Interviews

Sunday Tribune - The Ticket - April 30 2006

"Out Of Frame"

SITTING in the lobby of New York's Chelsea Hotel, waiting for Glen Hansard, is as good a time as any to consider the unlikely career trajectory of a man you could justly describe as Ireland's most tenacious singer and songwriter. Two decades into a musical career that has seen more ups and downs than a seesaw factory, Hansard finds himself in a strange new place, indeed . . . he's not the underdog anymore. The band he's seen through thick and thin, the Frames, have finally made a global breakthrough with their Burn The Maps album . . . a record, ironically enough, greeted with a rather cool response back home.

Released globally on cutting-edge indie label Anti, Burn The Maps has taken things up several notches worldwide for the Frames; for starters, the US edition of Esquire magazine has just awarded the band their annual Esky Award for Best Musical Import . . . to offer a little more context, last year's winners were Coldplay. Esquire said that Burn The Maps "has the hallmarks of timelessness; range, passion and confidence".

It's a record worth another listen. This summer, the band get to co-headline New York's Central Park Summerstage alongside critical darlings Calexico and the New Pornographers, then perform at the legendary Lollapalooza festival.

In the midst of all this, Glen Hansard has found the time to make his first solo record . . . of sorts, anyhow: a collaboration with Czech pianist Markéta Irglová entitled The Swell Season. The duo have made a movie, too . . . they both star in a forthcoming low-budget feature, Once, from Bachelor's Walk creator (and former Frame) John Carney. But we'll get to that later.

For now, let's talk about The Swell Season. It's a remarkable record, a searing collection of intimate torch songs, alternately achingly tender and nakedly brutal, all recorded over a single, intensive four-day period. What's more, its creator insists that it all came together in the most unexpected, unlikely fashion imaginable. Yes . . . Glen Hansard is The Man Who Recorded A Solo Album By Accident. And who are we to doubt him?

The Swell Season came into being when Oscar-nominated Czech filmmaker Jan Hrebejk asked Hansard . . . a regular visitor to the Czech Republic in recent years . . . to re-record some Frames songs for a forthcoming movie project. He agreed to do the session in exchange for some session time in a Prague recording studio . . . enter Markéta Irglová, the daughter of an old friend, who had accompanied Hansard on a series of Czech shows.

"Markéta is an amazing songwriter, " he says, "and we had this great experience playing these gigs there. The initial idea was to get a couple of the boys from the Frames over to record her songs, knock out an album for her. Then she said 'Look, I have a better ideaf'" Irglová and Hansard had already sounded out a few ideas for the next Frames record, when they decided to commit some of their rough musical sketches to tape. "What was meant to be her record became our record, " he says, "which . . . if I'm going to be really honest . . . became my record, because most of the tunes that ended up on the thing are mine. The whole session went in a totally different direction altogether to the one we had intended. And I had honestly never planned on making a solo record. It just came together."

The bandleader admits that Frames recording sessions have, largely due to his own perfectionism, proved somewhat tortuous; the casual way in which The Swell Season fell together proved an enlightening experience. "For the first time in my life, " he says, "I suppose I felt like I was genuinely collaborating with someone. When I work with the band, sure, I'll bring in a song, or at least a definite idea. I'd rarely, if ever, start over from scratch. That was the great thing about working with Mar, because she was like, 'What are you trying to say with this?' And I'd be like, 'Well, I'm just kind of feeling it outf' And she's like, 'No . . . sing about your life.' This girl's young, she's totally unconnected with me, and I'm really liking where she's going. She said, 'I like the band, but you tend to be a bit depressing, to dwell on the sadness a bit . . . and you're not a sad bloke. You're pretty happy go lucky.' And I'm, like, 'F**kin' hellf' [laughs] It was a complete eye opener for me."

The immediacy of that initial recording session created an urgent forward momentum, one that brought The Swell Season from studio to your local record emporium in . . . for Hansard, anyhow . . . record time. Hence the quick stopover in New York to hang in his favourite NYC hotel, do a final mix on the album and play a few low-key shows with Irglová. Spontaneity is of the essence . . . he was advised to leave the Swell recordings in as raw a state as possible, after all, by none other than seasoned musical visionary Brian Eno, who gave the tapes a quick listen. "I've never done this before, " he says.

"Never written three songs in the studio, on the spot, before."

He likes to compare the process to falling unexpectedly pregnant . . . once the Prague sessions were done, it was time to come home and inform the other parents . . . his band . . . that he'd just had a child out of wedlock. "It was a little awkward, " he says. "I was like, 'By the way, I've got an album donef' They didn't have a clue. I played it for them, and I said, 'Look lads, the last thing I ever want to do is get into competition with my own bandf' That's just counterproductive. Everybody was really positive about it, which was a massive relief."

Here's the thing; Glen Hansard is a lovely bloke. Genuinely.

And he wears success well. The years of toil and struggle have finally begun to pay off big time, and he exudes the aura a man at peace with his past . . . meaning it's finally okay to mention The Commitments again, for starters. For years, Hansard studiously avoided (and rather wisely so) anything to do with the film role that brought him into the public eye hand in hand with the Frames' first album; now he's belatedly returned to the acting world for his old mucker John Carney. Due for release later this year, Once couldn't be more playing to his particular strengths; he plays a busker, after all, with musical compadre Markéta Irglová as his character's muse.

(FYI: While they do share an on-screen romance, they're just good friends. ) In fashion with the current spirit of things, the project came together somewhat organically; Carney had been developing the project, and roped Hansard in to write the songs; he'd been looking for a foreign female lead who could sing and play keyboards, so Hansard suggested Irglová. It was only when original star Cillian Murphy couldn't do it, however, that Hansard then came into the running as a potential leading man.

"I really, really didn't want to do anything in terms of acting again after The Commitments . . . it was a great experience, but not for me. I'd spent years talking my way out of the whole Commitments thing, and now I was being asked to go back inf People were going to think this was a Glen Hansard vanity project, he's playing himself, singing his own songs. I said no. Then I thought about it, and thought about it, and said, 'F**k it . . . why not?' I had been in a band with John, and knew that he wouldn't bullshit me. I wanted to be a collaborator, not just an actor, and John was very into that idea. My whole fear was: I will not be involved in bad art [laughs]. So we just did it. I'm not going to make a movie for fear of what other people might think. You can't live like that."

Thus the man strides boldly forward, exploring new avenues at every turn. Where once upon a time Hansard was inexorably entrenched in the murky mires of the Dublin music scene, these days he's embracing the bigger picture.

And, it should be said, enjoying the ride. At home in the Chelsea, where Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas used to hang out, and Leonard Cohen once got it on with Janis Joplin, he's brimming with enthusiasm and confidence.

And why shouldn't he? He's just made a great record, after all.

"There was a certain point, " he says, "when I stopped looking at the Frames website, stopped connecting on any real personal level with my feelings about what the audience expect and what they don't expectf And that's the opposite of where I was at for so many years. I'm 36 now, and I'm not looking for anyone's approval any more. That guy's gone.

We've all changed. The band who were always looking for approval have, I suppose, found it in themselves."

'The Swell Season' is out now on Plateau Records. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are currently on tour around Ireland. The Frames play the Cork Showgrounds on Friday, 30 June The Commitments: 15 Years On.

The Irish Echo Online - February 9 2005

A Cathartic Release

Frames hope new album will put them on the map in U.S.
By Jill Sheehy

Colm Mac Con lomaire has some busy days ahead of him. Aside from fixing up a nursery for his second child, who is due any day, the Frames' violinist is resting before joining the band on a tour that will take them around the world.

The paternal leave is a welcome break for Mac Con lomaire before the Frames' new album, "Burn the Maps," hits stores in the U.S. on Tuesday. The album, which has been out in Ireland for months, has left the Dublin band awash in praise from the Irish press, and if advance reviews from America are any indication, they will be greeted with similar accolades here.

But speaking with the Echo via phone from his new home in Wexford, Mac Conlomaire is wistful about where he has been able hang his hat recently.

"Burn the Maps" was pieced together during studio sessions in Ireland, France and Chicago, the last of which, Mac Con lomaire said, is a second home to the band while in the U.S. Indeed, with friends and family there, the Frames, who, in addition to Mac Con lomaire, comprise Rob Bochnik, Glen Hansard and Joe Doyle, are well acquainted with the Windy City, playing and staying there whenever possible.

