The Coronas have been rocking up a storm in Ireland for the past four years, and now they’re UK bound for a ten night tour. We caught up with them before the tour kicks off tonight to hear about Irish fans, English fans, Nickelback and everything in between.
Hi Conor, Dave, Danny and Graham! For anyone who doesn’t already know about you – tell us a bit about yourselves.
We’re a four piece Irish rock band from Dublin. We’ve been together for 4 years now and we’re about to embark on our first proper headline UK tour starting May 1st at King Tut's in Glasgow and finishing on May 10th in Cargo in Shoreditch. We’re really excited about the tour - things are going well for us in Ireland at the moment, we’ve signed a new deal, we’re getting radio play, everything’s falling into place. We’ve been itching to get over here for years and now we’re doing it!
Sum up sound your sound in three words:
Dave: Guitar, rock, pop.
Conor: Lively, energetic, amazing.
Danny: Unbelievable, amazing, enigmatic.
Graham: Big choruses.
Sounds good! How has the response been from your audiences at live shows?
We played a gig last night in Borderline – it was our first proper show here but it was actually amazing, completely sold out and it was really cool. We’ve been playing so long in Ireland that we were a bit nervous about bringing it over here but the crowd was fantastic last night.
Do you think there’s a difference between your English and Irish fans then?
There used to be a bit of a divide between English and Irish music – even between Northern and Southern Ireland, but music overlaps now. Because of the internet it doesn’t matter where you’re from. We don’t consider ourselves an Irish band, we’re just a band – and an Irish person will appreciate our music just as much as an English person.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Danny: For inspiration, there’s a few common influences that we all love like Radiohead, The Beatles, Jeff Buckley. Then we have individual ones like I love Stereophonics and Travis – the guys slag me for it though! Con’s into classic Oasis – that kinda thing.
Dave: I like The Stone Roses, Led Zeppelin, classic guitar and classic rock.
Graham: One of our favourite films, Almost Famous inspires us and it’s where our name comes from.
Do you get inspiration from things other than music, like your experiences?
Our inspiration is from everything – whatever happens to you in your life. Even moving to a different city and meeting new people [Danny has just moved to London] – it changes the way you write.
How do you warm up for a big show?
First things first we put our Religion on! We just practice hard. We’ve got technical things like ear monitors or different speakers that we need to adjust to for each gig. For this tour it’s more scaled down so we practice and make sure we can get a big sound. Make sure we haven’t forgotten how to play!
Do you get nervous?
A few little nerves! If we get nervous it’s more like ‘is there going to be anyone there?’ or ‘are they going to like it?’. We’ve got to the stage where we know we can play well and pull it off. We’re lucky that we all get on, we’re all in it together. It’s important for us to have a good crew, it makes for a better gig to know that we’re proper friends – we went to school with our guitar tech and manager too.
How do you decide what to wear?
We know some other bands who are like ‘what colour are you wearing tonight?’ and ‘what do you think of this?’ but we’ve never been like that. If we’re wearing the same t-shirt then we’ll be like ... ‘we gotta change’. But recently we are spending a little more time on it – to start off we just wore whatever but now, it makes a difference if we try and look good.
What’s been the pinnacle of your career so far?
Graham: Once a crazy woman came up behind me and cut a chunk of my hair off. She started crying, and then emailed our manager Jim and said that she’d rolled it up in a ball with sellotape and slept with it under her pillow. I should have pressed charges! She made a pretty neat job though - I didn’t have a bald patch.
Danny: And that’s the defining moment of our career....
We’ve had a few incredible moments – we supported Paul McCartney. They say you don’t meet your heroes but, he was so nice and made such an effort to spend time with us. It was incredible.
If you had to give someone in the industry advice – what would it be and who would you give it to?
Graham: I would advise Nickelback to retire. That’s all. That’s the only thing I want!
Now tell us something that nobody else knows...
Dave: Graham and Danny’s parents used to.... know each other... shall I say this??
Danny: You’ve started now...
Graham: Ok! His Mum used to go out with my dad!
Danny: It was a long time ago, they were in college.... there’s your exclusive!
