Ahead of his appearance at RTÉ's Culture Night extravaganza (find out more here), we sat down with Villagers singer Conor O'Brien to discuss his new album, the one-shot wonder that is his latest music video and the possibility of breaking America.

Watch our interview with the frontman above.

"It's kind of like a romantic battle cry in the middle of this dystopian world that we're in right now," says Conor as he describes his new single, Fool. 

The song suggests that technology is taking over society (from any infomercial to the bodies on the street') but, as you can see in the video below, he manages to find the funny side of things. 

"I think sometimes it's easier to write sad songs, it's a bit of a challenge to elevate that and to bring in something that will create some kind of humour or joy in the listener, and that's definitely something I had in my mind when I was writing this record."

Watch: Bob Gallagher's video for Fool by Villagers.

Directed by Bob Gallagher, the impressive video is a one-take first-person-perspective shot with no edits and plenty of dark humour. For three minutes and fourteen seconds, the camera documents a 'date' with the frontman; drinking wine, snapping photos, digging into a freshly removed - and torched - heart.

"We just literally took the lyrics about ripping your heart out of your chest and made it happen, and I'm really happy with it."

As for Conor's own relationship with technology and social media? It's a little on-again-off-again. 

"I've found some really awesome music and literature from people Tweeting about it, but the other side is that our brains are constantly compartmentalising information now, and it's kind of ruining the way we think a little bit."

"A couple of years ago I realised that I hadn't read a book in a year and a half because I just kept checking stuff, so I had to put the phone down for a little bit."

Surprisingly, when it comes to songwriting, the performer doesn't always feel the need to put his phone away. Instead, he uses it for inspiration, discovering artists both old and new.

"I'm obsessed with music. I listen to lots of new and old music, probably more old music because there is more old music," he laughed. "With this album, I was listening to a lot of gospel and soul music and stuff that I felt like I could never really achieve, but when I tried to achieve it I found my own kind of thing."

Watch: Conor O'Brien performs his new song Fool in the RTÉ2fm studio.

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Villagers recently featured in the HBO drama Big Little Lies starring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, and while the Dubliner has no plans to move Stateside just yet, he's certainly open to more American experiences.

"If America wants to break me it can, I think it's already pretty broken," laughed the singer. "I don't know, I just take every day as it comes. Big Little Lies was pretty cool because I really respected that director, Jean-Marc Vallée, and I had just watched (his film) Dallas Buyers Club a few months before."

"It was a cool experience, and I'd welcome more like that."

Villagers' new album The Art Of Pretending To Swim is due for release on September 21st.