s gold dust.
“It’s a great experience working on a film, to be on location, composing music to footage,” he continues. “My manager is also an independent film producer who knows lots of people, so he put me in touch with the producer from Loggerheads – he called me up and said ‘Can you work with this guy and do the score, y’know, write a few songs for it?’ I loved it, it was a great thing to do. I did a film festival tour with Loggerheads, which opened up a totally different audience. You’re being heard by people that don’t go to gigs.”
Loggerheads is actually the second film Geary's been involved with.
“The first one, Steel City, was based on a Bruce Springsteen song and directed by a guy called Brian Jun who's been asked to write the screenplay for the upcoming Jeff Buckley film,” Mark reveals. “I knocked both of them out in two weeks. It’s not always ‘songs’ – it’s sometimes just ten seconds of incidental music.”
With Glen and him such good friends, is there a chance they’ll work on a movie project together?
“Hmmm... maybe with John Carney, more so than with Glen ‘cos his focus at the moment is on music,” Mark concludes. “We have a moral responsibility to save the world from films like Daddy Day Care!”

Opium gets a live airing at Dolan’s, Limerick (April 22); Crane Lane, Cork (24); Roisin Dubh, Galway (25); and the Electric Picnic (August 31).