‘Gigs and Guinness’: The Academic discuss their new EP “Acting My Age”
You might know The Academic from their phenomenal debut album “Tales from the Backseat” (2018), or for being the stock-image Google Images provides you with when you type in “cool and approachable guys in a band who are really lovely but still know how to play their instruments.” On Friday, July 10, the Irish indie-rock/indie-pop/indie-whatever-who-cares band released their long-awaited EP, “Acting My Age”, their first Capitol Records release and the highly-anticipated follow-up to their aforementioned killer debut. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious softboy who only listens to “real music” and uses playlists to express my feelings instead of actually articulating them, the record slaps. Well and truly. Clocking in at six songs and just under twenty minutes, the record lacks in length what it makes up for in quick-witted lyricism and basslines so breezy you imagine the songs forming the soundtrack of the future biopic they’ll make about your life directed by Greta Gerwig, or maybe Sophia Coppola. They’re songs for when you’re a little tipsy, but not drunk enough to start baring your soul to the bouncer as you take a smoke break. If it sounds like I’m speaking from experience it’s because I am.
However, with the practically post-apocalyptic world we’re currently living in and an increasingly unstable music industry that bears out the societal impacts of COVID-19 with each canceled show, venue closure, and postponed album release, The Academic were tasked with the nearly impossible feat of not only releasing a project without the traditional methods of promotion and touring afforded to artists pre-corona, but also addressing the distinctive tone of our present moment while simultaneously releasing a collection of songs whose quality speak for themselves and won’t be forever labeled “pandemic listening.”
It’s a tricky balance, but The Academic have proven that creativity is indeed possible right now, and while your house may seem like a personal hell after four months of trying to distract yourself from yet another mental spiral, it forces you to think outside the box (zoom-songwriting is maybe the only positive thing to come out of this year so far). Although half the length of their previous release, “Acting My Age” covers a wider stretch of musical ground. It’s a pretty tight operation listening top-to-bottom, treading the familiar, summery, feel-good ground that’s become their bread-and-butter on “Acting My Age” and “Sunroof” before taking a sharp right, traversing new sonic territory like the rock-ballad “Them” the EP’s strongest offering and closing track. Perhaps most surprising is lead single “Anything Could Happen”, the EP’s lead-single, which disguises its surprisingly acerbic lyrical content ( “‘Cause when you're sat in your apartment/ With your friends that she don't like/ And you been saving all your money for a Saturday night”) with a melodic hook that’s fit for the theme-song of your favorite sit-com. It’s a jarring but appealing combination, and makes you think twice, in the way that great songs do.
“Acting My Age” marks a crucial turning point for a band whose hotly tipped debut album precipitated a meteoric-rise, but who find themselves undergoing the same growing pains any group of musicians face as they try to avoid the sophomore slump and build a relationship with a major record label, while reestablishing their own understanding of the music they’re trying to make, and, maybe hardest of all, lay the sonic and lyrical groundwork for future releases and plan their next steps. It’s an undoubtedly tall order, but from where I stand, The Academic has stuck the landing.
On July 8, the band sat down for a Zoom press conference to discuss all things “Acting My Age”, including the challenges of recording and rehearsing virtually, the pending concept album frontman Craig Fitzgerald wrote about Han Solo, Irish indie-rock, and what’s next for the band. The interview below has been shortened and edited for clarity and conciseness.
Q: Everyone has been feeling a little less creative during this weird time in the world. What did you do individually and as a band to re-spark your creativity during isolation?
A: (Craig Fitzgerald, lead vocals/guitar): It made us think on our feet in a really different kind of way. We’re so used to living in a van and out of a bag together and we can bounce ideas off of each other so quickly so I think at the beginning we found it a bit strange to try and be creative because it was such a serious thing that was happening. We had tours being canceled so I don’t think personally I felt very comfortable jumping into music. We were right to give ourselves a little bit of time and kind of figure out how we were going to adjust to, but luckily music is very technology-based now, so we were able to write songs via email and still get work done. But obviously, when life isn’t happening there isn’t much inspiration going on. You can only write so many songs about going for a walk and a dog you see or something. We tried to listen to music we hadn’t listened to before, catch up on films we’d put off, and share things that we find interesting which has helped to open up the creative palate.
Q: You said you can only write so many songs about a dog you see and going for a walk. Does that mean that there is a song out there about dogs?
