Analogue: Things have been pretty mental for you lately, is it good to be back in Ireland?

Fionn: It’s cool, it’s what I am, and I suppose it’s where everything starts from. The place that you grow up in, that’s the root of everything that happens. The information in your bones and in your skin, it’s great to come and play for everybody.

A:The title of your album, The End of History is very striking, what’s the story behind it?

F: As you travel along through life it’s like you reach these stations, certain things happen, and it felt like I’d reached a capital city station, and when I hit the platform it felt like it was alright to talk about the journey. Now it’s ok to document the evidence of what has happened, whether it’s been your childhood or anything after that.

A: Do you think it’s going to be hard to find an album title as grand for your next album?

F: Ah these things usually present themselves! Everyone crams at the last minute.

A: There’s a lot of imagery in your lyrics about journeying, is that for you what this album documents?

F: Yeah, jumping over a fence, waking up in a barn, y’know, the things that happen. I don’t want to build houses for all the lyrics in the songs. I don’t want to over-explain- if you build houses, you build walls for them, and then you can’t really knock them down. Of course in every song there’s people involved and there’s feeling in the words, but I don’t feel the need to write them on billboards.

A: The video for Be Good or Be Gone is interesting with all the different locations and the live sound in it. Where did the idea come from?

F: These two guys came up with the idea and we all sort of knocked our heads together and got something down on paper, and then presented that piece of paper to the grown-ups who were holding the purse-strings, who in turn thought we were losing our minds, asking ” How are you going to pull this off?” We did it for two-pence ha-penny. I think we managed to do something different in an area that’s been so overworked…it’s very hard to come up with anything that adds to the wheel, but I think we hit on something.

A: You recorded The End of History live, is this the sort of recording you plan to continue with for future albums, with vocals and guitar recorded together?

F: Absolutely. You figure out early on what jacket you wear, y’know? What jacket works. When it comes to recording for me it has to happen in the moment, it has to be there, it’s got to be happening and it’s gotta be real. I can’t record in any other way. It’s gotta be one big open plan room. Rather than separate small rooms with different things happening in different rooms that nobody has any idea about. A lot of times on records, people are punching in and out, they’re never really getting a feel for what everyone else is going through.

A: So recording both vocals and guitar together, do you capture the moment?

F: You’re forced to up your game. It’s very easy now to spend a long time doing one thing. You have to be ready, the sails have to have taken a bit of a battering, and you have to work out how to get out of a storm in the ocean on a two-by-four plank. Whether you’re playing outdoors, or in a telephone box or a mop-cupboard or in an attic, or in the cab of a lorry, you learn something from that and it informs the way you play, so by the time you get to document the songs, you’re ready, and if not then it’s not time to do it.

A: Your tour schedule’s been pretty mad lately, have you been writing much while you’re on tour?

F: We’ve pretty much been playing straight without any days off for a year and a half. It’s like being on a submarine. You come up for air and you might scribble something down. Sometimes you’ll write things in the back of a car somewhere…

A: I read somewhere that you said that the best songs are written on crumpled pieces of paper.

F: It’s true! Though I don’t know how long I could do that for before it started to affect what I wrote. I’ve been trying to find a home for my first record for such a long time, and I’ve been writing songs over quite a long period of time, which is sort of strange when you move to another point and then you’re getting pulled in two directions. People start shining light on the record and things start happening, and you’ve moved on and people are explaining your whole life with 12 songs that took you two years to find a home for and then spent a year on the road with…that’s a long time. I’m really excited about getting the next record done because I think everything will start to make more sense - it won’t have to be branded or pigeon-holed because they won’t be able to anymore.

A: Does it piss you off that you do get pigeon-holed?

F: They like to invent a neighbourhood for you to live in. But nobody really knows what happens behind closed doors. Just because you’re from one area doesn’t mean you have an expensive car, and just because you’re from another area doesn’t necessarily mean you rob cars. And nobody dreams about the same things, or fights about the same things or thinks about the same things on the way to the bus-stop in the morning. In a way it’s kinda frustrating, but at the end of the day what you do is write songs and play shows, and they’re the most important platforms.

A: One thing that sets you apart from past Irish singer-songwriters is your ability to sculpt a witty anecdote into a song with a great melody. Where do you draw your experience from?

F: I don’t know, I suppose everybody likes a laugh. I don’t see how I can’t talk about how if I walk past someone lying on the side of the street being pissed on, I can’t deny that as someone who writes songs, that works its way in- or if someone has lost their mind at the hands of an institution. And you can’t deny girls or whatever else it is that takes your fancy. But everyone likes to have a laugh. Humour is a thread, most people can understand it, it’s something that makes everybody elated and illuminated.

A: Your lyrics also show an appreciation for the little things in life that people don’t notice, perhaps reminiscent of Patrick Kavanagh’s writings. Do you think Irish writers have had an influence on your writing?

F: I think so. When I was growing up I heard a lot of poems being read, people telling stories and spinning yarns so I think it’s part of your make-up, it’s in your DNA. In ‘Be Good or Be Gone’ I say “I have become an aerial view of a coastal town that you once knew” and it’s like wherever you go in the world and whatever you do you have this collage of images and this information. It’s there in your bones and your teeth and your hair and it never leaves you. I think the more I learn about Irish literature and storytelling I can see little similar references, things like the mail boat, because Joyce talks about that. There’s definitely a shared meter and imagery.

A: The Irish have a knack for that. Is the “wink-and elbow” talk something that you try to incorporate?

F: It’s a way of seeing things. The whole thing is a mystery to me. I just write about what I see and what I feel.

A: How does it feel to be up for a Mercury Music Prize?

F: I kinda feel like a lighthouse keeper at a wedding. You arrive down from the lighthouse and there’s flashing lights and bulbs and it takes you a little while to get used to it and adjust, and at the end of the night you might be up in front of the wedding band.

A: Is it something you could get used to then?

F: Well it’s quite hard for me to talk about. For the last couple of weeks I’ve had to answer lots of questions about the mercury prize. And it’s kinda hard enough to talk about what you do anyway, and when it comes to prizes…it’s like asking a tobacconist if he’s interested in moving into the area of roof-racks for Land-rovers. He’s gonna look at you quite crookedly.

A: So does the attention that goes with it bother you?

F: Well its just part of it. You have to accept this in every job that you work. I’ve on worked loads of jobs and you have to accept it if someone comes onto a building site and tells you what you have to do that day. And there’s other parts of doing music that you know are not that easy, but you have to override that and rise to the challenge.

A: It’s definitely been a whirlwind for you this year.

F: Everything blurs into one. Leaving one room and it becomes the next room,one car joins with another car. It’s just a collection of the same kind of thing but the weather changes. We got a present of a camera and I looked at the pictures on it, running through the last couple of months, and it’s very difficult to tell the difference between the days or anything. It just goes ‘venue, sound check, car, venue, sound check, car, room, car, motorway, car.’ But what else would you be doing?

A: Do you have the next album planned?

F: Yeah I have the songs finished; I just have to put them down. I’ve got two weeks in January and it’ll probably be out a couple of months after that.

A: To finish, of all the themes that run through your songs, what is the most personal to you?

F: You just have to tell the truth. If there’s dirt under your nails sing about it. Don’t run off into the corner with a matchstick to try and clean it out.

Brendan McGuirk is the editor of Analogue, and former Chair of Trinity FM.
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