Aside from having a manager based in town, there was another reason why the city made sense for the Frames -- producer Steve Albini works out of the area, giving the Frames access to one of the best in the business.

When it was time for Albini to work on the engineering of "Burn the Maps," there were a total of 25 songs, which by the last session had been pared to 10.

"Usually, the songs that don't make it have a stigma about them," said Mac Con lomaire, who adds that they will probably turn up on the next album. "We've been able to reconcile that process."

Personnel have been an integral part of the Frames' success so far. Mac Con lomaire said it has helped to keep a steady roster of the same people with similar musical ideals to ensure that the music they make it a product they stand behind.

"We're at the sharp end of that process," he said. "We're acutely aware of what not to do."

His own recording process is one he has recently worked on with his bandmates. While trying to do the string arrangements, he would sneak off with a computer and work away, "unbeknownst to the lads," he said, laughing.

While the violin has a featured spot on most Frames songs, Mac Con lomaire is careful not to overdo it.

"It is easy to be twee with the violin," he said. "It is a fine line to walk."

Though not many bands are able to use it as a full-time instrument, critics and fans alike fawn over his prowess with the violin, and make note of how integral it becomes to the sound of the band as a whole.

The power of the violin first clicked in his head thanks to Scarlet Rivera, a player on Bob Dylan's "Desire" album and most notably the song "Hurricane." Mac Con lomaire was changed the first time he heard Rivera on the album.

"It terms of coming to a signpost, it was Scarlet Rivera," he said. "I was transfixed."

Coming from a musical family didn't hurt, either. MacCon lomaire's mother and grandmother played, along with his brothers and sisters.

A group dynamic also came into play when recording "Burn the Maps," one Mac Con lomaire says was "a lot more band-based" that previous outings.

"This was very from the roots up" he said.

The result is a bare, moody work, contained within the 10 songs, and still bursting at the seams.

Some critics have already cited the melancholy feel, and when questioned what was behind the mood, Mac Con lomaire is philosophical.

"It's hard to look back at where you were at mentally when writing and recording, then playing it in the present," he said. "But you can catch glimpses of where things came from.

"I think we're speaking of things that need to be spoken about. So much of the medium is so pop-driven. It's all very, 'take your Prozac and smile.' "

Mac Con lomaire has embraced his recent respite, he said, taking the opportunity to delve anew into the rather heavy offerings on "Burn the Map." He realized that dealing with unpleasant topics, as the songs on the album do, and trusting one's feelings is sometimes a good thing.

"There is a real level of catharsis about it," he said.

The Frames' next record, already in the planning stages, "will end up being much more joyful," Mac Con lomaire said. "But to get to that, we had to make this music."

The freedom to make the music the foursome heard was due in no small part to their status as a premier rock outfit, and hopes are high for their slow burn in the U.S. to pick up.

"It was a slow natural unfolding of much performing, among other things," Mac Con lomaire said of their status. "We're not a very fashionable or hip band. But we have a very good relationship with the audience and with the fans."

Their star has risen considerably thanks to word-of-mouth and the outlet the Internet has provided.

With word spilling over into the U.S., it ensured that their last full tour here, with Damien Rice, filled large concert halls.

Mac Con lomaire said it took Irish media a little convincing to get on board.

"Our concept of success is day-to-day living," he said. "To move a million records, that's brilliant, but at the same time, so is moving a couple thousand. "We're at a very interesting place. We operate on a practical level. . . . We don't pitch everything on cracking a chart."

Their new label, Anti, a small imprint of the Epitaph record label, offered the Frames creative freedom as well as worldwide distribution, something they had been aiming for.

"They're very likeminded," Mac Con lomaire said. "It's a great feeling."

While on dad duty, Mac Con lomaire will be watching his own children's development. Could there be, perhaps, a future violin virtuoso?

"Kids are sponges," he said, explaining how there is always an element of father-like-son growing up. "Music is and always will be available to them."

This story appeared in the issue of February 9-15, 2005

Anti - Biography

Go to enough extremes and you’ll find a kind of balance. Until now, The Frames’ music favoured bi-polar swings, violently loud on one song, violently quiet the next. On Burn The Maps, their fifth studio album, the band have reconciled their various personalities into one volatile organism, synthesizing gorgeous melancholy with full-blown anger.

If 2000’s For the Birds seemed to capture the Dublin/Chicago quintet playing in a small room with nobody watching, Burn The Maps turns on the arc lamps. Served by their most faithful production job yet (courtesy of ex-guitarist Dave Odlum and new guitarist Rob Bochnik, who formerly spent eight years working at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio) and recorded in Black Box studios in France, the new record is a skilful mix of widescreen scale and magnifying-glass detail, sort of like putting a Herzog still under a microscope.

So, you get the self-questioning psychodrama and martial rhythms of the single ‘Finally’, featuring a hackle-raising vocal from Glen Hansard and typically panoramic string arrangement from Colm Mac An Iomaire. You get spiky, nasty pop songs like ‘Fake’ and ‘Underglass’, with its dum-dum bassline worthy of Kim Deal. You get the seraphic boy soprano melodies of ‘Happy’ and ‘Sideways Down’ and the graphic 4am truth-or-dare drinking games of ‘Caution’. And you get epics like ‘Keepsake’, distinguished by the sort of sea change dynamics associated with Mogwai or the Dirty Three. In short, here’s a world where Spector collides with Steve Albini, Arvo Part with Sparklehorse, open-heart surgery songs that deal in love and hate, mourning and ambition, art and blood.

But then, The Frames’ career (and one uses the word in terms of careering wildly as much as any overarching strategy) has always followed the music. The platinum-selling For The Birds, released on their own Plateau label in the summer of 2000, marked the end of major label bad marriages, and fired with newfound independence the band set about forging a sound based on fidelity to their instincts. The result: an earthenware collection of skewed avant-folk songs that sounded like they’d been written in a hole in the ground and recorded in some hi-tech coastal cave.

Nobody could’ve predicted what happened next. Slowly at first, but with increased velocity over the next year, things began to snowball. The album went from gold to platinum, and in its wake, renewed sales of previous Frames albums such as Fitzcarraldo and Dance The Devil. Somehow The Frames went from being Ireland’s biggest cult act to one of its top selling bands full stop. Plus, they were starting to sell out tours all across Europe, the US and Australia. Glen did a stint presenting the music television series Other Voices: Songs From A Room.
Meanwhile back home, they could cherry pick slots on any festival bill they chose to play (particularly memorable were a Dublin Castle headliner and brace of consecutive Witnness sets) and by the summer of 2003, were co-headlining the Lisdoonvarna extravaganza in front of 30,000 people. Funny thing was, they looked like they always belonged on that stage. The Frames were no longer noble underdogs. Now they were the main event.

While preparing their fifth studio album, the band released the live album Set List, at last capturing their incendiary stage sound on tape. The Irish public responded by sending it straight to number one in the charts, making it their third platinum album. Hot on its heels, the top five single ‘Fake’ was released in September 03, spending months in the singles charts.

2004 saw The Frames sweep the Hot Press Critics’ and Readers’ Polls, and they also won their first industry gong in the shape of the Meteor Award for Best Irish Band. More to the point, the band confirmed a new international deal with Californian mavericks Anti, arguably the only label in the world that could claim to be the band’s spiritual home, boasting such artists as Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Merle Haggard. They celebrated this by touring America with Damien Rice, and spent the last few months putting the finishing touches to the new album.

So, Burn The Maps, is at once a musical tour de force and a statement of intent, an album whose campaign begins with typical Frames-ian audacity – an outdoor headliner at Marlay Park in front of some 17,000 people.

“With The Frames, it’s the throwing your arms around the room thing,” says singer/guitarist Glen Hansard. “When our gigs are at their best, you throw the energy out and it gets thrown back twice the size. I mean, I find myself saying things on stage that I would never say in my life, it’s almost like a whole new character or creature is born when you walk on. If you trust in the moment, if you’re willing to be the fool and make the mistake and get it wrong, then you’ve great potential to get it absolutely right. And I think that can be the scary thing about a Frames gig and the great thing about a Frames gig.”

Shake'n'Stir - Sydney, October 2003

The FRAMES in AUSTRALIA

"Our Sheila in Australia caught up with one of our favourite bands in Sydney.

