Village Picnic

At the end of the month, many music lovers across the country will no doubt be pitching their tents, unraveling their sleeping bags and generally be preparing to straddle Stradbally between their collective metaphorical thighs at this year’s Electric Picnic. One of 2012’s must-see acts is unquestionably Dublin’s own chart-breaking phenomenon Villagers. The brainchild of Conor J. O’Brien, the band’s now near mythic 2010 debut Becoming A Jackal found its way into the hearts of a generation thanks to its mesmerising mix of unforgettable melodies and melancholic lyrics and at this year’s festival punters will get to witness the next step in their evolution when they perform a selection of cuts from their upcoming 2013 second album live and in person, alongside old(ish) favourites.

In order to get themselves match fit, Villagers decided to return to their roots earlier this summer and booked some warm-up shows at their old stomping grounds of the Spirit Store, Dundalk and Dolan’s, Limerick. In some ways the gigs were a little like a Rocky montage – only instead of running up steps in ill-advised tracksuits, drinking raw eggs and chasing some scared shitless chickens around, they were playing their new songs to virgin ears in venues which paved the way for their current success.
“They went really well,” Conor enthuses. “We needed to do them because playing these new songs is such a different experience. We’re coming at it from a different place. On a purely technical level they require more out of us to make it work and to bring them to a live setting. There were a couple of moments during these two shows where I thought we were gonna fall apart, but we needed to do them to make sure we were really well-oiled when we come out and properly get things going again.
“The audiences were lovely and we got a chance to get back to two of the places where we first started gigging,” he continues. “We played the Spirit Store in Dundalk about five or six times and never sold it out for them, so it was nice to return and pack the place.”
Featuring a set-list filled with lots of new material, Conor also tells us that Villagers’ faithful followers seemed to lap up the songs and left happy.
“We did about 11 or 12 new tracks for those shows,” he reveals. “It was pretty new-song-heavy. There’s that old thing of audiences not being big fans of having to hear new stuff all the time, but they seemed to go down really well. I think it’s maybe because there’s a pulse behind them and there’s more to grip onto live. There’s more of a drive to the new songs.”
Penciled in for a 2013 release date, details on Villagers’ follow-up to their much-loved debut is still very much under wraps at the moment, but Conor is happy to share a few morsels of information on the hugely anticipated slab of wax.
“Well, we haven’t mastered it yet, but it’s all finished,” he begins. “We’ve just come back from Donegal three or four days ago where we had a final session. I thought I’d finished it three months ago personally, but the more I listened to it, the more I heard things I wanted to change, so I went back up to amend a few things and that continued a few times and I only came back a few days ago with the final mixes. Well, what I think are the final mixes…”
“We’re gonna go to London to master it at the end of the month and I’ve a feeling I’m going to be dragging over synthesisers and stuff and setting stuff up in the mastering suite – which is ridiculous,” he smiles. “I can’t really stop until someone tells me to stop. There have been moments of frustration making it, but most of the time you’re so busy you don’t really have a chance to dwell on it. There’s a reason why it’s taken this long and the reason is – everything has to be right. I think I’ve worked even more on this one than the last one, which I didn’t even think was possible after I finished Becoming A Jackal, but I’ve got the grey hairs to prove it this time round.”
Speaking of grey hairs, Villagers’ start to the festival season could have contributed a little towards that too. After being booked to perform at Pohoda in Slovakia, the band found their set cut short thanks to the unwelcome intervention of Mother Nature, as Conor explains.
“We did a crazy, beautiful festival in Slovakia a month ago or so and it was so exciting to be there, but there was a storm warning when we were on stage. It was kinda scary actually because they brought us back to the tent backstage and at one point you could feel the place shaking and you could see the stage we were on, which was towering over us, moving too. Two years beforehand someone had died at the festival because of a storm and it was just at the edge of that moment where you think maybe we should get out of here, you know? So that was an interesting start to our festival season! After that we did a couple of UK festivals – Truck in Oxford, and Deer Shed in North Yorkshire, which was the first one we’ve ever headlined, which was amazing. It was pretty exciting for us.”
For the frontman though, the highlight of his year will more than likely be Electric Picnic.
“I’m so looking forward to the Picnic,” he enthuses. “I feel like we’re kinda veterans. It’s nice to come back with a new palette, you know? We’re playing on Saturday and we’re on right before The Roots in the same tent, which is awesome. I can’t wait. I definitely want to catch them for a bit. I think they’re going to be great.”
After Electric Picnic, the band will round off 2012 supporting Brooklyn indie heroes Grizzly Bear on their upcoming European tour and then it’s all systems go for album number two, and possibly three too… “We’re more excited about this Grizzly Bear tour than we’ve been for a long time. It’s going to be a bit of a dream,” says the singer. “I’ve loved the band for a while. I remember hearing Yellow House when it came out [in ‘06] and just going – this is kinda like a different thing altogether. This is a band who were basically making film soundtracks as albums, which was exciting. It’s a good way to get back to gigging before we begin our own tours.
“We’re going to do a couple of things in November/December after that, but next year will be our busiest,” he concludes. “We want to really go for it in terms of gigging and getting out there. I dunno though, I also feel like I want to record another album. We were talking about making a Krautrock record and doing it via email, just sending ideas to each other and not actually being in the same room and seeing what turns out in the end. It could be kinda interesting.”