Otherkin: four go mad in a cabin in Cavan

They’ve already supported Guns N' Roses at Slane and razed UK rock festivals to the ground and now Otherkin are about to unleash the best Irish rock debut in years. Frontman Luke Reilly reveals all

Some bands go down to the country to get their heads together; Otherkin went down the country to lose their minds.

In the pursuit of that all-important Bon Iver vibe, the Dublin four piece wrote a lot of their coruscating debut album in a cabin in Cavan. "We wanted to get away from the city and all the distractions," says Otherkin’s lead singer Luke Reilly.

"But we realised that it was the four of us together in a tiny cabin and cabin fever set in extremely quickly and we started making these frazzled-sounding songs and we just loved it. Staying up until four in the morning when everybody’s head is in a completely different place was a really good way to exorcise things and get the songs out."

The results are to be found on OK, as blistering a rock debut you will have heard in years. Classic garage rock collides with snotty pop punk cheek and in the articulate and sharply intelligent Reilly, Otherkin have a throat-shredding vocalist of real force.

OK (Luke already has the album’s title permanently inked in two-inch high letters on his wrist) is a reference to the band’s name - Otherkin means a subculture who socially and spiritually identify as partially or entirely non-human but that title also strives for something positive in a world listing on its axis.

Otherkin means a subculture who socially and spiritually identify as partially or entirely non-human

It’s been a steady rise for the band featuring Reilly, guitar hero in the making Conor Wynne, rumbling bass guitarist David Anthony, and powerhouse drummer Rob Summons. They formed in Dublin in 2014, united by a love of The Clash, Queens of The Stone Age, Ramones and Blur, and released a series of highly-original and striking videos and EPs. Then they undertook a punishing live schedule that proves that Otherkin know the importance of building things from grassroots support.

We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

That debut, produced (surprisingly) by Jay Boland from Kodaline and (not surprisingly) David Prendergast from Overhead The Albatross is stuffed with heads-down rockers and pile driving guitars. It’s all about catharsis but the album also features a song called ’89 and given Otherkin’s love of the trash aesthetic it may seem like a reference to the year of grunge broke but it's actually a nod to the year that saw the release of 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul’s debut album.

"Yeah! When I was growing up in school a lot of the people I went to school a lot of people I went to school with were into hip hop, especially golden age hip hop," says Reilly. "I remember coming across 3 Feet High and Rising and I was just blown away by it because it was a real sea change from a lot of the other hip hop I’d be listening to, which was more gansta rap whereas this was just pop positivity.

"At the particular time that I found it I was going through a lot of stuff mentally anyway and it really kinda helped me in a way. I know that sounds really clichéd but it really gave me a more positive outlook on things."

OK may be full of heads-down rockers snottiness and insolence but Otherkin wear pop influences with pride. "It’s always been a proclivity of ours never to sacrifice a melody," says Reilly. "While we grew up listening to noisier bands like Sonic Youth or Queens of The Stone Age, we always listened to a lot of pop music.

"Regardless of how abrasive our music gets, and it doesn’t get too abrasive, but the heavier it gets me don’t want to sacrifice the tunefulness and melody of it because everything should serve the song and the song is mainly a killer melody so even when we get heavy we like to make sure there’s a nice sugary melody coming through to hook people in."

"Regardless of how abrasive our music gets, and it doesn’t get too abrasive, but the heavier it gets me don’t want to sacrifice the tunefulness and melody."

But sugary melodies or not, there is plenty of spleen venting on OK. "I think a lot of our original recordings before the album and before our EPs came from a darker place, a place of more anxiety," says Reilly. "As we wrote a lot more songs I’d kind of vented by the time we got to making the album but still a lot of the song come from a darker corner because the album should represent modern anxieties."

Last May, Otherkin took to the stage to support Guns N’ Roses at Slane and it was doubly special because Luke hails from the Co. Meath village himself. The show, which also saw Royal Blood rock the ramparts, was all he hoped for.

"It was amazing! It was a huge thing and we wanted to make sure we did it justice, we didn’t want to feel it was a booking done as a favour or anything like that - we wanted to stand on our own terms and that we deserved to be on the bill and I felt that we did that. We want out and did a really good show and afterwards there was no looking around for validation; we just felt really happy with the performance."

"I think a lot of our original recordings before the album and before our EPs came from a darker place, a place of more anxiety."

So in our cynical and cyclical pop will eat itself culture, does Reilly reckon rock is making a comeback? "It’s never really gone way," he says. "But it’s definitely experiencing a dip in popularity or in mainstream popularity at the minute. If you look at the inventiveness and originality of a lot of guitar bands at the minute, it’s still out there. Even with Irish bands. If you look at the likes of Girl Band, they’re providing something fresh and thrilling.

"That sort of attitude is still there but the mainstream approval has waned and there are probably a myriad of different reasons for that but I like to think we’re on the cusp of an upswing again.

"I like to think it can but it depends on the band and the circumstances. Hopefully if it does kick off, Otherkin can be a part of that. If not we’re gonna do our darndest to make it happen."

Alan Corr @corralan

OK by Otherkin is out on Rubyworks on September 29. The band play the Button Factory, Dublin, on December 15 and Roisin Dubh, Galway, on December 16

Otherkin: four go mad in a cabin in Cavan

More stories on

Read Next