We were sitting at a bar drinking and the guy serving us started talking about some friend of his that was in a band that had played the Metro (in Sydney) last week. Then Colm said, "Oh, we're playing the Metro tomorrow." And the guy was like, "You're not the fucking Frames are you? Fucking hell man. You look like a bunch of backpackers!"

That story says it all really. The Frames entered quietly and almost anonymously into Australia, but left an indelible impression upon the minds and hearts of all who saw them live. The crew at Shakenstir know all too well how incredible their live performances are, so I knew I was in for a treat. I also decided to track down frontman Glen Hansard who didn't look a bit like Brad Pitt as I had been to led to believe - he was looking decidedly worse for wear after a night on the tiles. But after a strong black coffee and a comfy chair, he was right to have a chat about the tenacity of the Frames and their trudge to world domination."

Read the interview

Hot Press - The Frames, July 1995

Though he was busking in Grafton Street at 14, it's taken Glen Hansard more than a few shakes of the lamb's tail to reach the plateau of success which his songwriting talents have, for so long, threatened to take him - but after the colossal success of 'Revelate', THE FRAMES are, finally, set to enjoy their day in the sun. Here, Glen and guitarist, Dave Odlum, put Niall Crumlish in the picture.

As is his wont, Glen Hansard wrinkles his brow, tugs pensively at the much-talked-about ginger goatee and cuts to the chase.
"When you're down," he says, reboarding for a while the somewhat spiritual train of thought that first led his rock'n'roll band The Frames to the smash hit single of the year 'Revelate', "and when things aren't going right, and life is shit - 'cos life is shit! And I'm not being a pessimist but life is a constant up and down thing, it's not linear - you're drifting. But when I think when you're down, and when you get so far down there's only one thing you can do..."
He tosses a quick, furtive glance towards the ceiling, and eye-balls me again.

"...And some people don't! When you're so far down, you put your hands together, you look into the sky and ask, y'know 'Is there a God?', 'Are you there?', and these kinds of questions, y'know, 'What's is all about?' I'm not much of a pray-er myself - I think that's one of the things the song are there for - but I think that's kind of where 'Revelate' is coming from."

Glen takes a brief breather, and the nervous flicker of a smile he allows himself is that of a man by whom and for whom many, many decades of the Rosary have been trudged wearily but ever-hopefully through; not only this, but the very same thoroughly inscrutable Creator of the Universe who day in, day out refuses with a chuckle my plaintive pleas for the hand of Sharon Ní Bheoláin has finally decided to plug the old hearing-aid in.

Quite simply, the astonishing and massively heartening turnaround in the fortunes of Glen Hansard’s group would make a believer out of Beelzebub: ‘Revelate’ is this year’s ‘Everybody Hurts’, The Frames are The Band Of The Moment and their stone cold classic second LP – due out any day now – looks set to make them The Band Of The Moment for the rest of their working lives.

In short, there is a God, after all, it appears, and – wouldn’t ya know it? – He’s on our side. Well, Amen to that.


However, amidst all the back-slapping and idle talk of multi-platinum solo side projects it should be remembered that a comeback – as this, I think, is, with bells on – is not worthy of the name unless you first have a vale of tears from which to return, Lazarus-like. The Frames have had their dark moments; we’re almost lucky they’re still with us.

Glen: “Yeah, and I think if there was a word for all the songs on the new LP they’d be, like, redemption songs, or songs about not giving up.”

While the last LP was, of course, chock full of manic, unrequited love songs.

“Right. That seemed to be the general thread that went through it, whereas now it’s more about picking yourself up from somewhere you might you might have been, y’know, or I have certainly been.

“Like, I went through the whole Commitments experience which was all very big and I had to somehow validate my career, which was The Frames, which was so much smaller. So, when our album came out (1992’s Another Love Song, an occasionally flawed, mostly mighty record, and the recipient of a not inconsiderable 12 on the dice from the legendary and always, but always spot-on Michael O’Hara – NC)) it got drowned, basically, in the fact that I was in this film, and we could never measure up to it ‘cos it was Hollywood superstardom, beyond your wildest dreams. It’s very rare you hit that on your first record. So, em, the whole thing sort of went into the background, and we got dropped, we didn’t sell many copies of it, and then our bass player (John Carney) left us, who was a very important member of the band.”

As you might expect, all this adversity got them thinking, if not drinking.

“And basically, things got really … things were kind of falling apart and it was a kind of a sink or swim situation. So we decided to swim. And when we did, that was when the whole momentum and good feeling started to come back into the situation, and we started writing a bunch of songs that had to be written, y’know, about the situation.”

Was there ever a moment when you thought we’d seen the last of you?

Glen thinks for a minute. “Em, no. We never really sort of talked about it …”
Dave “The Rave” Odlum, lead guitarist extraordinaire and favourite son of the home of rock’n’roll, Ballinteer (home also to Revelino and, ahem, me), continues: “… there was almost a sense of, that’s the subject you don’t bring up (laughs).”

Glen, with a glint in his eye, glares: “Yeah, that’s right.”
I apologise profusely; I’m just doing my job, guv.
Dave: “No, no, back then! It’s OK now!”
Glen: “Once we decided to stick together, the whole thing became OK. Even now, it would be OK for the band to split up at some point. It’s not a problem anymore. We’re all intelligent enough to sort of say ‘Now, we’re gonna do this, and if it doesn’t work…”
Dave: “We tried.”
Glen: “Yeah. We tried. We gave it our best shot. So, in a way, we’re quite realistic, ‘cos it could all fall apart again. I’ve seen some of my favourite bands split up without ever making a record at all, so things could go that way.

“Or,” he goes on, lifting the pall of gloom which has mysteriously settled over the last few paragraphs, “things could keep going the way they are now, and we could naturally progress into selling records, and doing quite well. I hope it goes that way.”


The thing is, though, we’ve never going to lose Glen Hansard, so stop worrying! Songs are the only thing he knows, he admits sheepishly; should the stock market plunge into the abyss and the entire rock’n’roll business crumble to its very knees in the morning he still won’t sell us out and join the Civil Service. For starters, as he himself explains, they wouldn’t have him.

“I’ve been doing this since I was fourteen, that’s – what – eleven years? I wrote my first song then, it was about my granny, ‘cos when you’re that age, you’re not worried about matters of the heart, you’re into growing up, getting old and all that, it’s all such a mystery, y’know? So it was around then I told my Ma I wanted to be a singer, and she didn’t stop me! She went, ‘Well OK, but if you’re going to be a musician, you’d better do it, and don’t just talk about it’. And she bought me a guitar, straight away, and I went straight away busking on Grafton St.”

Excuse me? Does Glen Hansard, role model to all of young Ireland, really mean to say that precisely one year into his teens, one year before his Inter Cert and with the full, unadulterated blessing of she who brought him onto this earth, he abandoned his full-time education for the dubious delights of banging out rickety old Beatles numbers to streams of horribly disinterested, recession-stricken clients of Mr Burger and suchlike? Like really?

“Yeah,” he laughs, a little ruefully. “It was mostly Dylan and Neil Young, though, and I had two songs of my own. I mean, I was in school in Ballymun, and there were fifty-four kids in my class, so it made no difference really if I stayed or left, y’know?

And I didn’t get on with them, ‘cos I was into music and playing guitar and that kind of stuff, and they weren’t (laughs), so I didn’t like my schoolmates, and they didn’t like me. I didn’t have many friends. I was glad to get out, y’know? I’ve worried about it since because I really have put all my eggs in one basket. This is all I know, I’m a full-time Frame.

“It was a mad time, though,” he goes on. “I met some amazing people, some of whom are still my friends. I have some great friends, and I love them – they’re my only other passion besides The Frames; like Jimmy Judge, who’s still my best friend, who saw me on Grafton St. back then, eleven years ago, and told me early on to keep it up, that I had a gift. That was brilliant. It was the first encouragement I got, I mean, y’know, apart from my Ma, the first outside encouragement. I loved it, like, I started at 14 and my life completely changed in two weeks. It was mad.”

Glen’s eyes glaze over nostalgically.

“I pretty much left home then: I’d go out in the morning with my guitar and my lunch and I’d see my Ma again in a fortnight (laughs). Everyone on the street knew each other, y’know, we’d busk and then we’d go off to someone’s place for the night.

There were some mad sessions. There was always somebody’s floor to sleep on, y’know?”

