Somebody’s Child are an Irish rock band, led by the triumphant Cian Godfrey, and they have been going from strength to strength the past few years, culminating in shows supporting The War On Drugs, Bloc Party, and a headline set on the second stage at BST Presents Kings Of Leon. Prior to his appearance on the Rainbow Stage, we sat down with Cian to discuss the past, the present, and what the hell’s coming next.
How would you describe your guys sound in terms of?
That’s a good question… So, I don’t know if I should say, but we’ve just recorded a second album. It’s a lot more acoustic and piano driven, it’s very much melody based, written around the idea of growing up and struggling to feel your age.
Sonically, we’ve just tried to take influence from everywhere. Kraftwerk and The Waterboys were the two ends of the spectrum; I don’t think we’ll achieve either of them, but that’s why we chose them! We’re never going to hit the spot with either of them, and I find that when you listen to people in your own vein, you start to hear their music seep into your own. And you know, you don’t want to be robbing other people! We try and stay as authentic as possible, in whatever sense that word means but… Yeah, I don’t know. It’s like looking at yourself in the mirror. You’re never able to see yourself the way other people see you.
What about [recent single] Oh Emily? Where does that fit in with your second album?
That was sort of just a stop gap between the two albums. We didn’t see it getting on the second album but we wanted to get it out! Plus, it had been like a year since we released music, so we felt like it was time to get some music out. But really we kind of already had our eyes forward on the next one, and I think the next batch of songs is definitely the best we’ve ever written and best represents us, the band, as much as possible. I’ll probably say that for the following album as well! But yeah, it definitely feels like it’s our most genuine music yet.
You’re fine not to answer, but any idea of when anyone could expect any of that new music?
Definitely this year. Whether we get the album out this year or not we’ll have to see, but definitely at least some of it.
How was recording it? Was it nice and easy or was it a bit of second album paralysis?
To be honest, because of COVID, our first album was dragged out. You’re trying to search for the right label, and because of COVID it was tough for a band just getting started. We had to wait a little bit longer than expected. So, when we recorded the first album, it almost felt like we were trying to make it sound like a first album, even though we’d already progressed beyond it. This time, however, it kind of feels like we were just recording our third album? We’ve kind of taken two steps forward — which is an exciting but daunting kind of feeling.
So the first time we saw you was at Omeara, for the John Kennedy X-Posure celebration back in 2019, with about eight other people in the room with me. And it was fantastic! What’s it like going from that, to selling out Omeara, and then selling the sister venue Lafayette, and then selling out Heaven?
Yeah, I have to say, the support we’ve got over here has been incredible. Shay [Shane Tohill] and I are actually living here now! But yeah, every time we put up a gig it seems to just go really well, which is nice because it’s a very different dynamic than we have back in Ireland. Over there it’s kind of a battle for genres, and rock music isn’t really given the same platform that it gets over here. Here, you just see Irish artists doing really well! So it’s good being able to follow other people’s paths in that sense. But we love playing London – it’s home to me now.
So reception over here versus in Ireland, where Ireland is a bit trickier for finding rock music — how was your sort-of-homecoming show at 3Olympia?
I mean, we loved it. Dublin I think stands apart from the rest in that sense – it’s the capital city, obviously. They have some of the best gigs, and some of the gigs that I’ll cherish the most in my life. But yeah, the energy is a little bit different over here, just by virtue of people being at festivals a little bit earlier, you know, like parents introducing them to rock music at a certain age before they’re 18. I remember playing Truck Festival and it was mental! Like, 16 year olds, from the first song just on their parents’ shoulders or on their friends’ shoulders. It’s amazing. It feels like the home of indie music – a lot of the bands we took from, especially on the first album, were based from here, one of them being the band on my T-shirt [The Cure]. Up north as well is just manic, like Scotland; Glasgow and Edinburgh have been fantastic nights as well. The whole shebang.
[Here led to what was meant to be a momentary gushing about Robert Smith, but it ended up leading to much more.]
I’ll be honest, I feel a bit of a fake ‘music person’ for never having really listened to The Cure. His [Robert Smith’s] tackling of Ticketmaster, though, rocketed him up in my regards for fighting that Platinum pricing, anti-scalping scalping that they do.
Yeah! Yeah, no, that’s a good point. Last night we were in Dublin. We were driving home from the gig and we were just seeing the ‘other side’, seeing [Taylor] Swift fans come out of her show — and just wondered how much they, or their parents, have paid for the tickets. She still gets the world of respect off people; like, she seems generous for giving all these bonuses to people working for her but at the same time she’s charging through the roof for tickets, and she has such a broad fanbase that it’s obvious a lot of people can’t afford tickets. Something needs to be done about that.
I read somewhere that the 3Arena was being used just to sell her merch!
Are you serious?
My auntie and her daughter, my cousin, were there and her daughter went in to queue up in the stadium just to get the merch.
I mean like, yeah, there’s some things to be respected about, becoming the first self-made billionaire for music and everything. But at the same time it’s not really what music should be about, you know?
What should music be about, then, in your in your opinion?
Our music is… I’ve struggled chronically with growing older and coming to terms with how much I’ve done with myself at this point. I sadly lost a friend this week, which just put everything into perspective: how short our lives can be, and wanting to kind of grasp onto this thing that’s intangible, this constant feeling that’s pervading you… that’s why I do music. It’s a sense of understanding and perspective on how I can understand my life. You hope that people will able to connect with it and thankfully some people have – and that’s amazing — but that’s all it is. I try to be myself and just hope it works.
So, today you’ve got Kings of Leon, and then you have both Bloc Party and The War On Drugs. They’ve got very different sounds, sonically?
I think we have different pillars of their sounds in the various iterations of our band? They’re all great bands, and we’re just very honoured to support them; they’re definitely some of the coolest bands we’ve gotten to work with, and they’ve all come within about a week!
I always love asking everyone this: what does Somebody’s Child mean to you? (Obviously I ask that with replacing the band name, not just asking everyone what you mean to them!)
Somebody’s Child represents, to me, authenticity. I feel like that’s kind of redundant as a word? But the reason I started the project was because I wanted to replace the idea of having to define a sound based around my name. Now the band’s involved, and it’s a whole new thing, but it started as wanting to chase yourself, and being able to find yourself within music; refusing to be held back by industry norms or being pigeonholed into a certain group of people, as is often the case when people ask “what’s your sound?” [Sorry Cian!], or “who do you sound like?”
I really, really think this next album has achieved something where I don’t think it really sounds like anyone and that’s something that I want to push for as much as possible. It’s so easy to take influence in; finding your own sound within that influence is the challenge. Honestly, it’s just about trying to pave our own path. We try and stick our head in the sand when it comes to socialising with other people and bands… we’re just doing our own thing. No offence to any of the bands or anything, but we’re all just on our own road here!
You’re born and you die by yourself, and I think that that’s the route I take in writing music. Utimately you’re searching for something within yourself and you hope that it’s as true as possible, that it represents something to the people you know. And yes, you can get into the whole branding thing, but from a writing music perspective? It’s just about self-discovery. If nothing else, that’s what it is to me. I know it sounds cliché, but it really is.
But that’s the thing with clichés! They’re clichés for a reason.
Would you say you’re getting close to that sort of idea of self-discovery?
No! Jesus, no. I mean, it’s just an idea. You can never really achieve it. It’s a concept more than anything, and what you’re doing is chasing this in the hope you find something worthwhile, but usually only in hindsight do you get to appreciate it. But I’m. I’m trying to appreciate it more in the moment, and I think by doing so that I might learn a bit more about myself in the process.
Interview by: James O’Sullivan
