CPI - The Archive: Podcast Interview

With a growing reputation and a Choice Music Prize-winning album under his belt, Adrian Crowley is an artist on the rise. Andrew Hamilton chats to the late-bloomer of Irish music.

By the age of 25 most people are packing in their teenage dream. Too old to play for Man United, too lacking in star quality to be an actor, too much of a grown-up to be a rock star. Yet it is at just this age that the world first began to hear the name of Galway musician Adrian Crowley. While Crowley is certainly a late developer from an “industry” point of view, his music and song-writing is something aged and matured over many years. It was a long journey, but one that, according to Crowley, that had to be made. “I think the music brought me there itself. I didn’t start out with too many great expectations of making a career out of it. The way I approached it was that when most people would have been out there looking for gigs I started working on my first album. I took an unusual approach to the whole thing. So, the momentum started growing slowly over a few years so when I finally decided to go full-time it just happened by itself. I wasn’t really a decision that I would try and make a go of it but there was one year when it all just started coming for me and I went with it. I was doing music to satisfy something that I was striving for - I had no idea what people would make of it and I wasn’t trying to sell it to anyone. I think that had an influence on the music that came out on the other end. People are always telling me how unusual my music sounded and different from what they might have heard before.”

cpiarchive2010a@gmail.com · #128 The Adrian Crowley Podcast

What started as a way to make friends with his younger brother has now morphed into a new and exciting musical adventure. Andrew Hamilton chats to Eoin Ó Súilleabháin, son of Mícheál, brother of Moley and one half of Size2Shoes.

It's funny. They say that no news is good news, but in the newspaper business, good news really isn’t news at all. The same, some might say, could be said for the world of art and music. From Cobain to Cohen, Morrissey to Joy Division, the overwhelming majority of musicians have a huge leaning to the darker side of the tracks. The reasons for this are many - some write to confess, others to protest but the single greatest reason (according to page 23 of the rock ‘n’ roll bible) is that it is simply much more difficult to write great happy songs. Limerick band Size2Shoes are looking to re-write this particular piece of music lore. Sons of music legend Mícheál Súilleabháin, Eoin and Moley, have begun a campaign to put a smile back on music’s face. “I guess it was always the voices that we were interested in. The music that we would have listened to growing up was always driven by the music and something that we could sing along to. The two of us are huge fans of Michael Jackson and we just saw the This Is It movie last night. Things like that have always blown us away and it’s always what we wanted to do. It’s something that we really think attracts people and turns people on,” said Eoin.

CPIArchive2009D · #113 The Size2Shoes Podcast

Clare People Interactive

Clare People Interactive (CPI) was founded in the late month of 2006 by West of Ireland journalist Andrew Hamilton. The project was a step into the unknown, an attempt to bridge the gap between the old world of print media and the emerging new media technologies.
At the core of the CPI was a long running series of interviews with Irish and international artists, mostly musicians. These interviews, which appeared first in print and then as free audio podcasts, attempted to provide a richer experience of the subject than had previously been possible in print media. The focus was always on the artist and the work, with journalistic intrusions rare and usually (mercifully) brief.
Between 2006 and 2010, Clare People Interactive grew to just shy of 150 audio podcasts. There were also a dozen video podcasts - the Gonzo Nation series - as well as hundreds of album and gig reviews - which have all, sadly, been lost to the internet.
This archive contains the original 146 audio podcasts in their original format. As the series grew, the audio quality and (hopefully) the standard of journalism grew with it.
Clare People Interactive is the work of Andrew Hamilton. Eternal thanks to John O'Rourke for his technical support, Noel Barrett for designing the many logos and to Gerry Collison for his optimism and support.
This, is Clare People Interactive.