It helps to be as philosophical as you can these days. Patient, too. For Irish singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke, it has taken all of his Zen-like proclivities to just sit back and watch his seventh album, Arrivals, endure one delay after another (it was initially scheduled for release in early February but has been knocked back twice to April 9th). Speaking across a Zoom link from his attic studio in Co Galway, his ringlets jiggling whenever he moves his head, O’Rourke says his only major concern was how “unprofessional it would look to keep moving the release dates, but because of the current climate, we knew people would accept that as part and parcel of what we’re all going through. We are all having to play ‘kick the can’ with everything, and people are forgiving with that.”
The new album comes almost four years after O’Rourke’s much-acclaimed traditional folk-oriented Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine, a themed collection that brought a long-term personal project to a close. Veering much more towards his knack of writing reflective, finely wrought pop songs (which he has been doing with no small success for more than 20 years), Arrivals could be viewed as, well, a departure for O’Rourke if it wasn’t so intrinsically entwined with his belief that creative expressiveness comes in many forms. He has lived with the new songs for more than two years but doesn’t sense any degree of weariness with them. He is right to feel such confidence – the songs are the most rounded he has written in his career.
“If they were bad songs, I would be worried by now they might not be so fresh, they might be ageing badly or I might be starting to feel a little detached from them, but I’m very comfortable with them. At this stage in my experience, doing what I do, being an artist, I tend not to worry about things like that so much. Usually, when I write a song, I tweak it obsessively for however long it takes me to write it – it may be months or sometimes years. By the time it gets to the stage for a performance, I have tinkered with it enough and very rarely does it change after that time, simply because I have knocked all of the little bumps out of it. I believe totally that songs and albums are snapshots in time, and recordings are the same – you have to let them go. I think when you embrace and accept the spirit of that when you’re making them, you end up with more beauty in them.”
Handing over control
Arrivals is somewhat different in other areas, notably O'Rourke's decision to not only bring a producer along but also to allow them to decree what direction the music should take. O'Rourke likens this, is some respects, to suspending control for the greater good. When the producer is someone as respected and experienced as Paul Weller, he hints, you do as you're told and that's that.
“Before I really knew what a producer was or did, I had my first record made,” he says of his 2004 debut, Since Kyabram. “I had known for the most part how I wanted my records to sound like, how to work on the kinds of instrumentation I wanted from people, and, of course, to allow for the changes that people, in a lovely way, bring to the music through their musicianship. That said, I wanted to work with somebody at some stage and to see what benefits that would bring to me and the music.”
There were various reasons why he came to this decision. Some were “intrinsically linked to the pace of life I have now with a young family, as well as other decisions I simultaneously made in my career to approach it differently, to do it in a way where I let go more, to allow things to happen. That was probably a challenge for me, because – and I’m sure a lot of artists can relate to this – you’re kind of controlling and obsessive about what you do.”
Still, he knew he couldn’t ask someone like Weller and then half-heartedly engage. He would have to accede and then do whatever was asked “out of deference and respect to him for coming on board. Once I made that decision in my head and my heart, it was smooth sailing from there on in. I was rewarded a million times over for the risk I took.”
Deep thinker
O’Rourke is a deep thinker, as much a creative strategist as a music fan. Such considerations bleed into his songwriting but never at the cost of simplicity. With Arrivals, he plays to his strengths, which he admits are just him and a guitar. It is an unaffected approach he has had since his early days as part of Ireland’s flourishing singer-songwriter scene. “About 80 per cent of my live shows throughout my career have been like that, and I know how comfortable I am with it. There is a certain kind of sacredness to just playing on your own in a room, and you hear the room sending the sound back to you. The more you plug in and the more people you add, the less there is.”
He is a songwriter who intuitively learns from his craft. The new songs, he says, are an indication of where he wants to be in his life. “I was doing a lot of thinking about that when I was making these changes in connection to where my life is. The songs charted, documented and manifested those at the same time. I was in a struggle balancing my professional and home life.”
At this point, he was certain that to be successful was to allow the attainment of it to be all-consuming. “I was throwing myself at the career – I had made four albums in four years. I was managing myself at the time. I was fiercely independent and had been for some time.”
Whatever came to a breaking point for O’Rourke to change tactics, he isn’t saying, but he soon decided “to work the way I wanted to, the way I was happy with. Family is everything to me, and I was really attracted to the idea of being more at home, having a beautiful life with our little boy around and being a family person. I just knew that was going to happen on my terms or not at all.”
So far, he smiles ruefully, he has managed to achieve that balance, “admittedly with a little bit of help from lockdowns, but I feel that’s where I’m at, and I’m happy I made that decision. By letting go, things started to happen. You get rewarded for trusting.”
Arrivals is out April 9th. Declan O'Rourke presents the global livestream launch of Arrivals from the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on April 14th. Special guests to be announced. Tickets from momenthouse.com/declanorourke
PAUL WELLER’ APPROACH TO HIT-MAKING: WHY BOTHER TRYING?
“There were numerous thoughts Paul had on the project. The most fundamental and direct was what he suggested when I approached him with the idea of me doing a stripped-back album, just me and the guitar, basically. He felt the right approach with the batch of songs I brought with me was that I should veer towards the more personally driven. Although it’s against my instinct, I asked him should I think of having something on the album that could be viewed as radio-friendly, but he said no one knows what gets on to radio any more so why bother trying, that what stands up to the test of time is a great record. I was able to dive more into myself with that approach, and he pulled the songs even further into a deep, intimate and personal path. The real eureka moment was his suggestion to add small textures to the songs – something here, something there. That sounded crazy to me because in my limited experience compared to his, I thought to introduce things to especially bare and naked songs, even for only a few bars and then leave, would be like having a massive thumb sticking out. Yet in every single instance, it was perfect, and he was right.”
