Couple’s Kind of Dreaming comes to life
Duo Driven Snow’s first album is a long-held ambition...
K‘The themes are relevant to all our lives... it’s about every kind of relationship.’
ieran McGuinness and Emily Aylmer have been together as a couple for 18 years but the Covid lockdown gave them the opportunity to fulfil a long-cherished ambition to also become a musical duo. They chose the name Driven Snow, and A Kind of Dreaming is the suitably wintry offering from the pair.
Kieran is the lead vocalist of the successful Irish rock band Delorentos. As a fledgling act, the Dublin quartet found themselves opening for then hugely popular Irish act the Republic of Loose many times. He took a shine to Emily, one of the funk-rock band’s backing singers. But the course of true love never did run smooth, as Shakespeare put it – not in Kerry anyway.
‘We met the first time Delorentos supported the Republic of Loose in Dingle. I was trying to chat her up and Emily was having none of me that night,’ Kieran recalled, while his wife eyed him with a knowing smile on our recent Zoom call.
‘Then we met at other times. Eventually, Emily was finally available. That was in 2006. Delorentos released our first album in 2007. Really early on, Emily started doing backing vocals with us and at various points from then on.’
Kieran and Emily have three children and initially they had a radically different idea of what their first musical project would sound like. ‘We sang to our kids all the time and we had an idea of taking really well-known songs and making nursery rhyme versions out of them,’ Kieran says, of an idea which is far from the worst concept ever considered.
‘We recorded a version of Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine and pop songs and Irish ones but done really gently,’ says Emily, who is also a secondary school teacher. ‘That was also the first time we went into a studio together.’
Kieran says: ‘We sent a demo to a friend who wanted to hear them and so we could get an opinion and he said, “these are good but what the hell are you doing? You need to be doing your own music.” We had been talking about it but that was the real kick up the a*** that we needed.’
Kieran has written most of the lyrics for the songs they’ve recorded for A Kind of Dreaming. Emily has been his musical sounding board for years, now she has a more significant vested interest in the songs her husband writes. ‘I always used to play songs to Emily before anyone else. She has such a great melodic ear and ideas about arrangements. When I got a nod from her about a song I would bring it to the guys in Delorentos,’ he says. ‘With these songs, we tried them with me or Emily singing and whoever best connected with the song would sing it.’ As Emily points out, Kieran’s songs tend not to be autobiographical and she can get inside their universal themes – especially ones that she can relate to on a personal level.
‘The themes are relevant to all our lives. When I’m singing Nothing As Hard As Love I think about anyone who has lost people or partners who have died. It’s about every kind of relationship.’
‘There’s another on the album called Old Main Road and when I was writing it I said to Emily, “I’ve put it on the computer in the music room, see what you can do with it”, Kieran recalls about another standout song from the nine-song collection.
‘Emily went in and was there for ages and after watching a bit of TV I went in and she just said, “Yeah, yeah, come back later.” Eventually at the end of the night she came out, exhausted and upset and she had taken the song that I’d written, re-written it, changed the words and the meaning. Emily’s friend had passed away from cancer about five years ago and suddenly the song spoke to her in those terms. It became much better than what I had written.’
Although the album has already been justifiably praised, Kieran stresses that Driven Snow’s success does not sound the death knell for Delorentos.
‘When Covid came we were ready for a break. We pushed ourselves so hard over the years,’ he says.
‘Ro (Yourell, Delorentos’ other singer/guitarist) has an album coming out and it’s brilliant. It’s a gentle, folky thing which is something he has always wanted to do. We’re just doing what suits us best right now.’
A Kind of Dreaming is out now. Driven Snow play Whelan’s, Dublin on February 16 and 17.