The Lovely Good - 20/03/23
On the 27th of February, Top Floor Music welcomed Dublin-based six-piece folk rock band, The Lovely Good. Throughout the intimate set, the talents of each individual and the collective shone. From one song to the next, The Lovely Good traded vocalists and, sometimes, instruments. The emotive power of their songs, however, was consistent––contemplative moments were matched with cathartic swells of sound. The strings, woodwind, and brass––in addition to guitar, bass, and drums––employed by The Lovely Good bring an earnestness and vigour to the band’s sound, bringing together disparate sonic influences to form something strikingly new.
Following the performance, our very own Amelia caught up with the band. She asked them about their songwriting processes and influences and how the band came to be!
Amelia Durac:
First of all, thank you so much. This is the first ever band that we have had for Top Floor, so [it’s] very exciting. Now we know we can pull it off, kind of, maybe!
So, the first question that I have was I was just curious about how the band formed. Did you all know each other before, was it something you always wanted to do—or did it just kind of happen spontaneously?
Naoise May:
There was nothing spontaneous about it actually.
Emma Langan:
I don’t know, I think I play a very boring instrument and so I wanted to get people who played more fun instruments. And I had this idea of just putting together all of the musicians that I know in my life and just making something. So the original thing was going to be like fifteen people. It was going to be ridiculous.
Oscar Robinson:
Yeah, I remember receiving a text from you being like, do you want to form a SUPERBAND? [Laughs] Supergroup—I remember the word supergroup!
EL:
But then the six of us just started playing together and eventually created something really nice. We had a jam one time in the jazz cave and it was really beautiful and nice. So then, I think from there it has just begun.
NM:
Sparks flew. [Laughs]
AD:
It all just came together.
So, the next question, which I’m sure you might have been expecting, is how you came up with the name or change in name?
Sam Armstrong:
I have a prepared answer for this one. [Laughs] Not really, but I thought you’d be like, “Why did you change your name?”
OR:
Take it way back, surely the story of the first name.
SA:
The first name, well our true fans know us as BILB.
*** cheers from audience ***
But we’re probably never going to refer to ourselves as that ever again, so enjoy it while you’re here. Ahhh—it’s such a stupid story. We were in blues class—a lot of us study music—and we were in a class called Blues and then I wrote on a page, on a tablet, ‘Boy I Love Blues,” and then ‘B’ ‘I’ ‘L’ ‘B’ and a funny little man as well. It was a tortoise. But it was not funny at the time at all. And then when we left that class, and because of the idea of being in a band we were like ‘Oh what was a recent joke?’
EL:
BILBBBB
OR:
Can I add, it was even less funny not having been there, Haha.
SA:
It’s not funny now! And then we got ‘International Love Brigade’ from that, and it just haunted us, haunted us! [Laughs]
OR:
I proposed that the ‘B’ should stand for BILB and then it just keeps sucking in.
SA:
Ah no, I’m not going to give the real reason…
AD:
It’s a secret, it’s a secret!
SA:
It’s the type of thing that once you’re really big and successful…
NM:
Check Wikipedia in fifty years. *winks at camera*
AD:
Ok, no bother. Moving swiftly on then. Haha. Not that I, like, wanted to know or anything!
Next question is in regard to your song writing process, because there are so many of you. I was just kind of curious. Do you each write your own respective songs and then bring them to the group and arrange them together or is it more collaborative?
NM:
That’s mostly been how it’s worked. How it’s gone, because like say all six of us are song writers in isolation.
OR:
Lonely song writers.
NM:
Candle light with quill [laughs]. But last summer we, minus Oscar, spent a week down on Valentia Island doing a big songwriting retreat. Which was really nice. So a lot of our material, maybe half of the stuff we play now, comes from that and that was all little nuggets of ideas that we had and then brought them together into bigger songs. Which is my personal favourite way of songwriting—to not have a full idea at all, and then bring it to other people so then it becomes something which would never really have happened.
OR:
Yeah actually, for an example of that—and we didn't play it tonight—there is a song called “Waves,” which I brought to the residence shed and was like, ‘This is a work in progress.” I think Naoise said, ‘Nah, no that’s finished.” And it was something that had been frustrating me for so long. I think it had been in the works for over a year I’d say, and I just couldn’t figure it out. I hated a verse, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix this bit and then I realised in rehearsal that that song was already finished. It takes bringing it to the band to play it through to realise that actually sounds like the song.
NM:
It’s good to have somebody else in the room to see through your nonsense.
OR:
Meaning is always decorated in nonsense. [Laughs]
AD:
In regard to this, you write songs together but you do swap instruments about—I know you didn’t do too much now because it’s obviously a bit difficult. I was wondering—how [do] you allocate who plays what and when?
OR:
It’s just what works.
EL:
Oftentimes it comes from I think it ties into our songwriting process. Because we all sort of play multiple instruments when we bring something to the group, Molly might say ‘ohhh I’ve this chord progression’ and it makes sense then to switch. I think it’s quite nice because it means that we all individually bring something. It gives someone else a chance to do something on a different instrument that other person who plays that instrument wouldn’t necessarily have thought of.
AD:
This is my last question.
Molly Guy Lambton:
Noooo!
OR:
Encore!
AD:
I was just wondering about your musical inspirations—do you have any influences?
ML:
Each other! [laughs]
AD:
And also if there are any artists that you are listening to who are local to Dublin or Ireland?
OR:
Amelia your writing is ridiculously gorgeous, it’s like calligraphy.
AD:
[Laughs] You can pass this [notebook] around!
OR:
Sorry what was the question? [Laughs] It’s actually stupidly nice!
NM:
We definitely share a lot of influences, but also we meet in the middle in this sort of venn diagram. Like, you know, our lineup immediately screams like Black Country, New Road.
*** Bursts of laughter from audience ***
OR:
That was also included in that first text that I got from Emma, as an example of a band: ‘Like Black Country, New Road??’
EL:
Keep in mind they were still together when I did that so I was like blatantly trying to, you know, fill that industry hole.
AD:
There is a gap in the market now!
EL:
Yeah, exactly.
AD:
So it would just be them or? [Laughs] Not putting pressure on you now.
NM:
There’s a band that Sam introduced me to which has influenced a lot of my kind of taste now. They’re called Caroline, which Sam discovered in a really cool way.
SA:
I went to see The Microphones, who are one of my favourite bands, in London and supporting them was this band Caroline [which] I’d never heard of. They’re just insane, I’m completely inspired by them. And they’re not that big, but I’d recommend checking them out. They’re like a seven piece or nine piece and they all trade instruments, or even borrow drum bits. They have lots of songs where they only play maybe two chords, but it’s all about the space around them more so. Or they will play a progression of three chords for minutes on end and it’s completely beautiful for some reason. I don't know!
AD:
Well, thanks so much you guys.
OR:
Thank you Amelia!