Bell X1 Interview

Hailed as “a brilliant co-mingling of Electronic music and anthemic Pop Rock”, Ireland’s very own Bell X1 have made quite the name for themselves in the music industry. After releasing their incredible sixth studio album ‘Chop Chop’ back in 2013, we chatted to singer Paul Noonan about the band’s many achievements, his side project Printer Clips and his plans for summer 2014.

What have you been up to this week?
I’m working on a side project called Printer Clips, which is a record of duets that I’m doing a launch show for next week. So I’ve been rehearsing that. We’ve been enjoying a brief spell of sunshine here in Dublin!

Considering ‘Chop Chop’ is your sixth studio album and you’ve toured extensively in Europe and North America, how are you only now heading to Australia?
It’s something we’ve wanted to happen for a long time but we didn’t feel like the records had percolated or filtered through enough. I think the last two seem to have been received pretty well. We didn’t want to come up with a proper structure to it but we had things at radio and press going so it feels like it’s the right time to go. I think we’ve always relished breaking new ground.

Will ticket holders get to hear material from the past 10 or 15 years?
Yeah! We’ll do songs from every record I think. I think you’re generally more excited about your most recent music. This being our first trip to Australia knowing that it’s the first time for a lot of people to see us, it’s a different animal I think. It’ll be a greatest hits set, to an extent.

Do you have a favourite track that you like to perform?
It can vary from night to night. Sometimes things can sneak up and surprise you, or take a different direction on the night. There’s a song called ‘Thousand Little Daggers’ from the last record which seems to have turned into a different animal live and is one of those things that relies on volume and a lot of shouting, which kind of works live but not in the cold light of day. [Laughs]

You’re doing four shows back to back. Will you be taking advantage of a holiday or do you have to be strictly in and out?
I think during the tour it’ll be pretty manic, flying everyday and fumbling our way through newness. We’re going to have an Australian tour manager, thankfully, to hold our hands. I don’t think we’ll see a whole lot while we’re touring but I’m going to stay on for a few more days at the end and hopefully see Sydney. My sister’s there, so I’m gonna hang out with her for a few days and see the sights.

On to music, you’ve written many atmospheric, rhythmic and thematic songs over the years. Do you think that you know the ingredients for the perfect Pop song now?
Oh Christ no. Still fumbling blindly with that one. I think if there were a formula, it wouldn’t be the magic that it is. I still find the initial spark of inspiration is the magic and the really satisfying bit. Then it’s quite a hard slot to finish the song, having been touring with a musical idea or a verse/chorus idea for a long time and actually hammer it into shape and make sure it works as a song is a lot of work. You know, it’s satisfying when it pays off. It’s bizarre; we’ve often missed our biggest songs first time around. We have a song called ‘Eve, The Apple Of My Eye’ which was a big song for us in the States, especially because we recorded it for our first record and didn’t think much of it – then on the second record it seemed to come to life in a totally different light. Likewise we have a song called ‘Rocky Took A Lover’ which was a big song from our third record and we’d recorded that as a b-side, you can never tell.

What would you say was your biggest achievement as a band?
Staying together for past 15 years or so [Laughs]. We found a groove that’s pretty comfortable. I think we’re so hungry to make things that work from record to record. Even now there’s a lot of new songs that we want to start working on over the summer, we’re always swapping stuff over e-mail and pointing each other to new music that we’re into at the moment. There’s always a childish excitement about the process and it’s not something you can fake. The thrill is not gone yet.

If it did, would you have to sit down and rethink what you were all doing?
Of course. I would hope that we would be honest enough to do that and not sort of go along for the sake of it. No good can come from that, even creatively it can really erode things. The band has become a sort of hub from which a lot of side projects have sprung over the years. We all go away and do different things between band times, so it’s pretty healthy to do that.

You branched out on your own for Printer Clips. It’s an album of duets with ladies in music.
Yeah. I’ve been working on it for about four years now. When we started the band we were a lot more into layers and complexity and different instruments. I suppose in a reaction to that, I wanted to record something really simply and the duets are just two guitarists, two vocals and that’s pretty much it. I’ve always loved singing with girls, they can kind of intertwine and create something. I wrote to a lot of people and strong-armed people into singing including Julia Stone actually, who was very gracious. We met up in London and recorded there and at the time we’d never been to Australia and she was sort of very encouraging about trying to make it happen, and I’m glad it has.

So being from the Emerald Isle, for someone that’s coming to Dublin for the first time, what are the three things someone should do during their stay?
Dublin is a very different place in the sunshine, so firstly be hopeful that the sun is shining. There’s a buoyancy and feel good factor, which is pretty universal but especially with Dublin because of the fact that the national psyche isn’t predisposed to positivity [laughs]. So, make the sunshine would be the first one. As grim as it may sound, there’s a place called Kilmainham Jail, which is an old jailhouse, which housed a lot of revolutionaries here in the early 1900s and they’ve preserved it as it was. There are a lot of passionate tour guides that will take you around. Pretty grim, but definitely worthwhile. The other thing I think, go out to the coast and out to the sea. There are a couple of really cool towns over here from Howth to Malahide. In the city itself, if the sun is shining, hang out in Stephen’s Green and go for some drinks along the terrace, it definitely has a feel good factor to it.

Catch Bell X1 on tour from 3rd-6th July 2014 Nationwide. To buy tickets, log on to www.troubadour-music.com