Bell X1: Arms Dealers

A Most Surreptitious Success

The scale on which we measure the success of contemporary Irish acts, and bands in particular, is slightly distorted. The distortion stems from the top end of the scale, from a band so immensely popular, so beloved, that judging the success of another with any semblance of relativity becomes a rather difficult task. Lest you think I’m slightly overshooting the mark as regards the popularity of Bell X1, I should point out I am, of course, referring to U2.

If we put U2’s perspective-skewing success to one side, Bell X1’s achievements come into sharper focus. This is a band who have had three albums chart at number one in the Irish charts, and whose last four albums have been nominated for a Choice Music Prize for album of the year. A band who’ve shared a producer and mixer with The National. And yet, there is something of the enigma in Bell X1. It’s almost as if their success is a bit of a secret – they’re certainly not a name that would roll off mammy’s tongue and you’re unlikely to find them as an answer to a pub quiz question.

Their success has not, however, gone unnoticed by the all-powerful critics, with Hot Press describing them in blush-inducing terms as "critics' darlings." When I speak to Dominic Phillips, songwriter and bassist with the band, there is three weeks to go before the release of the band's seventh studio LP, Arms; the album has since come out and yet again critics are waxing lyrical about the Irish three-piece. It seems then that the band have hit the oh-so-rare sweet spot of critical acclaim and domestic commercial success minus the parasitic attachment of the kind of fame that extends selfie sticks and tints car windows.

I begin by asking Dom whether it’s a relief to have the level of privacy that he and his bandmates benefit from, and he responds with a chuckle: “Well certainly when you’re the bass player you have no problem. It’s complex really – if people see you at a show or a festival that you’re playing in they’ll realise who you are but there’s no tabloids [sic] to worry about for us. I can’t imagine what that must be like and there are no benefits as far as I can see, unless that’s your thing.”

As successful as they are, the band’s work is primarily consumed by an Irish audience, so when they are recognised in public, it tends to be on home soil. The concept of fame in Ireland was something I had been ruminating on in the lead-up to our conversation, and I put it to Phillips that being well-known or famous in Ireland is a very different experience to the equivalent anywhere else in the world.

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