Getting in gear after my Little Green Car stalled
The announcement in March that Little Green Cars were splitting up caused some tremors. This was a band that had hit the No.1 and 2 spots in the Irish charts with respectively 2013’s Absolute Zero and 2016’s Ephemera. They could headline outdoor shows in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens and were lauded critically.
Switch to the basement of one of Dublin’s trendier bars in May and a quartet called Soda Blonde is making its debut. Fronting it, Faye O’Rourke of Little Green Cars, but look again, that’s not one or two but three former members of her former band behind her playing a noticeably brighter form of indie pop than the group that were Choice Music Prize and BBC Sound Of 2013 poll
Songs such as Swimming Through The Night and Terrible
Hands immediately catch the ear. A now blonde-coiffed Faye O’Rourke is confidently fronting the outfit. Stevie Appleby who was the co-driver with her in Little Green Cars is nowhere to be seen.
When I met O’Rourke in Dublin’s
Central Hotel recently to talk about the new project that has created a buzz already, it seemed only fair to ask about Appleby. They were close on and off stage but she will not discuss that side of their relationship. She instead says: ‘Stevie to me is one of the most talented songwriters in the world. Initially, in
Little Green Cars, I took more of a back seat. Later on, I was writing much more and those two elements meant it wasn’t as cohesive anymore.’
She pauses, looking out on South Great George’s Street and continues.
‘I had been playing music since I was 14. We signed a deal when I was 19. I think that anything that has been going for ten years is going to evolve and change. When it came to our third (unreleased) album, there were two very different perspectives; that was challenging. Initially, those differences were what made the band great. With the songs that I was writing, it felt like it was becomnominees.
ing a different thing for me.’
While O’Rourke’s voice was correctly identified by one critic as “Little Green Cars’ secret weapon”, Appleby was often hailed as the mercurial talent that set the band apart.
He is making steps towards reestablishing a musical career. He tweeted in October that he had been hospitalised in 2018: ‘I thought I had given up music forever but it’s slowly coming back, I just finished my first song in a year and I’m proud of it.’
In another tweet on the same day, he wrote: ‘I’ve been recording since I got out last month and will hopefully have music to show you soon, I won’t be playing any gigs for a while... but will hopefully be back gigging in the new year.’
For her part, O’Rourke details the trepidation she felt before setting a new course in her life and career.
‘I was petrified. I’m not in my early twenties anymore. I knew I was still going to write music but I wasn’t sure what way to progress,’ the 27-year-old says.
‘I felt that myself and Adam [O’Regan, guitarist] would make music and I think the other two guys are the best musicians in the country. We began to think, “who we are we kidding?” We know we work together really well, it made sense to carry on.’
Soda Blonde have made impressivestridesreallyquickly. Swimming
Through The Night became an enthusiastically received single and was accompanied by a video which depicted scenes of mourning. When I suggest to her that it seemed designed to say, ‘goodbye to all that?’
She says, ‘that’s an interesting interpretation’ and reveals, ‘my father plays a psychiatrist in it. He represents the rational element of the mind. There was, yes, an element of wanting to bury something and start again; that departure from Little Green Cars.’ The very impressive Terrible
Hands is now the title track of an equally strong four-song EP which has just been released. 2020 now beckons full of promise.
‘We want to make an album in the new year,’ she says. ‘I feel much more confident now. I feel very protected in the sense that we are able to express ourselves exactly how we want to without compromise. Previously, we were struggling with having to make compromises. I feel so comfortable [now] I have a space to perform.’
Terrible Hands EP is out now. Soda Blonde play Whelans Dublin December 15 & 16.