A: (CF) I watched all the “Star Wars” [films] over lockdown, and I made a solo project about Han Solo called “Fastest In The Galaxy”. There is probably a song about a dog somewhere (laughs).
Q: Sonically, songs like “Superlike” and “Aftertaste” mark a major sonic departure from your previous, more-indie rock, guitar-based work, and introduce a much poppier, throwback sound with synth-based elements. What inspired this shift and is there other new musical territory you are venturing into on “Acting My Age” that you haven’t done before?
A: (Matthew Murtagh, guitar) I would say what inspired it was all of us as a band going through a really big phase of new wave music. Bands like New Order and The Psychedelic Furs. For a good year there we were really into that kind of music and maybe not so much anymore; we’ve gotten over it a little bit. I’d say there’s probably one song on the new EP that kind of hearkens back to that, more, synth-pop, cinematic sounding thing. The EP covers a lot more ground than that. Our song ‘Them’ is completely different to anything we’ve tried before.
Q: I know that you worked recently with Nick Hodgson, the former drummer for Kaiser Chiefs. Did you work with any other new collaborators on this EP and if so, what was that experience like? Do you enjoy bringing new people into sessions, or do you prefer just working as a four piece?
A: (Stephen Murtagh, bass) What we love about this EP in particular is that it’s a great mix of us collaborating with different producers and in different studios, but there’s also three songs on there that are self-produced. Like you said, we had Nick Hodgson from the Kaiser Chiefs in to do two songs and he’s like modern indie-royalty in the UK, but then three of them are self-produced by pretty much just the band and our friend. So there’s a really healthy mix between four of us hiding away in a cabin and doing it ourselves (laughs) and meeting new people and going into studios because we love collaboration as well. We think collaboration is key and you should never be afraid of writing with other people and trying different producers and studios and countries.
Q: As a band what is your dynamic like when writing? Do you ever struggle with writer’s block?
A: (CF) Yeah I think of course writer’s block happens. What we’ve tried to do is rather than kind of sit in it, since you never know how long it’ll last, what we try and do is constantly write, even if it’s a bad song about a dog. It’s good to practice the muscle even if you’re not feeling it because you will learn something. Accepting that you won’t nail it is a good thing and it helps you get those bad ideas out and eventually get to the good ones. Our process, as writing goes, usually starts with me, as a song in my bedroom with a guitar or sometimes a riff or just words. The way I describe it is that I kind of build a skeleton of a song, and it’s never fully finished until the three other guys put their magic on it. I think that’s what’s beautiful about being in a band is that I don’t play drums, I don’t play lead guitar, I don’t play bass, and when the guys hop on my kind-of wacky bedroom stuff is when it becomes The Academic. When we’re on tour, we’ve had to adapt to maybe recording on laptops and then having a cheeky jam during a soundcheck if you get a bit of time. We’re able to approach it in a load of different ways now which is nice.
Q: What is the lyric that took the most courage to write?
A: (CF) There’s a song on the new EP, a ballad, which we haven’t really tried, called “Them”. I actually kind of wrote it about my younger sister, and [now] she’s going through a lot of the “house parties with friends” thing which I’m kind of out of now. I’m not constantly at house parties like the way we used to be. There’s a lyric in the song which I feel like, for years I was trying to sum up that feeling of going to a party with expectations of maybe falling in love with somebody and then there’s somebody else. And it usually ends up in tears. The lyric goes “perfecting the art of an Irish goodbye/leaving the party with tears in your eyes.” I think that’s my favorite lyric and I’m excited for people to hear that one.
Q: What has the experience been like working with Capitol Records on your first Capitol release?
A: (SM) It’s been amazing. We’ve been an independent band for like six or seven years, and to make the jump, it felt like the right time. It was good to get the experience and we really value the experience of doing the first album by ourselves. We know what hard work is like, we know what it takes to put an album out by ourselves, but to have the support of a label now is great. It’s been nothing but positives so far and hopefully long may that continue because we’re having a great time.
Q: What was the most important thing you learned while creating ‘Acting my Age’?
A: (CF) Patience. Absolute, pure patience. We had one song where the verses were really good and we had a chorus. We tracked it a bunch; we did like twenty vocal tracks of this chorus, and I remember Stephen just saying to me “it’s not good,” and I was like “ok, right.” And then we did it again and the same thing happened, and we parked it for the day. It was so frustrating but definitely, patience, and also not to force it. We took a break, we took a couple of days off the song, and then came back in, and the chorus was there. It was like a fresh mind and the payoff was a very nice feeling when the chorus came and the lyric landed and it was worth the wait. It’s my favorite song on the EP.
