Autre Monde have released their new album, Sensitive Assignments, on the Popical Island label and and launch their national tour tonight. We asked Padraig Cooney (bass, synth, vocals) the BIG questions . . .
Autre Monde are Paddy Hanna (vocals, keyboards), Padraig, Mark Chester (guitar) and Eoghan O'Brien (drums, keyboards, backing vocals).
They met through their involvement in a network of Dublin bands that at one stage or another were central to the Popical Island collective (Skelocrats, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Ginnels, No Monster Club, Land Lovers, the Paddy Hanna Band).
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Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I'm 6ft 2in tall with brown hair and I am married with one child. I held the juvenile course record at Glenville Pitch and Putt Club from 1996 until (I think) 2010. Something like that. A glorious reign. I was once a guest on Morning Ireland with Sean O'Rourke for non-musical reasons.
How would you describe your music?
Autre Monde is about mining for hooks and situating them in whatever context we find interesting at the time.
Who are your musical inspirations?
From my late teenage years, Elvis Costello has been a bedrock in terms of learning how to write songs. However, I think this band has been in many ways about unlearning that stuff, stripping away the formality. Maybe Brian Eno or John Cale have become more inspirational to me over the years. However, I joined in with the widespread Steely Dan revival over the pandemic and, well, that's back to being captured by the same writerly cleverness that attracted me to Costello back then. I love writers and interpreters more than I love musicians as such - Carole King, Benny and Björn, Rogers and Hart/Hammerstein, Curtis Mayfield, Nina Simone, Lou Reed . . .
What was the first gig you ever went to?
I was brought to Oasis in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 1996 by my older sisters. Went on my own to The Verve in the SFX the following year. Yes, I liked the mainstream English guitar music of the era!
What was the first record you ever bought?
Got R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People and Out of Time and Mariah Carey's Daydream on the same day with Christmas vouchers. Had previously been bought (What's the Story) Morning Glory for Christmas.
What’s your favourite song right now?
I Must Have Been Blind by Brigid Mae Power is a beautiful song. It took over from I Contain Multitudes by Bob Dylan as the song that sticks to me for a prolonged spell.
Favourite lyric of all time?
I always thought Man Out Of Time by Elvis Costello was just a masterful lyric to the extent that I kind of adapted it or did my spin on what I saw in the character, for the Land Lovers song Springtime for the Mystics. This is the same answer I would have given 20 years ago, which is mostly to do with a diminished ability to form new memories than the lack of great lyrics that come into my ears.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That sounds like a torturous fate for both me and the song but if I must, Rainbow Connection because it's the song I sing to my daughter at bedtime, so I've got a head start on the conditioning.
Where can people find your music/more information?
All our links are here.
Alan Corr
