Dublin folk musician Callum Orr has released his new single, Crushing Machine, with his debut album The Trials of Knowing to follow in July. We asked him the BIG questions . . .
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He wrote the bleakly poignant Crushing Machine in 2021 after his mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
"I had this feeling of hopelessness in the face of this machine of death, envisioning that I and everyone I love are just sitting on this conveyor belt waiting for this final violence of being destroyed and taken from life," he says.
"I was almost confused as to why everyone wasn’t just running around screaming with terror, how are we all acting like this is OK?"
The song closes with a poem Callum penned called Flicker on a Sea, read by his cousin Ailbhe Keogan.
The Trials of Knowing will be launched on Saturday, 20 July at The Workman’s Cellar, Dublin. Tickets are available here for €12.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I’ve attended courses over the last few years and gotten a reasonable amount of my conversational Irish back. I'm always looking for opportunities to chat i nGaeilge and make an eejit of myself and improve.
When I was a toddler, a pot of boiling water fell off the hob and basically melted the skin on my leg, but I was the first patient on whom they used a new type of experimental bandage, and I got away with no scarring.
I’m a big proponent of meditation and finished a ten-day silent retreat in Co. Clare where we spent 10.5 hours each day sitting.
How would you describe your music?
Indie folk with some traditional Irish bits in there.
Who are your musical inspirations?
Frightened Rabbit, Declan O'Rourke, lots of the folk revival stuff that's going on across the island at the moment.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
Sum 41 at The Point in 2002.
What was the first record you ever bought?
I tried to impress my older brother and buy a CD of Nirvana B-sides called Insesticide with my pocket money when I was nine but was gently redirected by my folks to the single It’s My Life by Bon Jovi.
What’s your favourite song right now?
The first thing that comes to mind for this rather impossible question is Tiny Ruins - Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens, which is a perfect love song.
Favourite lyric of all time?
I always loved the way Sufjan Steven’s opens up his tune John Wayne Gacy, Jr. with: "His father was a drinker, And his mother cried in bed".
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Jon Hopkins - Sit Around The Fire.
Where can people find your music/more information?
The best place to find me is on Instagram: @callvm.orr.
Alan Corr