Q: What inspired the creation of your music video ‘Anything Could Happen’ and how does this narrative relate to the song itself?
A: (SM) “Anything Could Happen” was meant to be a very different shoot and a very different video. We were coming back from Dubai around St. Patrick’s Day and just as we were flying home the COVID crisis was getting really serious in the UK and Ireland. We were meant to be going to London the very next day to shoot a performance video and we just decided not to go and it ended up being the right decision because the country went into lockdown. We got back in touch with the directors and very quickly we realized if we were going to do a music video at all it was either going to have to be an animation or we were going to have to do it from lockdown. They had this idea for it to be couples in lockdown which was really interesting to us because it kind of doesn’t suit the narrative of the song at all. When we wrote the song we thought that the lyrics were a little bit dark about “saving all your feelings for a saturday night” and we thought it was about people who were stuck in a bit of a rut and weren’t particularly happy and were trying to gain control of their life back. But then when we had this idea of couples falling madly in love in quarantine it gave the song a completely different meaning and now the music video has completely changed the meaning of the song for me. I find it incredibly upbeat and about happiness now which was not what we were thinking about when we wrote it. That was cool, to have the video change our perspective of the song.
Q: How would you like COVID-19 to change the music industry in a positive way?
A: (Dean Gavin, Drums) I suppose maybe it will push the whole industry towards supporting artists more in a digital way. Because [usually] a lot of artists would rely on touring and shows and selling their merch to make a living, so a push towards more digital support would be beneficial for the industry and everyone involved.
Q: How are you finding ways to connect virtually with fans and promote the EP without tour dates or the festival season?
A: (MM) Yeah, it can be tough. It just feels so weird to be releasing music and not instantly touring it everywhere. I guess the only way we know how is that we’ve been doing a ton of live events. Just to feel as close to fans as possible. We did a Zoom party with a bunch of fans about three weeks ago and we just hung out and chatted about random stuff. Just trying to reach out as much as possible and interact with them. The closest thing you can get [to in-person events] is live events on your socials and that’s kind of how we’ve been doing it so far.
Q: With all the social and political change movements happening across the world how do you see yourselves and the band personally supporting change and awareness?
A: (SM) It’s recognizing that we have a platform and not letting our 50,000 Instagram followers go to waste. There’s a system that deals with refugees in Ireland called Direct Provision and it’s incredibly cruel and incredibly racist and we’ve been pushing a petition to end Direct Provision in Ireland, so that’s been what we’ve taken away from [this moment] the most.
Q: Ireland has always made fantastic music, but there are a number of new bands coming out of Ireland that are blowing up right now, across the rock and indie-rock spectrum, including you, Fontaines DC and The Murder Capital. What do you think it is about the Irish music scene right now that has allowed this to happen and how do you feel about being part of this musical wave?
A: (MM) I think it’s brilliant. Those bands you mentioned, although we’re not maybe super similar sonically, we actually knew the Fontaines guys before any of us had really made our way, so we’re huge fans of them. In terms of why it’s happening at the moment, I always think in turbulent times the best art gets made. I also think Irish music, maybe a couple years ago or maybe before that had dropped into a bit of a lull, so I think there was time for guitar music to resurface.
(SM) Yeah, and also what the bands you mentioned have in common, including us, is that we all pretty much came up through the Dublin city music scene which is kind of a testament to the venues that we have. We have very iconic venues such as Whelan’s and The Olympia Theatre, and I think any time an Irish band comes through, nailing the Dublin music scene is really important.
(MM). I think because it’s so small as well, everyone knows each other. Dublin is like a million people and it’s a very small city, so everyone knows each other and there’s a great sense of support and community. There aren’t bitter rivalries or anything like that, because it’s simply too small for that.
Q: What are you most looking forward to after the release of the EP?
A: (CF) Pint of guinness.
(MM) Yeah, I picked up Craig from the pub the other night and he’d had a few.
(SM) Yeah I want a Guinness after the EP.
(MM). Maybe gigs as well. Whenever normal life returns, some gigs would be nice. Yeah, gigs and guinness.
(SM). Yeah, that’s our Twitter bio (laughs).
“Acting My Age”, The Academic’s newest EP, is out now.