Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of about embracing that feeling of
Speaker 1: futility rather than trying to fight it. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Connor O'Brien, the singer
Speaker 1: and songwriter for the band Villagers. The band came to
Speaker 1: prominence in two thousand ten with the release of their
Speaker 1: debut album, Becoming a Jackal, released two critical acclaim the
Speaker 1: album was shortlisted for the two thousand ten Mercury Prize
Speaker 1: and the Choice Music Prize. The band studio album away
Speaker 1: Land was released in two thousand thirteen. It won the
Speaker 1: Choice Music Prize that year and was also shortlisted for
Speaker 1: the two thousand thirteen Mercury Prize. Their two thousand and
Speaker 1: fifteen record, Darling Arithmetic, became one of Eric's favorite records
Speaker 1: of last year. It also won an Iver's Award for
Speaker 1: the Best Album of the Year. Here's the interview. Hi Connor,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to get you on your record. Last year,
Speaker 1: Darling Arithmetic was one of my two favorite records of
Speaker 1: the year, and the new one that you've least, which
Speaker 1: is a recording of live recordings that you made in
Speaker 1: the studio, is also really wonderful. So it's a real
Speaker 1: pleasure for me to have you. Well, thank you, I'm blushing. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll start the show like we usually do. There's a
Speaker 1: parable in which there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: then the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops
Speaker 1: and he thinks about it for a second, and he
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. It's a weird one for
Speaker 1: me in terms of creativity, because I think when you're
Speaker 1: when you're making music or are you can be exploring
Speaker 1: things which might be shoot as negative in your everyday life,
Speaker 1: but if you explore them in the most creative and
Speaker 1: the most open way possible in art, then you might
Speaker 1: be finding that you might be discovering these these negative
Speaker 1: aspects within your music, which isn't necessarily a bad thing,
Speaker 1: you know. So, for instance, I have some old songs
Speaker 1: which when I listened to them, to me, they sound
Speaker 1: slightly like I was being a bit dishonest or trying
Speaker 1: to portray an image of myself at the time. But
Speaker 1: for me, that doesn't mean that it's It doesn't negage
Speaker 1: the art. It doesn't mean that it's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It just means that that's where my head was at
Speaker 1: at the time kind of thing. So I see kind
Speaker 1: of music and arts as an exploration of all aspects
Speaker 1: of your life and whether whether you want to classify
Speaker 1: them as positive or negative, or evil or good or
Speaker 1: any sort of other dualistic kind of qualities. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we definitely talked about the fact that art,
Speaker 1: at least for me, is one of the big ways
Speaker 1: to you know, to use the analogy to feed my
Speaker 1: good wolf, that that consuming and engaging in and creating
Speaker 1: art is one of the best things that I can
Speaker 1: do for myself. Yeah. So let's talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of songs off the Darling Arithmetic record. The first one
Speaker 1: you've described it as um at one point you said
Speaker 1: it was one of your favorite songs, and you said
Speaker 1: you wanted to write a meditation song. And that is
Speaker 1: the soul serene look a little ride on the carousel.
Speaker 1: I wonder that I am not going to have the
Speaker 1: town keep spinning dead souls until I've got no reason.
Speaker 1: I've got no reason to figure out what didn't mean
Speaker 1: enough chameleon dream my mind? Yeah, stepping so sorry the song,
Speaker 1: stepping to the soul, So step into the song, So
Speaker 1: step me all my life. What did you mean my
Speaker 1: meditation song? I think that was a slightly reactionary thing
Speaker 1: in terms of my songwriting. I think I was looking
Speaker 1: back at music that I had made in the previous
Speaker 1: two years and realized that a lot of it was
Speaker 1: trying to fill as much as possible into four minutes
Speaker 1: of folk rock whatever. Um So, I guess this this
Speaker 1: was me just kind of like saying, when am I
Speaker 1: trying to express the experience of space and solitude and
Speaker 1: just kind of that that feeling of emptying your mind,
Speaker 1: having moments with yourself in which you can kind of
Speaker 1: feel your shape shifting to some degree, because I've had
Speaker 1: many experiences like that, usually when I'm alone. So it
Speaker 1: was just that it was an effort really to kind
Speaker 1: of express that. And I think I'm kind I'm quite right.
Speaker 1: I think I got somewhere with it. I think you
Speaker 1: did too. It's absolutely I just love it. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite songs off that record or any record.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a sense of peace to it that is,
Speaker 1: um difficult to get across in music without being schmaltzy,
Speaker 1: and I think you managed to do that. Oh cool,
Speaker 1: Thank you do? You is meditation something that you are,
Speaker 1: that you practice or that you do, or is that
Speaker 1: just sort of mora a term that you use for
Speaker 1: the song. At that point, I got involve than this
Speaker 1: thing called the Alexander technique when I when I was
Speaker 1: losing my voice quite a lot on tour. And basically
Speaker 1: the Alexander technique is you give yourself at least fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes every day and you lie down, usually put like
Speaker 1: a book or something at your head so that your
Speaker 1: neck is really straight, and you just stare at the
Speaker 1: ceiling and you don't really try to do anything. You
Speaker 1: just kind of become aware of the weight of your body.
