Turn on the bright lights

2001 belonged to The Frames, 2002 was Mundy's and Damien Rice's and 2003 is looking increasingly like being remembered as 'the year Woodstar released their debut album'. Life Sparks really is that good. Have a listen to two tracks here, 'Dumb Punk Song' and 'The King' - and then read Eamon Sweeney's encounter with the band in Limerick and New York, below:

'Dumb Punk Song' regular quality high quality

'The King' regular quality high quality

Interview: Star in the ascendant

Since winning the Hot Press band of the year in 2001, Woodstar have carefully and steadily built their reputation – and their fanbase, winning favourable comparison with the likes of Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips and Coldplay along the way. Now, with the release of their debut album, Life Sparks, they have captured the heady brew of marvellous songs and fine musicianship that distinguishes them from the majority of their peers. Eamon Sweeney travels to New York to see their US debut, and finds the band in typically reflective New York state of mind...

After countless hours spent carefully crafting the fragile beauty of their music in a shed in Mungret, Co. Limerick, it really is showtime.

Woodstar are onstage in the Mercury Lounge, a lovely live room in New York where the Lower East Side meets the East Village and where The Strokes strutted their stuff in their early pre-Rough Trade days.

Straight out of the traps with ‘Through Our Lives’, the Limerick lads immediately display their calibre. Those nights slogging it out with Turn and the Franks in every Student Union toilet in the country have paid off well. The band are tight and focused, turning in a potent and finely pitched set. The audience reaction suggests that this may be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Leonard Cohen got it slightly wrong. First they take Carlow RTC, then they take Manhattan…

Ever since copies of the Time To Bleed EP popped into pigeonholes and landed on door mats in February 2002, Woodstar have stood out as something a little bit special.
Over the course of a year they built on this early promise. They released another EP, did a bunch of dates, generated a healthy amount of radio play and generally got the critical thumbs-up without being overhyped.

Their upward trajectory has been determined and measured, gradually built both by word of mouth and the kind of sheer quality and craftsmanship that is far removed from the flash in the pan fast track.

Of any band I’ve ever encountered, Woodstar have to be one of the most hard working and single-minded and now they are reaping the rewards.

They enlisted the services of Stephen Street and Richard Rainey in a determined effort to realise fully on CD the inherent quality of their songs. Their debut album Life Sparks is the result – a culmination of years of writing, rehearsing, recording, gigging and overall slogging.

“It is a struggle to get a record done,” singer and songwriter Fin Chambers admits. “It is a dominating factor in your life. There are so many of us involved and we had to stay focused on this record, at the expense of relationships, our health and a lot more besides, to get the shagging thing done. You put so much sacrifice and hurt into a record over two years – so it’s nice to be able to listen to it and go, ‘That was worth it’. There is a nice vibe on that album. It’s a sad vibe and a tragic vibe but melody rocks and we constantly tap in on melody.”

Melody is at the heart of what Woodstar have to offer. “All that has dark sounds has ‘duende’,” Federico Garcia Lorca wrote. “A mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain.” Listen to Woodstar and you get a sense of what Lorca meant.

The key lyric on Life Sparks comes in the second verse of what is effectively the title track, ‘Life Sparks, Red Flame’. “You told me of your dream world/Where no one needs to fall apart/Where men as big as houses cry/To free themselves of broken hearts.”

“You’ll end up on your head if you don’t realise that life sparks and hurts all the time,” Fin offers. “There is an acceptance on this album that life is an absolute pain in the rocks – that it’s desperately painful. Everybody has that fragile side that I think the album expresses.

“It is about the fragility of life itself,” he adds. “You can be happy for X amount of time but ultimately there is an awful kick off it. One change of direction or the pop of a ball and you’re devastated. You go on with it and go through and try to do so with a sense of humour.”
If that sounds fatalistic, it is. But Woodstar are anything but dour.

“Alan (Sheehan – Fin’s co-writer) says that this album is about acceptance,” Fin reflects. “Acceptance that this is sad fucking shit that we’ve been dealt. Once you can accept it, then maybe you can have a laugh about it. Even between the tears.”

For the record, when you hang around with Woodstar for a while you can’t help but laugh, a lot.

“Acceptance can be a very strong emotion,” Alan Sheehan adds. “It’s not a fleeting emotion, it’s an emotion that endures and has a lot of stamina. You won’t rise above everything but you can realise how to deal with it.

“The older you get the more you realise that not everything is rosy in the garden,” Doug Murray adds. “People are battling problems every day – whether it’s in their head or physically. It’s all around us.”

Thankfully, music is all around us as an antidote. What has attracted so many listeners to the Limerick quintet (seven as a live act) is that they deal specifically in stark naked honesty – what you might call the unbearable tragedy of being. What is the most interesting reaction to their music that they’ve experienced?

“An interesting one was when a bloke and his girlfriend came up to me after a gig in Dublin. They’d heard a song of ours, called ‘The King’ on Tom Dunne’s show,” Fin explains. “They were extremely nervous and I’m always very nervous as well, when somebody comes up and starts talking about the music.

“So he shakes my hand, tells me he heard ‘The King’ and taped it and listened to it with his girlfriend and they both loved the song. They broke up after going out for three years and the way they got back together was that she texted him lines of ‘The King’. He responded with the chorus. So he thanked me because they were back together.

