The kid stays in the picture

Despite it not being a particularly ungodly hour of the afternoon, Simple Kid is feeling a little tired. In fact, to be honest, he sounds like we’ve woken him up. We apologise, assuming that he must have been busy in the studio, or gigging. Turns out he’s just ‘written the day off’. A nice existence for some, and one that has not really changed sinced Ciaran McFeely underwent his transformation from ex-indie band member to his current weird and wonderful solo incarnation.

“I was in a band called the Young Offenders”, he explains when asked how he made the move from Cork to London some eight years ago. “We signed to Columbia and went off to live the dream and all that kind of thing. Anyway, I got suitably skint and couldn’t really afford to come back”.

Did the band feel that they had to cross the water if they were going to stand a chance of making it in the industry? “It was very English kind of music I was making at the time so it made a lot of sense. It was basically a Britpop band, if truth were told. You might as well go to London if you were going to do that kind of thing because everything was based there at the time. I don’t know if it was a good idea or not”.

Having failed to make an impression on the intensely competitive London indie scene, McFeely set up base in the more laidback environs of the singer/songwriter circuit, although he admits that this particular career move was borne more out of accident than design.

“It just happened. I had nothing else do to with my day, I was on the dole for three or four years. Like many people I know I just sat there and pottered around, hoping to come up with something, not really bothered if you don’t but pleasantly surprised if you do. It was very kind of day to day, while I was thinking about what I wanted to do. And now it’s got somewhere”.

What’s most noticeable about the Simple Kid stuff is the Irishman’s way with words, an aspect of his work that has become very important to him. “Only since what I call my Alan Partridge era, since the good times went a bit askew. I was just bored all day so I started reading loads. Nowadays it’s almost more important than music, I’m really hell-bent on the lyrics”. It’s been identified by some as a very British trait to his music, although he’s not so sure. “I don’t know. A lot of people have told me that they can see an obvious Flann O’Brien influence tied in with it. There’s that slightly more obtuse angle that the Irish tradition has, but definitely most of my musical influences are English and American. At the end of the day I’m fundamentally Irish so maybe I have a slightly different take on it. The Irish are willing to put ourselves under the spotlight a little bit more”.

The songs also are stacked with a lot of dark humour. “That’s probably another part of the Irish, it’s something we do very naturally. It’s a very powerful weapon to deal with things, using humour to actually say something is really useful. You just have to be a bit careful how you do it”. An intriguing mix of both sides of the musical water then, and one that we’ll get to see for ourselves at this month’s Witnness Festival. McFeely is viewing the event with cautious anticipation. “I haven’t played a gig to an Irish audience in eight years. It’s a bit strange really but hopefully it’ll be good”.