Speaker 1: And it was originally a technique used used for actors
Speaker 1: when they started losing their voice after you know, twenty
Speaker 1: shows in a row or whatever, but for me it
Speaker 1: became something quite addictive. Actually, it was something that I
Speaker 1: really really looked forward to. I couldn't live without every day.
Speaker 1: So it became more of a psychological calming thing. And
Speaker 1: I haven't really lost my voice since I started doing it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting, and so I think it's
Speaker 1: more like a sort of a psycho physical thing really,
Speaker 1: So for me, that's kind of a meditation. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess an older song or years going back, a couple
Speaker 1: of records and nothing arrived, and you you talk about
Speaker 1: you waited for something, you know, and something died. You
Speaker 1: waited for nothing and nothing arrived. I've heard you say that.
Speaker 1: That became a pretty straightforward folk rock song about smiling
Speaker 1: into the void. I waited for something and something died,
Speaker 1: So I waited for nothing. Nothing arrived. It's our dearest ally,
Speaker 1: it's our closest friend, it's our darkest black out. It's
Speaker 1: a fine old and my dear sweet nothing. Let's start
Speaker 1: new from here on in a just me and you.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit more about that song?
Speaker 1: That's not pretentious at all, is it? Um? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've actually been playing that on this tour in a
Speaker 1: very different way, so it's become something new for me again.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's kind of about embracing that kind
Speaker 1: of feeling of futility rather than trying to fight. I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of music and a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: especially stuff that gets on the radio, um and stuff
Speaker 1: that becomes very popular for god knows what reason, is
Speaker 1: music that kind of embraces the idea of of covering
Speaker 1: up the cracks, and and and you know, trying to
Speaker 1: portray a sort of perfection or sort of an idea
Speaker 1: of perfection at least. And and the music that usually
Speaker 1: makes me feel happy or you know, just connected in
Speaker 1: some way is music which a lot of people describe
Speaker 1: as depressing. I think, you know, music which actually kind
Speaker 1: of talks about the things that you might feel when
Speaker 1: you're at your lowest or or the things that you're
Speaker 1: not usually meant to be able to say in your
Speaker 1: office job, or on the train or on the bus
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know. And I guess this's that Nothing
Speaker 1: Arrived was just kind of my way of kind of
Speaker 1: expressing those dark moments that you can get, but realizing
Speaker 1: that they kind of bring us all together because you know,
Speaker 1: they were all susceptible to it. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. It's a great song, and I love
Speaker 1: the way you do it. Now. A lot of your
Speaker 1: songs tend to have, you know, the two we've talked
Speaker 1: about so far, tend to get into I don't have
Speaker 1: a great word for it, but metaphysical or existential or
Speaker 1: bigger picture things. They're they're talking about something that's happening
Speaker 1: here in the world. But they're also talking about being
Speaker 1: part of something bigger, the song So Naive being a
Speaker 1: great example of that, where you say you're part of
Speaker 1: something bigger. I believe that I'm a part of something Beggar,
Speaker 1: so naive, but I guess I got it vegga through
Speaker 1: these little lines. I see the world every woman and man,
Speaker 1: every boy and girl, every little part and aid sonth
Speaker 1: and Beggar song beggar. When the one thing you live
Speaker 1: for is the one thank you? You say? How did
Speaker 1: I get here? And I haven't gonna get back? Do
Speaker 1: you think a lot about that sort of stuff? Are
Speaker 1: you spiritually inclined? Is it just kind of happen naturally?
Speaker 1: And well, I do, yeah. I mean I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's much more than anybody else, but I definitely
Speaker 1: spend a lot of my time kind of observing things
Speaker 1: and usually take notes in my phone or whatever, my notebook,
Speaker 1: whatever I have with me. I mean, So Naive is
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting one because it's sort of proposes
Speaker 1: that idea and that feeling of being part of a
Speaker 1: bigger picture, but it also kind of mocks it a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um It sort of says, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: so naive? But I guess I've got it figured out.
Speaker 1: It's kind of that realization of knowing that you you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's an oversaid thing, but it's
Speaker 1: like a realization of knowing that you actually know nothing
Speaker 1: at all. The line in there about you know the
Speaker 1: one thing that you need being something you lack? Was that?