“I was totally and utterly embarrassed but completely overawed. I went over to the bar thinking, ‘Fuck me, that’s mad…’ And it is. But I have a song for every girl I’ve ever been with. We all do. So their song is something I wrote. That’s cool.”

Woodstar relish this kind of relationship with their audience.

“Bertolt Brecht had a classic quote: ‘Writing without fame is like teaching without pupils’,” Fin explains. “That’s the way we look at our material. You arrive in Kilkenny and you look down during the show and somebody is mouthing the words. You look at that and go: ‘That person doesn’t know me from fucking Adam and they are singing words that I wrote in my bedroom probably half pissed’. That’s an amazing feeling.” And so it must be…

Woodstar’s native county and city is steeped in history and culture. Limerick boasts a burgeoning music scene, and is highly regarded in visual arts circles for the paintings of John Shinnors and the annual E+VA contemporary art festival, which is currently running around the city.

But for about two weeks earlier this year, Limerick was at the centre of the national news agenda. As warring gangs set to beating seven shades of shit out of each other, and intimidation became the order of the day, the long simmering feud spilled over into murder. No wonder there were quips about the yanks refusing to re-fuel at Shannon because of its proximity to Limerick. But to allow those dramatic events to shape your view of the city is to be misled. In truth, Limerick is a thriving, bustling place, with a rich abundance of talent.

“You’re right, there is a load of stuff going on,” Fin agrees. “Have you heard that band Giveamanakick? They kicked unmerciful ass last night. I saw them below in Dolan’s supporting Niall Quinn and the Pennywhores. They’re as good as anything I’ve seen up and down the country, without a doubt.

“There is a load of stuff coming out of Limerick, but inevitably the headlines go to whatever misfortunate people are caught up in all this bullshit. And that’s the point – it is misfortunate people caught up in feuding for one reason or the other. And for the most part they are very underprivileged people.”

Is there a danger that a siege mentality might develop?

“From our point of view, it might be like the thing in The Commitments about the Dubs being the blacks of Ireland,” Fin laughs. “I think it has moved to us now! But you do end up with a rawer art coming out of the way things are at the moment.

The AMC (Aspersion Music Collective) are putting on some amazing stuff. If the stuff that we are doing as Woodstar can give the place a better name in any way then that’s cool as well. But it’s not something that I’d go out of my way to try and foster because anyone who has a problem with this town is beyond my fixing. You’ve got to ignore moronic misjudgment.”

Despite getting a taste of the jet-set life, Woodstar have no intention of leaving Limerick in the foreseeable future, but they are obviously keen to take their tunes wherever there are ears willing to listen. Fin and I are laughing about the wild and wonderful crazies we’ve encountered in NYC (the loon of the trip award goes to Anonymous Dude on a freezing Broadway shouting at the top of his voice, “New York – city of dreams. Crowd of fucks!”)

“Well if I woke up in the morning to this everyday, I think I’d go a little crazy,” Fin says gesturing towards the teeming streets of the Big Apple. “When I was growing up I could see the hills. There is security in that for me. A lot of people find that to become creative they must take themselves out of the mundane. I’m the total opposite. I think you connect better when you are surrounded by all these things that are rooted to your past.

“Of course, that can be quite painful as well but from the point of view of the writing I think those type of things bring out an honesty based upon your history.”

History. What began life in that celebrated shed in Mungret has started to spread ripples far, far away from the banks of the River Shannon. Woodstar have sent out little life sparks of their souls, via eleven killer tracks of gorgeously textured music. The flames are beginning to burst into being. Soon, all going well, we may be witnessing a bonfire of celebration.

Life sparks. Love bites. At the end of the day, it is all just a terminal disease. But as long as we have melody and song, there is at least some kind of compass with which we can seek to navigate through the madness. If they did no more than make us painfully aware of this, Woodstar would deserve our gratitude.

As Rollo May put it: “And for the one that has ears to hear, there speaks out of this void a deeper and more immediate apprehension of being.”

The Stars on woodstar
The Team that worked on Life Sparks

Stephen Street
CV: produced The Smiths, Blur and The Sundays
“I really like the way Fin uses his voice and the way it is so layered and textured. Also, they are exceptionally good musicians. I would rate Kieran (Calvert) very highly as a guitarist. He reminds me of Graham Coxon from Blur in that he is excellent texturally and he very cleverly applies textures. In general, I admire their compositional skills as a band. They are extremely good at crafting songs and they can only get better. Dare I say it, but I don’t think many people from your side of the water have accomplished that. But I also think that they can do an even better second or third album. Sometimes with a band the chemistry is instant. You are on the same wavelength immediately so you don’t question it or let go of it. Woodstar were like that.

Richard Rainey
CV: engineer on U2’s All You Can’t Leave Behind. Awarded a Grammy for ‘Beautiful Day’
“I’m a big fan, which is why I wanted to work with them. Songwise, I was very drawn to the slower stuff and I love their very delicate sound. A couple of the songs were very dense, so the challenge was to make the vocals sit on top of that. I only mixed a couple of tracks but I’d definitely love to be involved in the future. I think it’s a great album and it’s head and shoulders above most of the stuff that is coming out of Ireland.”