They're recording a live album and have released a new song with Australian singer Dean Lewis. Ryan Hennessy and Jimmy Rainsford of Kildare band Picture This talk about romance, their fans, and why "corny old romantic" Ryan is just in "love with love"
Jimmy, I believe you saw Coldplay in Croke Park. Are you incredibly jealous or lost in admiration of their live show?
Jimmy: "A bit of both. Haahha. It’s always incredibly inspiring. It’s not just about the four lads on stage when it comes to Coldplay, it’s an all-encompassing circus.
"There’s a great future for concerts, in that they’re not just concerts - they are an experience. It’s like instead of going to a 3D movie, it’s like an all-encompassing physical experience. I think concerts are going that way and it’s something we’d like to try."
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You’re recording a live album of your show at the INEC Arena in Killarney this December - the live arena is where you are most at home, I’d imagine . . .
Jimmy: "Yeah, it is. That’s why we want to record a live album, something, funnily enough, we’ve never done. A live band is what we’re mostly known as and we’re doing a live album at the INEC. It’s about time we did it and have our biggest fans come and be a part of it."
ANNOUNCEMENT 🌟
— Picture This (@picturethis) September 2, 2024
We have always wanted to record one of our live shows and put it out as an album so on Dec 14th at the INEC in Killarney we're finally going to do just that!
Pre sale Wednesday 9am, via our mailer.
General on sale Friday.
Act fast to avoid disappointment! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/FFChGacgWl
Ryan, you were one of the estimated 700,000 Irish people (10 million worldwide) who was up bright and early to get Oasis tickets . . .
Ryan: "I set my alarm to get up and get tickets on the Saturday morning. I’ve been a diehard Oasis fan all my life, they mean everything to me."
Jimmy: "I don’t know the mechanics of it when it comes to ticket pricing but there are excessive ticket prices at times. Most of the time it’s not the original ticket price. There are tons of people and companies making lots of money from selling on tickets. Oasis said very clearly that were only two places where you can buy tickets at these prices, everywhere else has nothing to do with us.
"There will come a time when you’re going to exactly explain where to get tickets and how much they’re going to be just so people know what is official. But at the same time, look, it’s Oasis and there’s going to be demand. I don’t think people care too much about how much tickets are going to be. They’re just going to go anyway and people are going to capitalise on that
"I was in the queue. I was 406,000th in the queue and I gave up. I had a laugh. It’s demand. It’s one of the biggest bands in the world so what can you do?"
Do you both take an interest in the business side of being in a band?
Ryan: "We’re passionate about every side of the band. We’re not one of those bands who just do the art and everything else is handled by their team or label. We’re heavily involved in every aspect of the band and always have been for a multitude of reasons.
"We’re very conscious of how our band and our brand comes across. We feel like if we can’t be involved in every aspect of it we can’t truly be happy. It’s definitely something we take an interest in. of course the art and the music is the most important part but as a modern artist you have to be involved in every aspect of it."
Is it hard to switch off from being in Picture This?
Ryan: "For me, I would say yes, and I don’t really want to switch off because I’m so obsessed with it, the position we’re in and just getting to be in a band. There’s been a million times when we’ve come off stage and said to each other this is the best thing ever, being in a band is the best craic ever.
"I love it because you’re always thinking of ideas. We have a live album coming up . . . the band it always floating around in my mind. I can’t switch off but I don’t really mind."
Your fourth album, Parked Car Conversations, was released earlier this year and that title could have a lot of different meanings but for you and Ryan it refers to the long conversations they’d have about your plans and dreams . . .
Jimmy: "When I first met Ryan, we met through music and started making music from the very beginning and the car became a metaphor and a vehicle for our dreams. We’d sit in the car (a Fiesta, which was later written off by an NCT - Ed) and listen to music, we’d put on the music that we had made in my mam and dad’s back garden shed studio and we would talk about what we wanted to do with it and where we were going to go.
"We has this road in front of us and we had to figure out our strategy and we did that by sitting in the car and talking about it because we had nowhere else to go. We had no office of space so we’d sit in the car. Sitting in the car talking about it was an extremely heavy time because this was the rest of our lives."
(For the record everyone, in the band except Jimmy drives a silver or black Golf).
Ryan: "The parked car conversation is almost an exclusively a rural thing. Specifically for people like us from Athy, you’re in a rural town and the car is your only mode of transport. For my friends growing up, they’ve all has those parked car conversations with their partners. People in Dublin don’t appreciate it the same way we do."
On your new single, Middle of Love, Ryan duets with Australian singer Dean Lewis on a song about two lads in love for the same girl . . .
