Little Green Cars come of age on stage
INDIE rock band Little Green Cars are all set to make their ‘ Sligo Live’ debut performance next month.
The Dublin quintet have already enjoyed considerable success in the UK and the United States, including a national audience in an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Founded in 2008, the band members include Stevie Appleby on guitar and vocals, Faye O’Rourke on vocals, Adam O’Regan on guitar, Donagh Seaver O’Leary on Bass and Dylan Lynch on Drums.
Their second album, the mature and melancholy Ephemera, is named after a poem written by WB Yeats about fading love and passion.
“We were in a meeting discussing the art work for our second album when Stevie found the poem. We felt it really encapsulated the essence of our album,” their guitarist Adam O’Regan tells The Sligo Champion.
The album has received critical acclaim for its heart- wrenching, haunting songs of the turbulence of the early adult years.
Little Green Cars were still in their teens when they were spotted and signed to Glassnote and recorded their widely- acclaimed 2013 debut Absolute Zero with producer Markus Dravs. That album changed their lives, taking the five former school friends on tour everywhere from Europe and Australia to Russia and the States, which they criss- crossed six timesin three years.
Now all in their early 20s, Little Green Cars are both a different band and the same five friends who met every Sunday aged 15 in singer Stevie Appleby’s garden shed to start writing songs. Those changes, their shared experiences and individual ups and downs are candidly documented in Ephemera, a gorgeous, grown- up album about, well, growing up.
Two deaths, relationship break- ups and their over two years’ worth of touring are among the key events that inform Ephemera’s richly- textured, harmony- soaked rock songs. While the impact of those events will change over time, the intense emotions they evoked live on in the music.
“It’s been received really well critically which is the most important for us,” says Adam.
“The most important thing for us is playing live. We’ve toured a lot in the States which has been great. Audiences have been responding really well to it, people are coming up to us after shows,” he says.
One song in particular, ‘ The Party’ has reso- nated with audiences according to Adam. “We feel like there’s a real joyous energy to it,” he says.
Adam wrote ‘ Brother’ on the album, not long after his own father, the ‘ Thomas Read’ pub- chain entrepreneur Hugh O’Regan died suddenly in 2012 aged just 49.
“It was very personal for me but it’s since become a much more universal thing,” he says.
“That’s the mission statement of our band. To be truthful and show the universal. Our experiences aren’t unique, we all go through tough times. That’s our goal to show that,” he says.
The young Adam flitted through the school system “not really engaging with it” until one day, as an “angsty” 13 year old, his father gave him an electric guitar and he was “immediately hooked.”
“There’s no music in my family, we’re just normal. I did have a few piano lessons when I was seven for a few years but nothing really stuck until I turned 13,” he says.
He met a like- minded friend in Stevie at school and the rest of the band came together through friends. Adam says they’re now “the same as a family” they’ve become so close.
The band are playing Wexford Spiegeltent Festival the night before Sligo Live as well as Vicar Street, Dublin in December.
They’re already working on their third album and will be taking to the recording studios early next year. Does he prefer the recording studio to the live stage?
“They’re both great for different reasons. Being in a studio is very exciting but the live performances is why we do it, what it’s for. So both really,” he says.
Adam is not taking anything for granted and is determined to stay true to their musical calling.
“You never know what to expect. The main thing is that we focus on making great music. If you start focusing on fame and success, that seeps into your music and you can hear that. As long as we can continue to make music, that’s success for us,” he adds.
Little Green Cars play the Knocknarea Arena on Saturday 29th October. Expect to enjoy among others, a dozen exquisitely- crafted songs shimmering with the myriad of emotions the band has been through - restlessness, regret, love, heartbreak, hope and acceptance.
Tickets are € 26.50 plus service charge ( standing) and a very limited number of tiered seated tickets at € 29.50 are on sale from www. sligolive. ie, Ticketmaster and the Hawk’s Well on 9161518.