Thus was born our Glen Hansard, writer and singer of some of the most sweepingly romantic, unashamedly passionate love songs in rock’n’roll.

“Well, em, I didn’t write my first love song until I was, maybe, sixteen or seventeen. But I was staying in other people’s homes all the time, there was always a crowd, and there were obviously plenty of girls. I had a lot of girlfriends, at a young age, a lot of serious relationships. Like, I moved in with my first girlfriend when I was sixteen, and we were together for a year.”

So, my admittedly hugely uncorroborated theory that the most beautiful, spiritual love songs are written by people who’ve had very few relationships, and so have the otherworldly idea of love and sex to cling to and write about rather than the sometimes mechanical and grubby reality, that’s all bollocks, is that what you’re saying, then, Glen? Eh?

He smiles again and ponders awhile, does the man who broke a hundred thousand hearts with “And I told her as the ship sank/That I loved her/And I told her as we walked off the plank/That I was all hers…”

“Yeah,” he nods bashfully but wisely. “I’ve been in love.”

No more need be said.

All of which brings us, I think, to ‘Revelate’, a smitten song if ever I’d heard one. And I have. What more I there to say, though, you might wonder, four months after it’s unleashing upon a visibly stunned and obviously ravenous public? One third of a year after Glen first peeled off those tights, scrunched up that face and wildly, gleefully bellowed “Sometimes it’s easy just to hate, YEAH!” into a very inexpensively rented security camera in Donnybrook Post Office, like the misanthropic humanist Bill Hicks was and all the sane people aspire to be? Well, there are a few things.

‘Revelate’ is Ireland’s finest gospel (Yes!) songs since ‘Dropkick Me Jesus Through The Goalpost Of Life’, and maybe ever. Not that it need necessarily have anything to do with He who (some would have us believe) must be obeyed, but testifyin’ of the order of the finale, “Redeem yourself! Redeem yourself!” comes along only very rarely outside of the grooves of an Al Green record, and when the tense, gritted-teeth verse blossoms into the flowing and, it just has to be said, cleansing chorus of “Sometimes I need a revelation,” it’s just a release. Like ‘Everybody Hurts’ or lashings of Deep Heata, it calms frazzled nerves, unties nasty knotted shoulders and lets on that all is groovy, for a while at least.
Glen, worryingly, stares bemused when the G-word pops up: “I mean I take that as a complete compliment, like, but I do it in the sense that I’m talking about a relationship; I’m talking about a relationship with myself, pretty much, if you know what I mean.”

He has a fascinating, somewhat off-the-wall take on the theme of spiritual renewal that the song slaps you in the face with, though.

“I am a believer,” he confirms, “I know about religions because I’ve made it my business to read up on them, and learn about them, but… I think, y’know, I remember reading somewhere about this, about people travelling to exotic places for ‘space’, or sitting in churches or hiking around Tibet to get in touch with their needs, or God, or whatever. And I’ve always found that the most revealing moments to me about spirituality or when I’ve had real realisations in my life, it’s often been… on the road, or, y’know, in a shop (laughs). It just comes. And I think that, I mean, sure, being around beautiful scenic places help, but most often with me it’s happened on buses, or crossing the road and stuff.”

Quite apart from all that, ‘Revelate’ is also a blinding love song: whoever’s on the receiving end of “Sometimes I need your revelation” (Translation: when I’m drained, when I’m stuck in a rut, when I’m lifeless and about to pack it all in, you are the one who brings me to my senses and reminds me that it’s just good to be here, you and no-one else) should be suitably flattered. It’s just such a gorgeous, flabbergasting thing to say to someone; it reminds me a bit of Big Star’s ‘Blue Moon’ (“Let me be your one light/And if you’d like a true heart/Take the time to show you’re mine/And I’ll be a blue moon in the dark”) and that comparison doesn’t trip lightly off this here tongue. Then there’s the grinding guitar, bringing fresh meaning to the word ‘visceral’; also, in case I forget, the snare sound is magic. Nice one Binzer. (And I never, ever, ever notice that kind of thing.)



Happily, and kind of inevitably, ‘Revelate’ has struck a crashing chord with the plain people of (so far) Ireland, selling in Celine Dion-threatening quantities and winning, with the world’s cheapest promo ever (about which you’ve heard enough), fifth place when shown as part of the MTV Euro Video Grand Prix, for the bewildering but madly enthusiastic perusal of 160 million of our EU neighbours. At long last, it’s becoming fun to be a Frame.

“It’s exciting, yeah,” confirms Glen. “The past few months have been fucking amazing.” He’s beaming now.

“I didn’t expect it all, like,” shrugs Dave, smiling.

Glen goes on. “When we released the single, we got an amazing response to it, like, straight off. We were on all the TV shows you can be on in Ireland. And people were coming up to us, other songwriters were ringing up, going ‘This is a great song, where did you come up with it?’ or ‘Well done, fair fuckin’ play to you, you’re doin’ it on your own.’ We released it ourselves, on DC, and there was a great sense of people sticking up their thumbs and going, ‘Fair fuckin’ play! to us, all over the shop. There’s been an amazing positive feedback to the song, and then the crowds have been getting bigger and people know the words and stuff. It’s great to get a crowd in your home town, y’know, and it’s amazing to be filling the place (Whelans). It just does your esteem a lot of good.

Dave: “The way I’d look at it is, you go to, say, the gig last night and there were hundreds of people in the place and they’re all going mad and, like, alright, not everyone in the place is going to like the gig, but I’d say the vast majority of people that were there liked it. And, it’s like, any more success than that, all you’re doing is doing the same thing in different places. In a funny kind of way it doesn’t get any more than that. If you get people that genuinely like it…”

Glen nods vigorously: “That’s success.”

And they’re absolutely right. The only tragedies in Pop (aside from freak incidents like the Kurt thing and the Richey Manic mystery) are when a glorious group has to throw in the towel to stop the old tummy rumbling. It’s OK to worry that A House or AMC may have to become brickies for financial reasons, but hits? They’re the cherry on the icing.

“I would totally agree with you,” avers Glen. “Ultimately, I mean, I believe in the community thing where the potter makes pottery and the people in the town buy the pottery so the potter can make more money, d’you know what I mean? I believe in that method, in that way of thinking. And as regards success, I’d just like to be able for people to be given the opportunity to hear us, because when our first LP came out, it was put on shelves, it didn’t reach people, and we’ve realised through all this that it’s all about playing live. So wherever we play, we know we’re reaching people. And then they’ve got the choice to like us or not, and that’s OK.”

But, convincing as it superficially sounds, this is not the whole truth, HOT PRESS can exclusively reveal. Pushed as to what his very wildest dreams for the Frames are, the not-very-rock’n’roll reality of the situation presents itself.

“Well, when I left school at fourteen, my Ma bought me that guitar, y’know? And it was on condition that, she kind of said ‘If you get anywhere, I’m expecting a house in Howth, alright?’”

Big mistake.

“Yeah. So I can’t go home until then,” Glen Hansard, quite possibly Ireland’s next globe-straddling rock’n’roll demigod, whimpers. “There’ll be trouble.”


The Pete Briquette-produced follow-up to Another Love Song remains, at the time of writing, untitled – Angel At My Table and Monument are possibles, while Glen, with impeccable taste, is pulling hair, poking eyes, stamping on feet and generally fighting tooth and nail in his attempts to call it Fitzcarraldo, an improbably cool title, you will agree. (Also, it’s the name of the epic standout track). Homages to Klaus Kinski movies are always welcome in these parts.

“Have you seen it?” splutters Glen, as animated as he gets (which is really quite animated). “It’s an amazing movie. I saw it completely by accident, I was feeling lazy one afternoon and just sat in front of the telly, it was on BBC2 and I caught most of it, and got it out on video the following day again.

“There’s this Irishman, Fitzgerald – that’s Klaus Kinski – he’s a trader but his passion is opera, and he has this dream of building a big opera house in this tiny village deep in the Amazon Basin. And the authorities are going (waves hands frantically) ‘No! No! You can’t! No-one’ll go!’, but he ignores them and goes and does it, ‘cos it’s his passion, y’know?

“And so, without their help, he has to finance it himself, and he takes his old ship way down the river to extract rubber from trees, for money. But he goes down the wrong branch of the river and ends up in a village full of hostile natives, like, and the crew are, like, ‘What’re we doing here?’ They’re pissed off, they’re in trouble.