Speaker 1: Was that in reference to anything in particular or would
Speaker 1: you like to leave that up to our imagination for
Speaker 1: the listener? Who I guess, you know, it's always going
Speaker 1: to be different, But I mean, I suppose for me
Speaker 1: that was kind of linking to feelings of being younger
Speaker 1: and not being able to kind of express myself for
Speaker 1: my sexuality, or you know, feeling like you couldn't come
Speaker 1: out yet when you're kind of an a young teenager,
Speaker 1: and that kind of feeling of growing up gay and
Speaker 1: a kind of homophobic society, which is what happened to me.
Speaker 1: And and that kind of for me opened up a
Speaker 1: lot of creative doors because it just turned me into
Speaker 1: a voyeur and and I kind of started seeing the
Speaker 1: world around me as a whole load of signs and
Speaker 1: signifiers and just this big theater, you know, this this
Speaker 1: kind of strange paradigm, which I wasn't part of you
Speaker 1: as far as your sexuality were more overt on the
Speaker 1: Darling Arithmetic record than any in the past. Um about
Speaker 1: your sexuality? Was that a conscious decision? And did you
Speaker 1: did you have fear around that? It wasn't necessarily conscious.
Speaker 1: It was more kind of like it's the only thing
Speaker 1: that was feeding my fire. You know, I couldn't write
Speaker 1: anything else, so I had to write it. I've always
Speaker 1: let the music kind of dictate where I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: M and the previous albums were like dealing with those
Speaker 1: feelings of anger and kind of an indignant energy, which
Speaker 1: which I felt, but it wasn't specifically pointing towards it,
Speaker 1: which I thought was an interesting project, but also was
Speaker 1: coming out of a certain amount of necessity because I
Speaker 1: was wasn't comfortable talking about it to strangers with microphones
Speaker 1: and cameras and stuff, and you know, because I'm quite
Speaker 1: a naturally introverted person anyway, So it's something that just
Speaker 1: I had to kind of go through in my art
Speaker 1: and my music, and so yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's just I don't really do anything with an overthinking mind.
Speaker 1: I kind of just let the music take me where
Speaker 1: it's kind of go, and I feel like I'm kind
Speaker 1: of on a on a journey really with with that,
Speaker 1: another song which kind of gets to the topic of
Speaker 1: being brave enough to write about who you really are
Speaker 1: is the song Courage, and there's a couple lines in
Speaker 1: there i'd like to ask you about. Took a little
Speaker 1: time to get where I wanted, took a little time
Speaker 1: to get free, took a little time to be on it,
Speaker 1: took a little time to be mean. I took a
Speaker 1: little lover, but then we parted. It took a little
Speaker 1: time to get on by From time to time I
Speaker 1: get haldy hardy thinking about you. Okay, Courage, it's a
Speaker 1: fiend like no let me tell you yet, Courage and
Speaker 1: harmy some of them, y'all. Eagle Courage, The sweet relief
Speaker 1: of know nothing cone small Free the first one I'd
Speaker 1: really like to ask. I love this line, and I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what it what it means to you, The
Speaker 1: sweet relief of knowing nothing comes for free. I think
Speaker 1: it's one of those lines that kind of turns something,
Speaker 1: this thing that could becomes strewed as a negative or
Speaker 1: as a as something that you like that you had
Speaker 1: to fight for is actually something that carved out the
Speaker 1: most interesting parts of your psyche and your personality. I
Speaker 1: really like it because I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: us are always looking for some kind of shortcut to
Speaker 1: a lot of things. And I love what I You know,
Speaker 1: what I took from that and in my own life
Speaker 1: was the relief of kind of recognizing, like, that's not
Speaker 1: the way it is, like that nothing comes for free,
Speaker 1: and really accepting that and being okay with the work
Speaker 1: that I was going to have to do in my
Speaker 1: life to be the person I wanted to be. What
Speaker 1: lesson would you say has taken you the longest to
Speaker 1: learn in your life? Wow? Wow, this is a really
Speaker 1: interesting interview. I've never I've actually started seeing a therapist recently,
Speaker 1: and this is not dissimilar. Um, what lessons have I learned?
Speaker 1: Don't be afraid of going to see a therapist. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. That's not seeing a therapist isn't
Speaker 1: embedded in Irish culture as much as it is in
Speaker 1: American culture. It's it's something that you don't really talk
Speaker 1: about as much over here, And but I'm finding it
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful. I'm discovering so many aspects of myself which
Speaker 1: are really going to feed hopefully my next songs. And
Speaker 1: I guess just being able to have faith in your idiosyncrasies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have faith in in in the things that make
Speaker 1: you different and make you shine that little bit more.
Speaker 1: I think that's something I've learned to emphasize as well
Speaker 1: in my life as I've gotten a little bit older.
