Jumping straight into it, how did the band start out?
I just wrote a song and I put it up on SoundCloud. I recorded it with my uncle, Terry Hackett.
Someone asked me to play at Sleepover Club. It was so fun and then I was like ‘Shit, I need to fucking start a band’. I didn’t want to do it by myself because it’s too scary. Then that’s how it started.
Just before COVID?
Yeah, like 2019. September 2019 was our first gig. I’ve been doing banríon as a project for 5 years now. We started right before COVID so it doesn’t feel like that long at all. We then recorded our first EP in 2020. Because of COVID the original band didn’t see each other for like a year, then two of the people changed. So there’s been so much change.
The songwriting style has changed a lot too. The early stuff I wrote when I was 20, you can kind of tell – there’s stuff that has been taken down that is just too bad to exist on the internet.
And banríon, where did you come up with that name?
I just liked the word. I went to the Gaeltacht every summer when I was a teenager, and we weren’t allowed phones, it was a really strict one. We were just playing cards all the time, so I learned all the core words. I was like, ‘Oh, banríon, bean is woman and Rí is king’. Just strong words.
I hear congratulations are in order, as you’ve been nominated for an award recently, for your song Sugar Water!
Yes! It’s the music video award for Best New Director, for Anna Heisterkamp. Who is my girlfriend as well – and she’s in it which is cool, because usually she’s behind the camera.
What’s it like working with your girlfriend?
So good. That is how we met. She came to this gig we did on Valentine’s Day, in 2020 right before COVID. My friend Charlotte introduced us and said, ‘My friend wants to make a music video for you’. And then I was like, ‘Oh my God, she is gorgeous’.
Then we worked together making a video that summer and then when it was finished we were both like ‘Do you want to keep hanging out?’ and the rest is history.
If you could create a gay band, five members, and you’re one of them, who are you putting in the band?
Snail Mail. Can Willie Nelson be in it? He’s not gay but he’s an icon.
Hmmm okay, I’ll let Willie in.
He’s done so much, he’s done so much for us.
He’s an ally.
He’s like Cher, Cher would be allowed in the band.
Cher would be allowed in the band.
Maybe… Lady Gaga? I don’t know what we’re all going to do!
That’s of course allowed. Any Irish influences in there?
If I could have all of Pillow Queens?
All of them, all of the Queens can be one.
And SOAK. They were the first gig I ever went to, supporting Bombay Bicycle Club when I was 14.
A solid band, I’d definitely listen to them!
Listen to banríon’s latest single ‘DARE TO CRUSH’ which is out now.