“But Fitzgerald’s passion is opera, he loves Carouso, so the natives are there beside his ship and so he whips out this Carouso record and plays it real loud; the natives can’t believe it, they stop and listen, there’s no more danger. They have this real communication, without words, y’know? And then, the end of the film is, he gets the natives to actually lift his big ship out of the water and over the huge mountain onto the river they’re supposed to be on.

“It’s not my favourite film, but it was the kind of film I needed to see then, I think. You know, it’s about doing your own thing, taking the long way round but getting there eventually. It struck a chord.”

This tale is telling, and the resonances pretty obvious. If there is one thing that links everything on the LP – and there is – it’s this admirable, even enviable lust for life and point-blank refusal to let anything come between you and what you need to do with your life; whether it’s ‘Revelate’ (which I’ve already mentioned), the sweet strength of ‘We’re In This Boat Together, Babe’ (“If I had a wish/I’d give it straight to you” – it sounds simple, but I love all that shit) or the serene but determined ‘Say It To Me Now’, it’s a record made for, but not by, the faint-hearted.

‘Fitzcarraldo’, with it’s groovy baseline courtesy of The Bass Police, Pete ‘Works With Tricky These Days’ Briquette and graham ‘Son Of Brian’ Downey (“the least rock’n’roll person on the world,” according to Dave), it’s marvellous, overcoming-insurmountable-odds lyric and Glen’s typically unstinting delivery takes the individual honours but there are eleven contenders out of eleven songs; the LP as a whole is far less breakneck than the Black Francis-borrowing Another…, and Pete’s elegant, rhythm-centred production comobined with Glen’s slower, flowing vocals gives the whole LP an incredibly warm, deep, soulful feel. You can lose yourself quite easily in a record like this; it’ll emerge towards the middle of June, and we’ll all be submerged by the end of the month.

Rumour and vile, not entirely unfounded gossip has it large amounts of cash and not inconsiderable distribution deals are about to be foisted on The Frames by an exceedingly large major label – another malicious rumour has it that the name of the label in question starts with ‘War’ and ends in ‘ners’ - you can only wish them well, this time, and drooling, pray for the day that corporate incompetence and the poor taste of the punters (no longer a problem) ceases to prevent The Frames from springing their gorgeous, inspiring way to seeing things onto the unsuspecting world at large.

Think of it: to wander into a second-hand record store in Bogota and happen upon a bootleg ‘Revelate’ 12”l to venture into a – let’s not be gready – medium-sized arena on Continental Europe, while five thousand recently rejuvenated rock’n’roll fans gasp as ‘Monument’’s mad, obsessive, big, big love love boom’s out, and Glen Hansard and Noreen O’Donnell’s voices waft up, swerve, loop and clamber all over one another, interlocking like double-stranded DNA; sure, all you can do is dream.

Niall Crumlish

splendidezine - "Avoid Cynicism" - March 2003

"The Frames are so good that it's almost ridiculous that a great deal of my interview with singer, guitarist and all-around swell dude Glen Hansard is devoted to the discussion of their lack of commercial success over the past ten years. It seems completely inexcusable that dunderheaded major label machinations could prevent a talent as extreme and natural as Hansard's from capturing the attention of the masses. The Frames are that rare combination of a charismatic, tremendously talented frontman aided and abetted by an extremely sympathetic, proportionately talented band. They are not a group to inspire casual fandom, as their performance in Seattle earlier this year amply demonstrated. It seemed like every person in the Emerald City who had ever heard a Frames song was there that night, singing along to songs old and new with boozy gusto, yelling out requests and generally soaking in one of the best live shows of the year. Hansard has the air of someone who was born to be a performer -- as if there's really nothing else he could do.

During our conversation, Hansard was talkative, friendly and genuine (he paid for my girlfriend's donut and soda at the market where we conducted the interview) -- but once he got onstage and started playing with his band, something changed in his persona. He was completely in his element. For the two hours that we watched him perform, he was like a little kid, completely in love with the world and totally sure of his place in it. It was a thrilling experience, and I'm actually quite honoured to have been able to sit down and have a chat with a man possessed of so pure a talent."

Read the interview..

RTÉ - ACE - "Frames Of Mind" - April 12 2001

The Frames have always been a band with a passion for live performance, the showmanship to carry it off and a respect for their fans that has ensured they did not fall by the wayside over the last ten tumultuous years. Since their earliest incarnation on Island Records with 1992's raggle-taggle-esque 'Another Love Song', The Frames have never stopped moving forward, regardless of disappointments  or kicks in the teeth along the way. After being dropped from Island, they picked themselves up to record their indie pop album 'Fitzcarraldo'. Without money to make a proper video, they improvised with a security camera, captured the interest of producer Trevor Horn and signed to his ZTT label. Unfortunately, the relationship soured and the follow-up album was the subject of many delays and friction between the record company and the band. Eventually released in 1999, the low-fi American-influenced 'Dance the Devil' was preceded by a self-released five-track ep with alternative versions of two of the album songs. Finally getting their freedom from ZTT, they plunged into the recording of a new album – on their own terms.

'For The Birds' is The Frames as they see themselves, without the input – or interference – of a record company and Hansard is delighted: "This time we've realised how easy it is to put a record out. For the first time in our career we've taken care of every angle, every side of what its about, ourselves. It's very easy, just simple business." Now back out on the road, with gigs planned over the summer and into autumn at home and abroad, The Frames are on stage, doing what they have always done best. And Hansard doesn't intend to let the grass grow underneath their feet: "I'd really like to have the next Frames album out at the same time next year, that's my goal." Although 'For The Birds' is a hard act to follow, there's no doubt that, once again, The Frames will delight and surprise us.

Caroline Hennessy

The Frames on tour with support from Josh Ritter: 14 and 15 April - Cleere's, Kilkenny; 20 April - Dolans, Limerick; 21 and 22 April - An Taibhdhearc Theatre, Galway; 23 April - Roisin Dubh's, Galway; 26 April - Morrisons, Belfast; 27 April - McGarriggles, Sligo; 28 April - The Nerve Centre, Derry; 29 and 30 April - The Spirit Store, Dundalk.

Sunday Tribune - April 8 2001

"Frames And Misfortune"

Ten years on from the fateful day when Glen Hansard purchased the Pixies album that was to turn The Frames into a rock outfit, the band are finally going it alone, and have made an album that is their true sound.

'I WAS famous for about two weeks 10 years ago, and I hated it, I genuinely did, " explains Glen Hansard, and it's just as well. Hansard's band The Frames have been around forever, but fame has never troubled their career. Hansard's own brush with fickle public recognition came after his appearance in The Commitments ? that's how long The Frames has been around.

Yet after all this time, Hansard ? the band's founder, singer and songwriter ? is only now making the album he has wanted to make all this time. Pushed and pulled by a treacherous and manipulative industry that plays on the rock star dreams of young aspirants and forces them to be creative for the corporates, Hansard has produced albums that pleased executives, not him.

Now The Frames are on their own, bankrolling its own output and producing what Hansard claims is the band's true sound. At last.

"It's taken 10 years, " he sighs. "Now I'm playing the songs I want, I've always really been a folk singer, a quiet singer. I had a folk beginning, but our first album ended up being a botched young rock band's record, which is very strange in retrospect." It is not entirely the record companies' fault, though. An ill-timed Pixies album turned Hansard around in the weeks after he signed a deal with Island Records.

"They signed this mellow folk singer, but I was sitting on top of the Stephen's Green Centre roof and I'd just bought a Pixies album and my life changed like that." He snaps his fingers. He turned his songs into Pixies soundalikes, and the band was pegged for 10 years as a rock outfit.

Hansard talks almost entirely without rancour about what he must now consider to be the lost years. The industrial machinery around his music altered it, altered him and altered the chances of success for the whole band for 10 years. Hansard is happy that the band has the opportunity to produce music independently, and explains that a sunny outlook is the result of drastically lowered expectations.

"I have withdrawn my ambitions to be a rock star and all that that means, I've always really thought the idea was a bit shady, " he says. "I'm 30, I couldn't survive now in a major record label. To have power there you have to have had success, to have success you have to have power. We never had success in their terms, so we never had power." Hansard's musical dream is no longer that of an 18-year-old Pixies fan. He wants to be allowed to make music for the rest of his life, and anything that interferes with that ? including fame ? is an obstacle. "It's quite simple ? the role model is Van the Man (Van Morrison). You want to make good records, occasionally make a great one and never make a bad one, " says Hansard.