Ryan: "It’s been an absolute joy working with him because when you go in to work with other artists it can be difficult for lots of reasons, most of all scheduling, but over the past six months myself and the band and Dean have been in the same room together lots of time and it really make a huge difference. It wasn’t s case of let’s work with this guy because he has great streams but we never get to see him.
"When I was writing the song, I always had the idea of a male duet where two guys were singing to each other about a girl and I kept hearing Dean’s voice and I sent the song to him via text and he came back right away and said let’s do what we have to do to get it over the line."
The song is about, as New Order would say, a bizarre love triangle. Have they ever been in a situation like that?
Ryan: "Not a love triangle but the sentiment in that song is not that it’s about a love triangle but it’s the longing that both men have and I’ve had that over the years, that longing. As an Irish person in general you long and yearn for love and connection. I’ve definitely had that over the years."
You write predominately about the tangle of modern romance. Are you afraid this will leave your own love lives open to speculation?
Jimmy: "I’m not worried to be honest. I don’t think we’re that outrageously outgoing when it comes to that kind of thing. Thankfully, Ryan is a good enough writer that he can make up stories or exaggerate some stories. At the same time if anything was to happen, I’m pretty sure Ryan would have a pretty good go at writing about it and it would be a pretty good story."
Is Ryan a bit of a lothario?
Ryan: "I don’t think so, I hope not because I’m not. We’re not super public about our personal lives but we’re not trying to hide it either. We’re quite transparent people and I think that’s why people connect with our band. That’s something I’ve realised over the years. We’re just authentically ourselves and I think people connect to that."
Picture This track Song To Myself has got to be the most soul baring you’ve ever been . . .
Ryan: "Yes, absolutely. The release of that song was terrifying I have to say. I’m always super excited, I’m like a child at Christmas when we bring out a song but when it came to that song, I was terrified. When I wrote the song, it was an exercise to myself, it was basically a diary entry I turned into a song. I’ve never had the intention of anybody hearing it. there’s a line in the song that says `I don’t care if anyone is listening now’, which was me having my own tongue in cheek moment as I was writing it.
"Jimmy accidently stumbled across the song one day when I sent him the wrong voice memo and he was like we have to put this song out, it feels too important to just live on your phone. It was terrifying but absolutely gratifying as well because the response and the stories people have sent me, that’s the reason you do things like that, you put your own neck on the line so you can help other people."
Do you think you’re just a corny old romantic?
"Yeah. Absolutely, I am and I don’t try to hide it. I think when you’re younger you try to be cool and serious and all that . . . when it comes to love in general, and not just romantic love, it’s just the way I look at things. I love my family and the boys in the band. I love love and that’s what makes my world go round. I try to harness it as much as possible."
You’re both, as your song goes, big dream, small town boys, but you and Ryan have quite different personalities. Jimmy, you seem pragmatic and Ryan is the dreamer . . .
Jimmy: "Yeah, we are very different and that’s what makes the songwriting partnership work. Anything Ryan can’t do, I can and vice versa, and that’s where we help each other. We both have the same vision and that’s been important since day one. We have the same dream and when it comes to songs, we know instinctually where we want to go. There is a great connection between us when it comes to writing music. We usually say we don’t want to know what that magic is but there is a magic and we keep fanning that lame and it works, it’s fun. This is our life."
Picture This have an unapologetically big commercial sound. You have enjoyed huge success here in Ireland. However, are you frustrated by lack of success abroad?
Ryan: "That depends on how you determine lack of success so no would be my answer. We are not frustrated. I was talking to someone recently and they said that sometimes you have to be successful outside your home country in order for people to see you as really successful. We've got a big tour coming up in October all over Europe. We’re playing 1500-capacity venues all round Europe. Our song Get On My Love has been our biggest hit outside Ireland and it really took off. The UK has always been good, we’ve had some great stints in America over the years. We are four best friends who get to tour all over the world and we’ve never had a falling out, we get to connect with thousands of people all over the world . . . if that’s not success, I don’t know what is."
What have you learned about yourselves over the past seven years of being in Picture This?
Ryan: "I think it’s important to be open and dive headfirst into things. At the beginning of Picture This I was fairly scared just of everything because I’d never experienced anything like what was happening to us with the band, I’d barely been out of the country and all of a sudden these opportunities started coming our way and you can shy away from them or meet them headfirst. I remember the first time I walked on stage and thought I can let this swallow me whole or I can grab it by the scruff of the neck and own it and be in control. That was a revelation to me and it’s seeped into the rest of my life and help me grow as a human being. I love myself now way more than I did back then. I used to be very hard on myself but now I’m got a much nicer and healthier relationship with myself and everyone else around me."
Picture This play the Gleneagle INEC Arena, Killarney on Saturday 14 December
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