Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Rory Friers of And So I Watch You From Afar has released his EP, Home. We asked him the BIG questions . . .
Rory is best known for his film scores and his work as a songwriter and guitarist in the experimental Irish rock band ASIWYFA.
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Home is described as "a two-part work exploring the fragile beauty of everyday life and the architecture of belonging, memory, and care".
Each piece begins with lived experience. Using handheld recordings, conversations, soundscapes which become the foundations for orchestral and ambient compositions.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I grew up on the rural north coast close to a little town called Portrush, legendary for its great surf. Because of the draw of surfing to the town, its population was very different to much of the North of Ireland in the late 90s/early 00s. Skateboarding, punk, baggy clothes. It was thanks to this little subculture I was able to discover a lot of the formative loves in my life.
I was part of a collective that put on hip-hop and break beat nights in Portrush. While at art college I was offered to play in Belfast at a really legendary venue, home to heroes like David Holmes. I wasn't sure exactly what to play so to be safe I brought my entire record collection in the boot of my Ford Orion. Once in the big city, I parked up in a back street near the venue and went for a pizza. I came back to an empty parking space with a small pile of smashed glass where the car had been parked. And so began my career as a guitarist!
After a big headline show with my band in New York there was an after party put on in a nearby bar. Caught up in the craic I told my band mates and crew to go on without me while I imagined myself whistling down a yellow cab and having a deep chat with the driver as they whisked me back to my hotel through the city lights. As it happened, the venue shut about 20 minutes after they left and everyone who was there dispersed. My phone was dead, I had no money or bank cards and the only thing I remembered about where I was staying was it was in Brooklyn. I reluctantly picked a cosy looking shopfront step, pulled my hood up and thought about Home Alone 2.
How would you describe your music?
Usually in that blurry zone between a proper song and something else. Always looking for something, occasionally finding it.
Who are your musical inspirations?
A lot of trad and prog rock courtesy of my parents. Then when I started discovering my own music it was a lots of 90s angular guitars with the odd detour to the eclectica of the day via labels like Ninja Tune. The formative stuff that still makes its way into the sort of music I like to write are things like early Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, At The Drive In, Fugazi.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
Michael Jackson, Lansdowne Road, July 1992.
What was the first record you ever bought?
The first record(s) I bought with my own money was three tape cassettes for a tenner in a little record store in Scotland on holiday with my family. I bought Nirvana's Bleach, Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday and Led Zeppelin II.
What’s your favourite song right now?
I can’t stop listening to Open Your Eyes by Bobby Caldwell just now.
Favourite lyric of all time?
"If you're after getting the honey, hey, Then you don't go killing all the bees" - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
What Does Your Soul Look Like Pt. 1/Blue Sky Revisit - DJ Shadow.
Where can people find your music/more information?
My website.
Alan Corr
