Ciaran Smith, chief of Dublin-based three-piece Crayonsmith, is an excitable man. His tongue trips over itself as he tries to relate all his ideas and his answers, and he worries sometimes if he’s said the right thing. His thoughts can be seen effervescing like a roughly-shaken can of Club Orange after each question and he answers everything insightfully and sharply, referencing Gaudi as easily as Les Savy Fav while not coming across like, well, a wanker. He has reason to be excited of course. His sophomore effort, White Wonder, does not suffer from a slump but an upsurge of refreshing ideas and masterful execution, and the band are about to set off on a transatlantic flight to tour with Islands in America. We recently talked about the upcoming tour, anticon, inspiration, Out On A Limb and that album cover.

You’re supporting Why? this week and Islands on their American tour, which are pretty big coups- How do you feel supporting bands that influence your own sound?

It’s an honour, I guess. You’re delighted that somebody out there, either somebody in the band, or their promoter, recognizes the similarities between the music and thinks “Yeah, these guys would fit.” With Why? it’s Foggy Notions that picked us, and we’re totally grateful for that, and with Islands it was Nick Thorburn, we kinda know each other from the last time they played here. We hung out in Whelans afterwards, and stayed drinking at the bar all night, and he said he’d love to do a tour. We talked about different producers we liked, and different filmmakers, and records we loved and stuff and found we’d similar interests.

And is that the same thing that happened before with the other bands you’ve supported in America?

Yeah. It’s like, if you like somebody’s music, get in touch with them and tell them you love their music, say thanks for the positive influences, and ask if it’s OK for you to send an album, as a thank you or whatever. That’s what happened with Sparklehorse, and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. It’s great with the whole Myspace thing that there’s no entourage between you and another artist, it’s just human-to-human.

Regarding Why?, anticon’s influence is all over your new music. What is it about anticon that you like, that you want to carry over into your music?

Between the last album and the new album, when it came to doing the beats, the guy I worked with is George Brennan, who’s in Deep Burial. He had this AKAI MPC sampler. We’d seen this DVD, this anticon tour DVD with cLOUDDEAD and he’s just hitting out beats with his fingers. It’s great if you’re into making drums sound different, or detuning things, giving it a different texture. It goes back to Beck with Mellow Gold. If you’re into that kinda stuff there’s a whole label making that music, and that’s where the template for the album came from.

The first album was quite slacker rock-influenced, did you feel sick of that kind of music in between, or did feel like you had to make yourself move on?

I think what it is, right, is you have your first album and all the bands that have influenced you up to and during the last album come out, and you kind of purge it. You’ve got all of that out of you. There’re certain bits that stay with you. In my case I’ll always veer towards melody and an interesting beat. So then when you move on to the second album and you listen to bands like Why? and Of Montreal, and Mice Parade and think “wow, this is influencing me on top of all the old influences”, and because it’s fresher you absorb all those in, and they’re there when you go to make your next album. I’m sure it’ll be the same way with album 3 or 4. It’s like Bruce Springsteen and Nebraska. He comes to the band with the songs, and they’re like “we’re not going to play on that. There’s no room, there’s no need for us to play.” You just go with the feeling at the time, and the circumstances. Also, you look back to what you’ve done before, and you don’t want to repeat yourself so you’re always trying to do something new. You have to keep yourself interested as well as everybody else.

Do you take inspiration from outside of music as well?

Yeah. I’m mad about nature, about movement. Gaudi said “Everything comes from the book of nature”, and it’s true. Whatever has been produced has occurred in nature, now it’s just documented. The Microphones use the studio so that you hear things like wind going through the music, it’s anything to represent what’s around you, what turns you on in the world.
Socializing is another one. Going out and drinking. But, that’s not in a… not in a…

Not in an Arctic Monkey’s way?

No, exactly. More like the idea of people releasing, they get their lives back at the end of the week and there’s a giddiness with people within this free time, they get to be fully themselves. There’s a certain energy when people get together. It’s how bands happen. People want to do something with their free time. I’m into how people integrate, and bounce off one another.

Is there any difference between Irish and American audiences, do you find, from having played extensively over there?

On the American tour with Mt. Eerie and Casiotone it was 14 dates from Vancouver down to LA, and the gigs were everywhere. In a house, in a clothing store, in venues. From my experience from there compared to here, there’s more of a can-do attitude there. Whereas here people associate quality with a certain established venue. We’ve played house gigs here in Ireland and I thought they were great, and they don’t happen enough. Ireland is so small that we’ve played pretty much every venue, and we don’t get offered house shows. Whereas in America you get offered to play and the gig can happen anywhere. That’s why we’re going to do these shows with Islands, and if we weren’t doing them, we’d be going back ourselves. I guess it’s because America’s so much bigger that you can have houses big enough in different towns along the coast. Here you’ll be lucky to get a house show every few months. There’s that whole scene in Kilcoole though they have house shows all the time.

The DIY hardcore punk scene?

Yeah, so I don’t know that our music exactly fits that. But I’m amazed by it. 16 and 17 year olds are putting on these gigs, and it’s totally independent of Dublin. They won’t pay more than 10 quid for a show in Dublin, which is how it should be I suppose.

Steve Shannon produced the album, what was it like working with him?

