Superman Of The Moment

“It’s not a young man’s sound,” says Chris McConaghy with a grin.” They’re not a young man’s songs.”

The Derry balladeer has a point. His teen anthem days may be behind him (“I’ll leave that to The Wonder Villains!”), but the one-time guitarist for indie wunderkinds Red Organ Serpent Sound doesn’t seem to mourn their passing. Not that the casual listener would ever mistake his material, recorded and released under the Our Krypton Son moniker, as the work of a dizzy young-blood. Once Chris opens his throat – releasing a single malt croon that fans of McCulloch, Hawley and Garvey will gladly cosy up to – it’s very clear that this is an artist with miles on the clock.
And someone who’s picked up a winning perspective on the bumps and bends he’s met along the way.
“In 2005 there was a big buzz surrounding Red Organ,” he reveals, “We’d been signed to a major and were pretty high up the pecking order. We were doing the London thing – flat in Shepherd’s Bush, Johnny Borrell coming along to our gigs in Camden, an amazing tour supporting Deus. We felt unstoppable.”
You know what’s coming next, don’t you?
“Well, we went over the top – we thought we were Whitesnake. But it’s the same old story – you live the life without realising that you’re actually paying for it all. Red Organ probably shouldn’t have been signed to a major in the first place. They didn’t know what to do with us, and we couldn’t understand what they wanted. I’m not sure if I’d ever sign to a major label again. Even if they still existed.”
Post-split, Chris returned to Derry intending to launch off on his own. Early progress was halting, and wasn’t helped when his computer crashed, wiping three years of stockpiled material. Facing the prospect of starting again from scratch, he decided to meet the challenge head-on.
“I thought I’d use a name,” he explains. “Our Krypton Son came pretty quickly. It was my girlfriend’s idea. She’s a huge Superman fan. It’s a line from Superman 2. I think the name actually had a real effect because I was starting with a blank canvas. Red Organ were such a punky, guitar thing – I didn’t really have a musical identity. The new name let me hide behind it. It didn’t really lend itself to any style. I could bang out a techno album if I wanted.”
In truth, anyone with even a passing knowledge of Chris’s oeuvre will realise that a heavy metal interlude is as likely as a techno one. However, true liberation sometimes means having the freedom not to change. And Our Krypton Son is so at ease in the land of swooping melodies and huge acoustics, anything else would seem like an affectation.
“I tried to write a few things that were self-conscious departures from my usual stuff, but it didn’t work. I can’t force myself to write that way. I love Phil Spector’s stuff – I even love Death Of A Ladies Man – and I love Elvis Costello. I’d like to work on that scale.”
Debut single, ‘Catalonian Love Song’ suggests that it won’t be long until Chris is happily ensconced in an echo chamber. Big, emotional and strikingly arranged – it’s a remarkable calling card for the album that Chris has waiting to go.
“It’s been recorded for a while,” he proffers. “It’s a pretty disparate collection of songs. I didn’t have an overriding theme or anything like that. It’s a bunch of songs that I’ve had a strong relationship with over a certain period of time. I’ll be glad to get it out, let people hear it, and then get onto the next one.”
The album should also come embossed with a ‘Made In Derry’ stamp. Recorded in a warehouse belonging to a local roofing firm, produced by hometown hero (and brilliant songwriter in his own right) Conor Mason, and with Smalltown America Records taking control of everything else – it’s a blazing affirmation of his decision to remain in the north-west.
“I enjoyed the London experience, but my life is very different now,” he says. “I’m settled. My girlfriend and I have a kid – I don’t have that desire to get away. I like the localised feel to it all. There are a lot of great people in Derry who want to work closely with you and help you get along. Smalltown are an intermediate label – they help their artists, like ASIWYFA and LaFaro, move on to bigger labels, if that’s what they want. They also have a publishing arm, which is really brilliant. But it’s fantastic that I can do this from home.”

‘Catalonian Love Song’ is out now on Smalltown America.