Why Everyone Couldn’t Not Love Gurriers
In 2022 Gurriers played their first gig to a sold-out crowd of 300 people in their hometown of Dublin.
The band had been together for nearly two years at that point, but because of Covid lockdowns, they had been unable to play live. With only two recorded demos out, the sold-out show marked their live debut and made them realise this was all possible. We’ve taken quite a liking to the quintet composed of Dan Hoff on lead vocals, Ben O'Neill on guitar and backing vocals, Mark MacCormack on guitar, Charlie McCarthy on bass, and Pierce O'Callaghan on drums.
Gurriers’ debut album, Come and See, came out in September last year and is complete with fast paced and at times aggressive instrumentals, a peaceful interlude and Dan’s well-educated lyrics about politics and the state of the world, it is music to move to as much as it is music to make you think. A timeless pairing.
On Wednesday 12th March, Gurriers will be playing a set as part of the official Monster Children SXSW Showcase. We called Dan for a chat before he heads out to Austin.
The first show Gurriers ever played was to a crowd of 300 people. How was that?
It was surreal because as most bands experienced Covid as this lull in playing gigs, we had never played a gig. Everything we did was within the four walls that we were practicing in for two years trying to write songs. We thought it would be grand if we would be able to just play these songs in front of our friends. We were very lucky to be one of the first gigs the week of everything opening, it also happened to fall on Halloween night. It was a win-win situation, it couldn’t have happened any better. It went from one of the guys who was in the band at the time being like ‘I think that’s too big of a room,’ in the first month we only sold seventy tickets and he was like ‘I told you it’s too big’, we were all like ‘Wait let’s see what happens’. Then it sold out in the last two, three weeks before the show.
Had you put out music at that point?
We had two singles out, “Top Of The Bill” and “Approachable”, but they were just demos. They were things we had recorded ourselves in that same room we played in. We made a weird advertisement of Hal from Malcom in the Middle trying to fix his radio to listen to Gurriers while we were announcing the gig and it worked, people fell for the comedy of it.
It was such a great night, it was one of those things that cemented into all of us that we could do it and make it work, it’s not just another hobby, this seems different. I think you need to feel it early to realise that.
That would’ve been a great realisation to have so early on too. A lot of the Gurriers lyrics are about the state of the world, especially the world around you. What made you want to write lyrics around those themes?
I became political a little bit later in my life. A lot of young men could’ve really easily fallen into the trap of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson without knowing the connection to the far-right ideologies connected to them and a lot of my friends did – thankfully they’re not into it anymore. I never understood it, I didn’t relate or agree with these guys, so I did my own research. My girlfriend is very left like myself, and she gave me a lot of advice on certain things. When I first got involved in politics, I was shocked and appalled at the state of it all. I would have these conversations with my friends but having them together felt like we were just screaming into the void. I did find the conversations beneficial for me, filling me with dopamine. When we started Gurriers I wanted to see if I could sing about those topics, to channel that anger and energy into something creative to fill me with more dopamine [laughs].
For sure, it is cool that the interest in politics happened at a similar time as Gurriers starting. Being a musician, it gives you a voice that you probably wouldn’t be able to have had if you weren’t making music.
Definitely. I’m not trying to be a mouthpiece for a generation, I’m just trying to say it how I would to my friends at the pub.
Did you grow up in Dublin?
I was the only one in the band who grew up in Dublin.
How was growing up in Dublin?
It was quite chill, my mum worked in a Tesco supermarket and my dad was a binman, so we lived quite a simple life in this place called Deansgrange. I was very reclusive when I was young, I just loved to be on my own, I got friends a little bit later maybe around thirteen and fourteen. When I started listening to music it gave me the confidence to make friends. In secondary school, I started a band with one of my first friends and we ended up doing a talent show with the band. That gave me confidence to show myself as who I was and sing, that’s what I wanted to do. I was really drawn to music and still I credit music as one of the reasons that I have so many important friends.
What was the music you were listening to at that time?
I used to say my family wasn’t a very musical family, but in a way they were. My parents loved Queen and my mum loved Robbie Williams, I still listen to Robbie Williams. My nan loves Roy Orbison and the Holly’s, I love that kind of music as well. My uncle loves Nirvana, Oasis, and Guns and Roses. That is such a good concoction of great music for a thirteen-year-old and I would’ve grown up being like ‘My family don’t know music, no one really ever showed me music.’ But I have to give it all to them they really did, without knowing, they just played it in the house. I really enjoyed it, mostly Roy Orbison, that was the one I enjoyed the most.
Roy Orbison is amazing, I always think of “In Dreams” as one of the coolest, most amazing songs ever made.
Yeah, it’s incredible and even more so when it’s in Blue Velvet. There is also the thing when you hear music when you’re older, that you heard when you are young, but you can’t remember where you know it from and have to go digging into the Windows ’95 in your brain to find it. I like that. That nostalgia is really nice.
Does nostalgia come in when you’re making music?
Yeah, even going back to Nirvana, there is the way Kurt Cobain sang melodies. You notice yourself doing that when you’re writing songs and think I’ve heard this before or it sounds like a Nirvana song. Instead of dipping away from it you have to lean into it and wear the influence on the sleeve. There is that nostalgic feel when you’re writing music. Most bands out today are doing The Cure, Nirvana, or The Smashing Pumpkins thing.