Speaker 1: I heard you appear on a show where they were
Speaker 1: asking sort of your top tips for I think it
Speaker 1: was probably around creation, and that was one of the
Speaker 1: big ones you said was find that thing about you
Speaker 1: it's unique and kind of blow it up, like it's
Speaker 1: not blow it up like destroy it, blow it up
Speaker 1: as in magnify it. Yeah, totally. I mean a good
Speaker 1: example with my friend Dave is one of my best mates.
Speaker 1: We were in a band together for years, and when
Speaker 1: when David Bowie died, he up a post on Facebook
Speaker 1: and it just said, thank you boy for helping me
Speaker 1: to learn how to celebrate the strange. I just thought
Speaker 1: that was such a beautiful sentence, and you know, it
Speaker 1: reminded me of of of of when we were twelve
Speaker 1: thirteen and singing Hunky Dory from start to finish and
Speaker 1: you know, just the strength that kind of stuff gives
Speaker 1: you is it's beautiful. You like to read a lot?
Speaker 1: What are you what are you reading right now? Or
Speaker 1: what have you read really recently that you thought was
Speaker 1: very profound. I'm reading a book called Gay Lives from
Speaker 1: Wild to Almaldivar. It's by Calm Talbing, the Irish author,
Speaker 1: and it's basically exploring all these different writers and artists
Speaker 1: and filmmakers who were gay and different and different times
Speaker 1: of history and in different countries. And it's fascinating, really
Speaker 1: really interesting, because I'm on the chapter about it irishman
Speaker 1: called Roger Casement. He um ended up working for the
Speaker 1: British consulate and he basically got given loads of awards
Speaker 1: for his work in Peru because he was discovering that
Speaker 1: the local population we're being really badly treated. And he
Speaker 1: got sort of further and further up in the British
Speaker 1: Council and then and then became more of an Irish
Speaker 1: Republican and ended up trying to help the Easter Rising
Speaker 1: in Ireland in nineteen sixteen by bringing German guns into Ireland.
Speaker 1: And then he was caught by the British and hanged
Speaker 1: basically but They also found these diaries on called the
Speaker 1: Black Diaries, in which he's basically it's basically talking about
Speaker 1: all these homosexual encounters that he had, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people think they might have been forged by the
Speaker 1: British government. It's a completely bizarre, interesting, very very very
Speaker 1: kind of I think Daniel de Lewis should try and
Speaker 1: play him someday. They'll be pretty good. Is the mood
Speaker 1: in Ireland still very positive after the reference them where
Speaker 1: gay marriage was you know, sort of legalized by the
Speaker 1: population themselves by voting directly on it. It is. Yeah. Socially,
Speaker 1: it's amazing, you know. I mean that was probably one
Speaker 1: of the most important times in my life because they're
Speaker 1: just walking around the city and seeing people wearing badges
Speaker 1: saying yes you know, and knowing that these people have
Speaker 1: absolutely no problem with who you are, and how how
Speaker 1: at odds that is with you know, ten years previously,
Speaker 1: when you're still a teenager or whatever and really not
Speaker 1: feeling that at all. It was It's completely amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just there was. It was such a brilliant thing
Speaker 1: for everybody. I think it's it's it's gonna have ramifications
Speaker 1: which you're just going to continue saying for the next
Speaker 1: ten twenty years. It's Yeah, it's amazing. I've heard you
Speaker 1: in a couple of interviews and also in that song
Speaker 1: Courage talk about connecting with something other than our ego.
Speaker 1: What does ego mean to you? I mean, that's one
Speaker 1: of those terms. It gets used so many different ways.
Speaker 1: I'm curious for you what it sort of represents. It's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the kind of Freudian ego thing like the aid,
Speaker 1: or it's not necessarily being as specific as that. For me,
Speaker 1: it was more kind of using ego and a slightly
Speaker 1: waited biased in terms of it being something that you
Speaker 1: can get obsessed with quite easily, you know, and perhaps
Speaker 1: more in a sort of celebrity culture way or in
Speaker 1: a in a you know, a slightly less kind of
Speaker 1: pure way than perhaps ego could be construed. Yes, So
Speaker 1: for me, it's more like kind of opening up your
Speaker 1: horizons and being kind of humble with how you see yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for me, he's been less focused on myself in general,
Speaker 1: being able to have a point of view that actually
Speaker 1: includes other humans or the types of humans are right right. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, Connor for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on like I said, your records have been great sources
Speaker 1: of comfort to me over the last few years, and
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks very much, cheers, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me, Eric, Okay, all right, take care bye bye,
Speaker 1: okay bye. You can learn more about Connor O'Brien and
Speaker 1: this podcast at one you feed dot net slash Connor