"We were signed in the same week as The Cranberries, by the same guy. Watching what happened to them was quite difficult for us. But then the pressure they were under, when they were told get back in the studio, make another record, you have to top your last one. It's probably not going to be as good as if you had a little time. The pressure on us was zero." Hansard readily offers that the band is, in fact, scared of success. "It's like we're scared of trying too hard because we might fail, " he admits. "We pull back the bow but we're scared to release the arrow.

But I think we'll fire the arrow now with this album." The new album, For The Birds, is self funded and self-released. Most importantly it is "the first record we've ever made without any interference from anyone, " says Hansard. Produced on a tiny budget, recorded in bedrooms as well as studios, slower and quieter than traditional Frames material, the album is an understated triumph.

There is a distinctly folky feel to the whole album, from the folk-funk of 'Lay Me Down', with its '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover'-style beat, to the laid back, country feel of 'Giving Me Wings'. Consistently excellent, the album has some heckle raising highlights.

Last Sunday at a Dublin concert, Hansard held a Q and A with the audience, revealing that 'What Happens When The Heart Just Stops' was his favourite of his own songs right now. It is a heart-breaker of a song; simple and direct in tune and word, an intimate and affecting account of love breaking down.

The Frames are in the midst of an Irish tour, with a UK tour to follow in the summer. Last weekend, the band completed a three night Dublin tour, starting in The Olympia, moving to Vicar St and finishing with a Whelan's gig that turned into an extended, and very late, jamming session.

Those concerts have paid for the album.

"The new year gig paid for the recording, and the Dublin gigs will pay for the pressing of the CDs, the artwork and stuff so it's been great, " says Hansard. "If we have a good night at a gig, we just take £40 each and put the rest into the band. £40 three or four times a month really helps out." "Our drummer left a couple of years ago. He said "Glen, I see where you're going, and I just want to rock out?" and you have to respect that. He's in a Beatles cover band, he's bought a house and a car and stuff. I keep having to check with the lads in the band to see if they're still with me.

We look at him and think: that's great, but it's not what we want.

"Last Friday morning I walked into the Olympia where we were to do our gig, and I had to borrow 50p to get a jumbo breakfast over the road, " he says, while I am reddening with shame ? he just paid for the tea.

The band borrowed money to pay for the album. It's not the first time it has performed on a budget. This is the band that made the 'Revelate' video for the price of a video tape, going round chip shops and post offices, recording themselves on the CCTV.

"That video cost £2, it was made one afternoon, that night it was on 2TV." It remains one of the most memorable videos of any Irish band.

The corner cutting on the album really shows, but it just adds to a raw feel. It feels like the first album that Hansard clearly thinks of it as. It is a new beginning, but a beginning for a 30-year-old, with a 30-yearold's honest expectations. "The press will die down, we'll shift a few albums, then we'll make another one, " says Hansard with a calm grin. "Hopefully."

muse.ie - "For The Birds"  March 2001

April 2001 sees The Frames move to the next level with their fourth album "For The Birds" and a nationwide Irish tour. For so long the underdogs, the time has now come to mark their achievements, salute their progress and cheer their current mood.

If the stars are indeed underground, it is time for one such star to leave for the higher ground. The Frames' fourth album "For The Birds" is a masterpiece and set to be one of the key releases of the year. Cat Hughes talks to main Frame Glen Hansard about ambition and quietness.

"I looked at the Meteor awards the other night and I saw David Gray sitting on the stage and I thought, OI really don't think I'd be able to be in that position'. Just because I think I wouldn't be able to deal with it, personally. I almost think that The Frames have consciously never pulled back the bow. We've held the bow and arrow, but never actually drawn the bow back, fired and been willing to miss. It's almost like we've a fear to fuck up, so we just stay quiet, we stay small. It's almost like we sabotage the idea of success because we don't want to thrust ourselves into something we can't handle. I always think The Frames'll split up the minute we have success."

Well, that's hardly the talk of a man on the dawn of stardom. Glen Hansard and The Frames are about to release "For the Birds" a record which, like it or not, looks set to send them stellar. Leaving behind the epic undertones of former offerings, they've taken a quieter, calmer, even more beautiful route. And they've enlisted the talents of moany-rock super-producer Steve Albini; Shellac frontman, the chap behind records by the likes of Nirvana, The Pixies and PJ Harvey, and the gent whose rumoured intensity certainly precedes him.

But no, man, he did not wanna have a fight with them, as Glen explains. "He's a very cool guy, very, very mellow. He's very unlike what I thought he'd be; he's not intense. I thought he'd be this rude man who'd tell me to get fucked. We thought he didn't like us at first because he's got this manner that people misunderstand. He doesn't talk shit. He's all or nothing. He talks intense or he doesn't talk. He's just one of those heads that's full of great ideas. You learn. If he wasn't a record engineer, he would definitely be a philosopher of sorts. He definitely has an amazing insight into things."

With the likes of Rachael Grimes (The Rachel's) and Craig Ward (dEUS) also lending a hand, and recording taking place in the indie city Chicago, an album of wilfully difficult or at least excessively experimental tunes could have awaited us. But, it seems there really wasn't too much to worry about. "The Frames are a pop band at our core. We can't do indie rock. We attempt it, but we've got a lot of structure in us. Even when we try to deconstruct as much as possible, it'll still sound like a little song so that's okay, we're safe! We're not gonna get too far up the garden path to loose ourselves completely."

Adding to the air of gentle humanity about "For the Birds" is the influence of American literary genius John Fante, a man whose magic realist words could beg for no better soundtrack. "I've had Ask The Dust for about seven years and I've read it probably every year. Of all the Beats and stuff that I've read, it was the one that just clicked with me most on an emotional level. I've since read all of his books and I love them. I've got my original copy of Ask the Dust and it's underlined all the way through. Some pieces just blew my mind. It would be a dream to put music to something. So I make reference to the book because I have to, and because I want people to know."

The release of an Irish record steeped in beauty and easy on the ear should come as no surprise these days. Dublin seems captivated by a creative energy that's destined for history books, a fact that hasn't escaped Glen's attention. "I'm almost afraid to recognise it because when you say something, it vanishes. But I do feel that I'm around and involved in a circle of musicians and creative people that is as good as any great reported movement in art, at any time in history.

"But at the same time, when you've got Louis Walsh getting a lifetime achievement award and saying OI need good looking kids to be in a band. I need them to play their own instruments, then they're gonna be Number One and after we've got to Number One, we'll do this and that'' I can't believe we live in an age where the music business has become so base. People are actually talking about what they're gonna do to us, how they're gonna take the cash out of our hands and fool us. They're telling us the recipe and still we accept it. We're living in a fucking hardcore, pornographically ugly time in music. And yet, at the same time there's this amazing, honest vibe with people like David Kitt and Steve Fanagan and ourselves - to some degree - and a lot of bands around Dublin, amazing musicians who are just doing their own thing and side-stepping the business."

With the release of "For The Birds", The Frames look set to more than prove their worth. After years of shouting as loud and long as they could until someone might hear, they've started to whisper amongst themselves and it won't be long until we all strain to listen. "There's a real opportunity for us, at the moment, to go for something" Glen believes. "I'm just not sure whether we should. That's the weird thing. There's safety in withdrawal, there's safety in being quiet. But after 10 years of being in a band, I think maybe it's time to draw back the bow and fire an arrow."

"For The Birds" is out now on Plateau Records. The Frames tour Ireland for much of April ­ full details available at www.plateaurecords.com.

Interview: Cat Hughes

No Disco - 27 August 1999

This week on No Disco Uaneen interviews one of Dublin's most hard working and popular band, The Frames.

Uaneen talks to core Frames members, Glen Hansard and Dave Odlum about their new album, "Dance The Devil" which is out on 25th June on ZTT records.

The Frames talk candidly to Uaneen about the problems they have had with their record company, ZTT, how before recording their new album, and after being together for 9 years, they hit walls, creatively.

Glen, "Creatively you hit walls, and with this record we've just made, right in the middle of it we all realised we were a s**t band. We all went, 'we're all playing exactly what we think we should be playing', and I realised that I was standing on a mount preaching. Everybody slipped into a position that we all assumed from playing live and it was like, 'that's the problem, there it is, if we can all just stop being so bloody pious and think about the song we're playing and try to be sensitive to it."

