A Conversation with Declan O’Rourke – HuffPost 2.5.14
Mike Ragogna: Declan, you have a new album, Mag Pai Zai, its material being pretty diverse. How would you describe your music?
Declan O’Rourke: I prefer to describe it by playing it. I find it difficult to describe my music to anyone without feeling I’ve led them a little bit away from what I do. I like to think each song has a personality of its own so to talk about one would not do the others justice. Ray Charles said there’s only two kinds of music: Good, and bad. Hopefully, I fall into the first of those.
MR: Do you think your having been raised in Ireland and Australia added to the unique flavor of your music?
DO: Yes, certainly. There’s music in both lands that I wouldn’t have been exposed to in the other, but also an overlap. We are all children of the world in many ways these days as music has become globalized too, and other cultures are more accessible. It raises the point that its important to preserve as much heritage and identity in the arts as possible while moving forward.
MR: When did you decide you needed to create music for fulfillment and how old were you when you learned your first musical instrument and what was it?
DO: I was 14 when I began to learn the guitar earnestly but I didn’t begin trying to write music or songs until I was 15 or 16 when a singer joined that band I was in and suggested we try one of his songs during the first jam. We all had looks on our faces like a dog that had just been shown a card trick! I started trying to write that night and have never stopped since.
MR: Who are your favorite musical artists?
DO: John Prine, Randy Newman Sam Cooke, Joni Mitchell, Nat King Cole, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Sinatra, AC/DC, Billie Holiday…I could go on for a while. All great writers.
MR: Are you a reader and have any literary works influenced your creativity or inspired you?
DO: I don’t read as much as I’d like to. It makes me sleepy. But certain books have inspired things along the way, or parts of books. Galileo’s Daughter inspired “Galileo”…only read a cupla pages mind you. Over the last 10 years as a side project, I’ve been researching stories for a record about the great hunger of the 1840s in Ireland. Books
are obviously quite useful!
MR: What do you think of that guy Bob Dylan?
DO: I think he’s a beautiful enigma and have spent many an hour listening to him or talking about his work among friends. But as a writer, I find I go through phases of listening to him, among others, because, at times, you binge for weeks, but suddenly you begin to notice their influence too much in the sound of a new song say, and you go from wishing you could write a song like that person to going, “Aagggh! That sounds more like ‘X’ than me! I don’t want to sound like anybody else!!” It’s a constant tug-o-war.
MR: Can you go into what inspired “Langley’s Requium” and “Be Brave And Believe”?
DO: “Langley’s Requiem” was inspired by the story of The Collier Brothers, who lived in Harlem in the early 1900s when it was to be the next wealthy suburb of Manhattan. They developed some strange behaviors over the years, including hoarding, which led their tale to a grizzly end. They were a gentle but curious pair. Fascinating story. My own brother played me an eerie piece of music he’d written on the piano around the same time that I heard the story and got the urge to write about it. So it became an ode to brothers in a way. “Be Brave and Believe,” was spawned by a number of situations I observed friends in over a period of time–grief, loss, helplessness. I kept putting it away as I thought it was very dark, but each time something would remind me of it–including some of my own personal trials–it somehow finished itself. I’m very proud of it, and I hope it’s helpful and uplifting to someone who’s going through a hard time.
MR: You have three top ten albums in Ireland. What is happening on that music scene and how did it absorb your recordings?
DO: Ireland is full of artistic, creative people. It’s a great place to live if you are one of them. The landscape is magical. The stories, the people, the humor, the poetry. It’s hard not to be creative here. It becomes a part of you. Maybe it’s in the blood.
MR: You have social concerns, can you name a few of them and what have you done to support them?
DO: There are so many things we need to be concerned about in the world right now. Climate change. Monsanto and the terminator seeds. The effects of fertilizers and single crop farming on bees, etc. Over-fishing. The way food is being produced and modified. Of course poverty, and hunger: The increasing disparity of wealth distribution. When it comes down to what “I’ve” done for them, I believe it comes down to the small choices we make as individuals on a daily basis. We have to try to favor community over corporation. Noam Chomsky says that the way to fight back is to “organize.” People need to stand up for what they believe in and what they believe is wrong–collectively and individually–in a responsible way. We need to share ideas, and information, educate ourselves and others, and look for the agenda’s behind big business. I, and most of the musicians and artists I know get involved with raising awareness and fundraising regularly for all sorts of things. And we should. Artists have a responsibility perhaps even more than most to hold things up to the light, both through their art itself and outside of it.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
DO: Challenge yourself always. Write, create, perform. It’s good for yourself, and its good for others. Be honest.
MR: What does the future hold for you?
DO: As a great friend of mine often says, “Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery.” I don’t know! I’m working 3 or 4 records ahead at this point. Material is piling up in different stacks all around me. I’d like to think I will be doing this for a long time. Time will tell!