Very good, very good. Before we even recorded the album we’d been playing the songs for a year, just to make sure everything was ready to go, everybody was happy with their pieces. So we brought the beat tracks that we’d made with George to Steve, put them on the computer, and he tracked them. He’d make suggestions then, like to play certain things an octave higher. He helped us realize our ideas. He’d know if something should be put through a certain filter or whatever. He had the know-how we needed, and suggestions that we brought into our songs. You can definitely hear touches of Steve on the album. There was always room for criticism both ways. It was a great experience.

You don’t seem to get an awful lot of press in Ireland considering the success you’ve amassed, I think. Do you agree?

With this album we’ve got good reviews, wherever it’s gone. We’re going to do our thing anyway, and if people are coming to our gigs that what matters. Press can help and all, but if they’re not into it we still have the Myspace and stuff. Since we told people about the Islands support our profile views have jumped double, we’re getting comments from Americans and there’s no press there. It’s hands-on, DIY work, like sending bulletins to fans of Islands and stuff. You do your thing, and if the press want to get on board, cool, if not, if it’s not their cup of tea and that’s cool. If both the press and the people aren’t into you, then you have to ask yourself questions, you know?

You’re on Out On A Limb, what’s that like as a label to be on?

It’s great. In terms of our band dynamic, they’re like the business band-members. It’s totally candid, nothing is not said. If something has to be dealt with, it’s dealt with. Nothing’s put on the backburner. It’s always moving, it’s like a 24 hour shop, somebody’s always chipping away.

Do you ever feel like if you wanted to get bigger you’d have to move on from the label?

We’re totally happy where we are at the moment. If the time comes when we’re asked to make a jump, we’ll ask how we can keep Out On A Limb onboard, how can money go to them, because we love their way of working. That’s probably totally idealistic, but I’ve heard too many horror stories of bigger labels where the person who signs them loves them, but then when they’re moved on the person who takes their place doesn’t like the band. It fluctuates. Whereas with Out On A Limb the lads love every band that’s on the label. Grassroots is all we know for the moment, we seek refuge in that because it’s workmanlike. A needs to be done, B needs to be done. Has it been done and has it been done? If you call somebody you get an answer straight away, there’s no waiting on emails or anything in between.

Was the helmet D.A.D.D.Y’s idea?

Yeah! The day before the photo-shoot the guy who was doing it, Mike, told me he had this idea to do a lo-fi version of a high-brow painting, like a goofy version of Joan of Arc. So they brought me into the prop room of D.A.D.D.Y. and they had this white kind of bunny suit, and it had been made from bathmats. Mike had just been in Smyths and he brought back a rubber sword and helmet and breastplate and stuff. I didn’t even question it. I said he could do whatever he wanted, as long as it’s not a standard Irish album cover. It’s one of those things that sticks, I suppose. So at the album launch I wore the suit and helmet and it was a pain in the whole. It’s so sweaty. These things flap all over the place and hit you and… But it adds a mania to the gig. If you’re just about holding the whole thing together it adds excitement. Pavement were famous for it.

Are you going to continue wearing it?

We’re debating whether to bring it to America with us or not. The other lads aren’t in costumes so it’s a bit like the Super Furry Animals or the Flaming Lips. Or maybe it can be like Les Savy Fav, where the lead singer Tim Harrington can just do whatever he wants and the other bandmembers are just in their shirt and jeans, it could work from that angle. So I’ll keep you posted about that.

We could do a tour diary from the helmet…

Exactly, that’d be great.

So where to from here?

We’re working our jobs for the next month to get money together for America, for the tour with Islands. Then we’re going to try and focus on America for the next year or so. We’ve been given this golden opportunity. We’ll be playing to over 12000 people over those 14 dates and hopefully we’ll get offers from other bands to do tours with them. We’ll do a tour in between in Ireland to bolster the profile. People will be coming on board hopefully having heard the album since the launch, around September or October.

Do you feel like you do need to break internationally? Is Ireland too small?

It is, yeah. You do your first year or two of gigs here, and see how that goes, and you might get offered Oxegen or Electric Picnic. But at the same time, I don’t see what the point is to just be big in Ireland. Nobody makes music for exclusively one country, it’s meant to be universal, international. You have to push yourself. Each country is a new challenge. We use Ireland like our base, do our tours here, but try to play in other countries as much as here.

Do you think it’s a case that Irish acts are too comfortable being successful in their little clique, or is it just genuinely so difficult to establish a foothold in Europe or America?

I don’t know. Jape is doing well. He’s broken out in Europe. It’s the whole “who-you-know” thing I suppose, in a sense. But some acts are just satisfied to fill out Whelan’s every couple of months, and that’s all cool and all, but don’t you want to go somewhere else? Look at the Redneck Manifesto. They cut their teeth here, and then went off and did an amazing tour of America, and I think they’re going off to Japan next year. You have to see yourself as an export, that you can compete, or that you’re music is as good, as other bands out there. It’s not about you being the big fish in the small pond.

Jump into the ocean?

Yeah. You have to push yourself forward, or you get complacent. You can make loads of money and yet nobody in Europe or America will know you. You push and push and your music gets better, since you have more to play for.

Crayonsmith play their last Irish gig before embarking on their American tour on the 26th of May in Crawdaddy, with Mae Shi. White Wonder is available from yer usual outlets now.
Check them out at: www.myspace.com/crayonsmith

Daniel Gray Poser.
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