Glen also talked about choosing a producer for the new album; "We rang Steve Albini because we wanted him to do it in the beginning and basically he said he would do it, but ZTT said they weren't getting Steve Albini to do it because he wasn't commercial or whatever, and we were like, 'Bush .... Hello .....Nirvana .... Hello?'. And in a way it was probably good he didn't do it because we ended up making not the record we'd intended to make in the first place."

What's On Where - December 1999

"Frame by Frame by Frame"

It’s summer 1989. End of millennium psychosis and the ensuing rubbish is still a whole decade away and Dublin’s Grafton street is buzzing with the usual mixture of tourists, Spanish students, pick pockets and of course - buskers. A crowd of about one hundred odd passing shoppers stand still to hear a passionate rendition of Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing being belted out by a group of what many would call ‘crusty’ buskers, armed with acoustic guitars, a violin, a bodhrán and a collective rasping voice.

It’s Summer 1999 and the same crew, who’s numbers feature a ginger haired singer called Glen Hansard have returned to the same street to treat the passers by to many old favourites, some of which have since come to the fore with his full time band The Frames. To this singer it seems that that the many ups and downs which the intervening ten years have dealt his Dublin act are irrelevant when strong songs and rich music come into play as this year’s Dance The Devil album has proven. Reflecting on the past twelve months which has given them a new lease of life and an opportunity to bring us their own brand of clanking-folk-rock songs, Hansard seems optimistic without being naive.

"This year has been great to us on so many different levels - meeting loads of great people at our gigs, seeing great like-minded bands and getting wonderful reactions to this album. On a business level, it’s been a different story. It’s just a matter of time before we’re dropped and it’s a relief in some way since we can record and release whatever material we choose under our own Plateau label."

The first fruits of this label came last April in the form of I Am The Magic Hand, a five track E.P. displaying their flirtations with the noisy sounds of stripped down Americana (Pavement and The Pixies) that carefully avoided an ‘indie-by-numbers’ result, while moving further away from the more familiar Waterboys / Nick Drake folk territory. Its powerful main track, God Bless Mom struck home hard with Hansard’s falsetto melody driven along by grating guitars, resulting in a tune which rang in the ears for ages after listening and a sign that the following album could really be something worth hearing.

However this songs ZTT released album version carried all the symptoms of heavy handed production with the old reliable "walls of guitars = good indie single" rule being put into practice.

As they have since discovered on their return from recording in a barn in France, he who pays the piper calls the tune, even though the tune may not be what these pipers had in mind at all.

"That album would have been a lot more honest had we gone with the songs we as a band thought were the strongest. Instead the record company picked 10 songs which, although good tunes were not my favourite songs. I asked about the ones I thought were worth releasing and got a sort of ‘Yeah, yeah! Sure you’ll get to release them. Some day! The whole thing about bringing your songs to a major label is that some companies view you as an employee whose job it is to create what they think might sell right now, without thinking of the years to come, of course. We’ve always been in it for the long haul and I think only now are things just beginning to shape up."

As part of The Frames upcoming tour of Ireland, a documentary appropriately sharing the title of one of their strongest live songs, The Stars Are Underground will be screened before each show. Chronicling the return of Hansard’s Grafton street busking crew and the exploits of other street based acts, this film strives to capture the essence of this most basic, immediate and sometimes most irritating form of performance.

"There is a very honest transaction between the busker and the passing people. There are no lighting effects, no smoke to hide behind. Just the song and the person playing it. That’s what we started at - doing old Dylan, Van Morrison and of course Waterboys songs which you sometimes can’t tell apart (e.g. Sweet Thing and This Is the Sea). Then I started throwing in my own stuff and it snowballed from there."

By the beginning of this decade Hansard had secured a record deal and his band, the Frames, some of whom had figured among his old busking buddies were set to take their world by storm. Then, "by sheer fluke" their front man landed the part of guitarist, Outspan in Alan Parker’s major movie The Commitments which resulted in a promotional tour across America and a brush with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

"The part in the movie came at an awkward time ‘cos we were just getting things together musically. I didn’t even purposely apply for the part either. I was dropping my mate off at the audition and was sitting there waiting as they went through the motions. Then someone asked me if I wanted to come in and read. So, I did and Alan Parker was really impressed and basically as a result of that I got the part instead of my mate! It really was as simple as that."

"The promotional tour in the States was like a distraction. It was just a whirlwind where we found ourselves in the company of all these stars like Madonna and Robert de Niro. It was like the first time you get drunk or your first trip. There are certain things you do then that you’ll just never do again. After a while I just thought that that part of it really wasn’t me at all and was so glad to go back to playing the kind of music I’d being doing beforehand in less up market places."

Glenn’s guitar roadie for this promotional tour was also an eager young singer/songwriter called Jeff Buckley who years later would find his own place in the hearts of many.

"The pair of us would hang out every day, sifting through record shops. I picked out this Tim Buckley album and Jeff casually said ‘Oh yeah! He’s my dad’ . I only copped on then as to who he was ‘cos they looked so alike and I remember when I played at Sin É in New York he was really anxious to play. So he got up and made a normal length verse last about ten minutes. His voice really was something. The whole place just came to a stop. There were even people standing in the doorways listening."

When they finally set down to record, a big name producer in the form of Gil Norton was drafted in to work on their debut album Another Love Song and resulting tunes such as the highly infectious single The Dancer kicked off like a mixture of The Pixies and The Waterboys with energetic blasts of guitar and swirling violins. Things were looking up and then the hand of commerce intervened. Sales were not as gigantic as expected, so band and label went their separate ways leaving this act to take stock of what they were really about and what they wanted to do.

Two albums later The Frames may still not be household names world wide, but it seems that they’ve gone beyond the disappointments and basically care about little else apart from their music. Looking forward to the next album on which they plan to work with Craig from dEUS, Glen puts their lack of commercial success partly down to the fact that they’ve never been the model band.

"I don’t think you could’ve ever called us a safe bet and I guess that’s because we think for ourselves. It would be very easy for us to be extremely cynical about everything considering what we’ve been through. But, the way I see it is that we wouldn’t be like we are if we hadn’t made all of those mistakes in the first place. We’ve always been very trusting - giving people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe sometimes too much, but we’ve managed to retain that sense of wonder which really is important to us."

And speaking of cynicism which is always the by-product of any music scene, has anything really changed in music in the last ten years? "The difference between the music scene back then and now is that bands talk to each other now. On this tour we’ve got the Jubilee Allstars doing all the dates with us. I think that generally musicians are more open minded now. Even up to five years ago you wouldn’t have put me and Barry McCormack (Jubilee Allstars vocalist) on the same bill. There were so many factions and mini-scenes around whose criteria basically meant not selling any records and to some extent there’s still some of that around. Every band wants to sell lots of records, even if they say they don’t. We met up with Pavement who really are the typical of the lo-fi, alternative American band and they’d love to have huge hits. And why not? To be honest, I find the whole current dance/re-mix thing a bit naff. It’s all very trendy and transient and I tend to stay away from things fashionable. After all a stopped clock is right twice a day, isn’t it? "

Contrasting with full-on guitar attacks like Pavement Tune and The Stars Are Underground, brittle, acoustic based songs such Star Star, Seven Day Mile and closing title track prove that the simple folk song has not lost it’s lustre while the closing lines of their last album may just sum it all up for Glen Hansard: "And we can dance, dance the poison right out of your soul...Dance the devil back into his hole. There is no life I know that compares to pure imagination."

The Frames along with Jubilee Allstars and David Kitt are currently on a nationwide tour of Ireland. See listings for details.

CK, 12/99

Event Guide - "Come On Feel The Noise"

Andrew Haddock talks to the Frames Glen Hansard about Will Oldham, touring and their change of direction.

So you're off on tour for Christmas then? Well, we wanted to do a Christmas tour anyway, but a big part of it was the amount of debt we were in from touring America during the year. We thought it'd be cool to do a bunch of gigs around the country which we don't seem to have a chance to do anymore.