From a global standpoint the Irish music scene is in a really good place, with bands like Just Mustard and Fontaines D.C. What is that like for you guys, now you’re making music in a scene that now has eyes it globally?
It is so inspiring. Mark put it really well, one of the members of Fontaines, Conor Curley, lives down the road from where he and Pierce live. To them it’s basically the fella down the road is doing really well, so I’m going to take my guitar and pedals and try to do well as well. It is not, ‘If you can do it, I can do it’, it is more ‘That is so inspiring, we should do it.’ Having bands like The Murder Capital, Just Mustard, Gilla Band, and Fontaines put a spotlight on Ireland, the whole industry is going to look at us because it is like ‘If they are churning out this kind of music, what else is happening there?’ It isn’t even just that, there is so much amazing folk music with Junior Brother, Holly Munro and there are rap artists like Curtisy and Ahmed, With Love, and pop artists like Biig Piig and Kneecap. It is really interesting to see all this music happening right now, but there isn’t the infrastructure to hold it in place.
It is interesting especially with Ireland being so close to England and Scotland, who have that infrastructure. It seems like Ireland has always had a backseat where there isn’t the same infrastructure or emphasis on the music scene.
Yeah, I don’t know why that is. It feels like a music scene but, I may be speaking for myself, but a lot of bands feel like they’re watching from the outside. If all the bands feel like they’re watching from the outside, there is no actual community or scene. We all get along; we all hang out and go for drinks. It is one of those things where you don’t realise, you’re in a scene until afterwards and someone talks about it ten years down the line, because everything is moving so fast. There is a scene happening though and I think it is really important to immerse yourself in it and be present or it is just going to be gone in a few years and people will go back to techno.
What do you think it is about Irish music that people globally enjoy?
There is this confidence in Irish music that feels real, and it stems from Irish people using their actual accents, it comes back to bands like Fontaines and in the nineties, Whipping Boy and A House. They all sang with their accents which made it so much more authentic and believable. There are other bands from Ireland from the 2000s and 2010s who sang with this Trans-Atlantic default accent that was almost American. There is nothing wrong with it, but they were putting on a persona and they weren’t being themselves. They’d get on stage and be a different person. The authenticity is important and that is what people latch on to. Even CMAT is one of the best pop artists to come out of this country maybe ever and she brings her own accent to her songs, it is a breath of fresh air.
Do you think that has made you want to do more spoken word within Gurriers songs, to really showcase your accent and where you are from?
“Top Of The Bill” has the most spoken word in it, for that I was really influenced by Life Without Buildings, they have that one album [Any Other City], and it has the most insane melodies of all time, and I was obsessed with it. I want to make a whole album of that style, but I could only do one song. I’ve done some spoken word in a couple of other songs, but it does help get your accent out and it was the ultimate song at the time that allowed me to find my own voice. When we started Gurriers I still sang with that Trans-Atlantic accent. When we did “Top Of The Bill”, I said, ‘Top of the bill’ and I realised saying it in my Irish accent sounds better, it was a weird feeling where it was like, ‘I can get behind this now’. We were doing some demos a couple of weeks ago and one of the guys in the band was like ‘I don’t feel it. I feel like you’re not doing you, you’re trying to sing like someone else.’ I did it in my own accent and he was like this is so much better. You can kind of forget about doing your own accent, even though that is just you, you’re trying to sing and figure out where the melody fits. The accent might even come in after these days [laughs].
Could you see yourselves moving out of Ireland?
That’s a conversation we have had a couple of times. It has to make sense; we don’t want to move from Ireland to London and we are stuck in the same place we were here. It has to be a progress or evolution for us to move, because yeah you can move and give yourself a challenge and try to make it work but it isn’t five years ago, it was so much easier then, everything is so expensive now.
Yeah, right now is such a hard time to move, especially to be in London. You guys have been together as a band now for nearly five years, have the ambitions and scope of what you want to bring to the world as Gurriers changed in any way?
Yeah, there are a lot of ideas to change the size of everything, make production bigger and make things more immersive for the crowd when it comes to playing live. We want to write bigger songs that of course, connect to people and make them think, but also songs that are big and sound like a cacophony of music, something like The Ronettes or something, big loud music. We don’t want to write to what we think the algorithm would like, we want to write stuff that we like and makes us happy. I think that is the point to make it last, always enjoy what you do, have trust in the process and you’ll be okay.
Yeah, I always think if you believe in what you are doing everyone else will believe in it too and if you don’t it’ll very quickly fall by the wayside. Making it because it is what you enjoy is the best way to do it.
Yeah, the authenticity has to be there.
You’re about to head off to SXSW in March, how are you guys feeling about it?
Really good. We just came off a two-week tour with Inhaler which was a bit of a practice run for two weeks. We were supposed to play last year but we pulled out for Palestinian rights and the US army being involved in sponsorship, which is not the case anymore which is great, protest works. We are really going to show what people missed last year, we are going to put on a show that we feel really happy about and we think deserves to be heard in America.