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Villagers

Subba chats with up-and-coming folk star Villagers about his debut album, being mistaken for Conor Oberst and blanking Paul Weller

It’s an early summer’s evening on London’s Southbank and two figures sit on the balcony of the Queen Elizabeth’s Hall watching the sunset over the Thames.

“Have we met somewhere before?” asks a figure dressed all in black.

“I guess I just have one of those faces.” replies the other.

“Yeah, maybe…I’m having that quite a lot recently, feeling like I’ve met everyone before” says the man in black.

Before you get ideas that this is some kind of Mills and Boon romantic novel, I should explain that the figure in black is Conor J. O’Brien otherwise known as Villagers and the other person is, well, me. I’m talking to Conor on the eve of his gig supporting Field Music at this year’s Meltdown festival, or at least attempting to. Whilst doing the interview we had to compete with the noise from the multitude of skaters grinding away below us, the noise of planes above us, and the general buzz of Londoners rushing home around us.

At the moment life is up in the air, quite literally, for Conor the creative force behind the group Villagers. Tonight he’s playing in London, tomorrow it’s Brooklyn, and the day after that? He doesn’t know.

His debut album Becoming a Jackal was only released in May but already Conor O’Brien is touring the world and appearing on shows like Later with Jools Holland alongside music legends like Paul Weller.

“I think I gave him a snub” says Conor guiltily.

You snubbed Paul Weller?

“I feel really bad as it was accidental. I remember listening to loads of the Jam when I was learning to write songs. Paul Weller came to say hello on set and just as he went to say hello I’d already turned away and walked by him with my head down. It was kind of awkward…he seemed very nice though” says Conor.

Villagers formed in the aftermath of the break-up of Conor’s previous band Dublin indie-rockers the Immediate who were tipped for great things before their split. Conor admits that the split was “big deal” as the group had been together since they were teens but instead of sitting around licking his wounds he went on tour with his girlfriend, Irish folk artist Cathy Davey, which ended up lasting two years. All the while Conor was compiling songs and putting out EPs on Dublin label Any Other City choosing the name Villagers because it was the “most anonymous, faceless name possible” and also because he liked the elegance of the letters in the word.

He describes his early songs after the split of the Immediate as “diary entry-ish” but the more he wrote the more his songs developed. “I think gradually over the following year and a half when I wrote most of the songs for the album I maybe used the same diary entry-style impulses to write which I used to for my earlier songs, but maybe wrote more with an audience in mind. What’s going to be worthy of playing in front of people, I’m not just going to whine. I just separated the shit from the stuff which I thought had a function.” explains Conor.

The intense realism in Conor’s lyrics and his stunning delivery has led to all sorts of favourable comparisons with the likes of Neil Young, Elliott Smith and Bright Eyes. I ask Conor whether he thinks the comparison are fair and he admits that it’s a real complement to be compared to such “great musicians”. Another reason for the Bright Eyes comparison is the fact that Conor O’Brien bears more than a passing resemblance to Conor Oberst. I ask Conor if he’s ever been mistaken for the Nebraskan singer?

“No, never. He got a thinner face, I’ve got more of a hamster-y face” he says laughing.

I ask Conor about his early musical influences and what kind of music his parents listened when he was growing up?

“My dad when he was in the car always listened to big band stuff, Frank Sinatra and other crooner stuff. My older brother was the one I looked up to. He gave me his guitar and taught me how to play.” says Conor.

“He listened to stuff like Pink Floyd, Dire Straits…” explains Conor.

Stop now before you lose all cred we say interjecting.

“I love Pink Floyd.” says Conor.

Do you come from quite a musical family I ask?

“My brother is quite musical but he’s an architect now, and my dad is an architect and I was meant to be an architect as well.” he says.

You build through songs and notes we offer.

“Yeah, exactly” says Conor.

I ask about whether his ‘folk’ sound came naturally or whether it was a reaction to the more rock-y music he’d played with the Immediate?

“By the end of that band we were writing songs with acoustic guitars and it just feel really nice to me. It wasn’t really conscious, the folk stuff.” he explains.

“It was just kind of…”

“…Lazy?” I say interrupting rather mischievously.

“Lazy?” says Conor slightly offended.

“Well I guess it was, yeah…” he says laughing

“Not lazy at all ” I say in disagreement.

“I guess acoustic guitar became the backbone of the songs when I was arranging the album, most of it is based around acoustic guitar” says Conor.

There’s a lot of darkness on Becoming a Jackal, I ask Conor whether he was channelling something or if the lyrics came from personal experience?

“When I’m writing a song and I’m saying me or I, a lot of the time I’m not necessarily talking about me. Sometimes I’m doing character studies…I feel like if you’re singing about yourself and if you’re doing it as well as possible or as succinctly as possible I’m singing about me but I’m also singing about you, that’s when a good song works.” says Conor.

“I always have an amazing amount of fun writing songs. Even if they sound quite dark and depressing, I’m always laughing and having a good time. It is quite heavy sometimes but mainly the heaviness comes more from the performance of it, you’re not quite sure where your head is going to take you when you’re performing. Most of the time you’re playing on words.” he adds.


When Dylan went electric all the folk fan called him ‘Judas’. Are you getting any Reverse Dylan’s from rock fans saying ‘You used to be electric now your gone folk’?

He laughs before saying “A little bit of that, I think it’s more of a bitchy thing, people are like ‘why is he singing all these quiet songs all the time?’. The Immediate was really energetic on stage, I think a few people jumped ship after we split but they’re allowed to.”

As time ticked on our discussion turned to Villagers’ live show, I asked Conor what type of people were coming to his gigs? Mainly sensitive souls wearing cardigans?

“It’s been a really interesting mixture.” he replied. “The one thing that has surprised me is that we’re getting a lot of middle aged to older men who are really watching every aspect of the musicianship. I can seem the really watching the guitar playing, they must be old Neil Young freaks. Neil Young keeps getting mentioned in our press and stuff so they must have been like ‘oh I’ll check this band out’ but they all seem to dig it which I really like. It’s cool to see…this is going sound really bad…it’s great to see a 17 year old girl standing beside a 60 year old man…in a platonic, music fan way.”

At this rather inopportune moment Domino’s cheery PR fellow came up to politely say that I had gone way over my allotted interview time and my chat with Conor ended. As the sun set over the Thames one thing was clear, Conor O’Brien’s star is surely on the rise.

'Becoming A Jackal' is out now on Domino Records
New single 'Ship Of Promises' is out on 2nd August 2010

25 June Harmonic Festival, The Marquee, Cork, Ireland
27 June Glastonbury Festival, Pilton, Somerset (Park Stage at 12.30)
3 July Hop Farm Festival
9 July Oxegen Festival, Kildare, Ireland
10 July Somerset House, London with Noah and The Whale
16 July Latitude Festival, Word Stage, Southwold
6 August The Edge Festival, Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
27 August Leeds Festival, Festival Republic Stage (approx 3pm)
28 August Reading Festival, Festival Republic Stage (approx 3pm)
4 Sep Electric Picnic Festival, Ireland
wearevillagers.com

Cheers to Paul at Domino for setting the interview up

Will Holloway