So how did that turn into the 'Come On Up To The House' E.P. and the subsequent tour with Jubilee Allstars, David Kitt and DJ Dave Cleary? I remember having a conversation with Barry McCormack (from the Jubilee Allstars) and he was telling me that Jubilee had never toured outside Dublin (laughs), sorry, I mean they'd never toured in Ireland outside Dublin. When we first started it was very much part of what we did, but it's died off in the last five years. It's an amazing part of the learning process of being in a band. For instance the crowds in Belfast and the crowds in Cork are totally different and you can learn a lot from performing on front of different audiences. Cork people have something, a great vibe, they seem to understand the idea of intimacy. Mind you they also understand the idea of mentalness. They do like to go out, but they have a great head on them for art as well.

So why decide to take a load of musicians out on tour and make the whole thing more complicated than it should be? Sometimes you look at a band and you see them play and you wonder what they'd be like if they did ten gigs in a row. Once you play ten gigs in a row, your muscles all tighten up, you cut off all the dead stuff in the set and it sounds completely different. Then when we got the Jubilees on board we thought let's get some more people. We wanted something that was good for us as people as well. There's nothing worse then just getting in the van and going through the motions of getting to and doing a gig. The best gigs are always the ones where people in other bands show up and you end up doing something together.

With respect to you Glen, it would seem to me that the Frames are changing the circles they're moving in. The fact that you've written a song called 'The Stars Are Underground', and are bringing the film of the same name on the road, which is basically a film about DIY bands in Dublin five years ago, suggests a radical shift in emphasis. I mean, the Frames always seemed to be on corporate labels playing sizeable gigs. When it did begin to change for you? There was a side of Irish music I'd never seen. I'd heard of people like Jubilee Allstars and Mexican Pets and Pet Lamb and The Idiots. I'd never been to any of their gigs. There was this healthy scene going on that we didn't know existed. We were a rock band signed to a major label, we weren't thinking in terms of punk rock at all. At the same time we'd seen serious flashes of independence ourselves through having to make our second record ourselves. When I saw Darragh McCarthy's film I understood the philosophy very well, but I'd never heard of any of the bands.

Do you understand the perception that people in that kind of independent scene might have had of the Frames, that you were a major label band? People would look at us and say "Oh my God ,you've been dropped from a label " and we'd always say "so what?" For some reason the circle of people we hung around with seemed to measure things in terms of record deals and money. I don't think the Frames ever had that attitude. We thought "it's a long road, we're going to get on it, we're going to earn our dues and do our thing". Because we were on a major label people were always trying to dress us up...in every sense(laughs)...including the clothes.

So there must have been some earlier background to this. Surely you didn't just stumble upon underground and punk rock music. What did you listen to as a kid? When I was a kid my favourite band were AC/DC and I never got into the punk world. Because of the fact they were from Australia they were always outsiders, disengaged from England and Iron Maiden. I remember wearing the black arm band when Bon Scott died. Jesus, I was only ten years old (sighs in his own disbelief). The next time it came out was for Bobby Sands a couple of years later.

And when did this begin to affect your recorded output? We've decided to withdraw from making tailor made records for record companies. 'I Am The Magic Hand' was the first part of that. We knew we hadn't made a record in three years and no one knew what to expect. I guess everyone expected we'd do the same again. We were much more confident giving that to people then we were the album. I don't know why that is.

Well, that was pretty radical for the Frames, but it did wear it's influences on its sleeve. What were you listening to when you made it? I'd just discovered Palace and Tortoise and Dublin bands through Darragh's film. I'd been to see the Idiots, who blew me away, and then I saw David Grubbs soon after that. I mean, I was into Slint but I never knew anyone else who was. Then I was having conversations with Barry McCormack, from this band (Jubilee Allstars) I'd never heard of, about Slint. I mean, I'd discovered them from listening to them in Comet records. It's a bit like owning a Scooter and finding a Scooter club - you ask "where can I join?, when are we off?"

And what does mean for the follow up to 'Dance The Devil'? It's early days yet but at the moment it might be a country record...if we've got the courage. If we haven't got the courage we'll make a record that represents several sides of us. Or maybe we'll make a country record and then another one straight after. What's been coming out of me for years has been songs which haven't suited the way the Frames are perceived but maybe now we all think the same way. I think for once all the Frames are on the same page.

And what's inspiring you lately? Would it be a certain 'Bonny Prince'? Yeah, Will Oldham starred in a movie when he was about fifteen and he never did another film. I've just seen it, I think they have it in the art house. He was only about fifteen. It's called 'Meatwan', he pretty much starred in it. The music in the film is real backwater stuff. He plays a preacher in it, he's totally amazing as an actor.

Do you think he missed his vocation then? (laughs almost says yes and realise he's talking about one of his favourite musicians)...No, I don't think he did. Do you?

The Frames, Jubilee Allstars, David Kitt and Mr. Deasey Mooneye call at the Isaac Butt, Dublin, Wed 15th; The Metro, Cork, Thurs 16th; The Lobby, Cork, Fri 17th; Connelly's of Leap, Cork, Sat 18th; Scott's Hotel, Killarney, Sun 19th; Garter Lane, Waterford, Tues 21st; The Point, Dublin w/David Gray and Katell Keineg, Wed 22nd; The Empire, Belfast, Wed 22nd; Cleeres' Hotel, Kilkenny, Tues 28th; Townhall Theatre, Galway, Wed 29th; Tivoli, Dublin, Fri 31st (New Year's Eve). The 'Come On Up To The House' EP is available at the gigs, although a limited number will be available in Road and Tower Records stores.

muse.ie

It has taken time but The Frames seem to have turned a corner with their new album, "Dance The Devil". Cat Hughes gets the pointers from frontman Glen Hansard.

I think the words you're looking for are "Ha!" and perhaps "Ha!" For the past nine years, you've rattled around town with the zeal of a born-again Christian, regaling everyone you meet with the news that you've discovered THE greatest band on the planet. Surprisingly, your maniacal raving was greeted with a polite smile and rapid retreat. But finally, the world's caught up and looks set to realise at last that Dublin's finest, The Frames, really are the future of rock'n'roll.

Here to tell us about his brand new album "Dance The Devil", Frames main-man Glen Hansard is a little surprised himself by all this positive press. "I just thought it'd be another album that we'd release which would get a lukewarm reception, like the last one, and we'd just move on and write another one."

But even the most hardened hack couldn't fail to see "Dance The Devil's" simple beauty. Whether it's the stunning, gentle strumming of "7 Day Mile" or the insanely catchy "Pavement Tune", it's clear that this album has been well worth that four-year wait. With a nod to Belgian art-rock kings dEUS (guitarist Craig Ward even lends a hand), epic tunesmiths Mercury Rev or minimalist minstrel Will Oldham, the band dabble, for the first time, in laid-back lo-fi.

A rather different approach from their past dealings in huge (and perhaps a touch precious) rock. "I used to think that The Frames held the sword of truth and we would tear down the liars. I was an intense, f**king nut! But real simple stuff happened, like putting on a bit of weight! And I realised that more important than all this intensity, is a good life. What's the point in drawing blood every time you go on stage? It's not interesting, no one wants to see you get crucified."

The chaps' new sound arrives hand-in-hand with a brand new approach. Rather than the clenched-fist passion of old, we're treated to hushed introspection but with cheeky grin intact ("Humour is The Frames new category!"). While band and fans happily adopted a new attitude, the boys' record company, busy demanding changes and pushing back release dates, took a little longer to adjust to the transformation. But, with men in suits finally satisfied, the biggest problem the band face these days will be coming up with catchy album titles.

"My manifesto as far as The Frames go now is to make twenty records and maybe, in between those, release sixty EPs! Wouldn't it be great if by the time you die, you have this huge body of work? And not just any old shit, but actually doing everything possible to make good work."

Eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, The Frames are already making plans for their next record. With Craig Ward in the producer's chair and minds admirably open, if it shares any of the genius that inspired "Dance The Devil", we're guaranteed a classic. With enough pop sensibilities to keep every tune hummable but with the attention-span of a four year old ensuring they never stray too near obvious options, The Frames have provided us with what is easily this year's finest album.

So any thoughts for those confused critics not yet convinced? "I'm just happy because this is my truth. It might make no sense to anyone else, but I'm really excited. This is my record and I'll stand behind it 100%. Ask me any questions and I'll represent it. I'm ready for ya!"

The single "Pavement Tune" is out now and the album "Dance The Devil" is released on June 18th.

Comments, suggestions or problems concerning the site? e-mail
Best viewed in 1024*768*65K
©1998-2008 Irish Music Central