Music
Ticketmaster meets Kodaline: “We’re evolving ourselves”
Hot on the heels of Kodaline’s stunning V Festival debut, I was lucky enough to catch up with Vinny (dummer) and Jay (bass) back stage about their new album, funniest moments on tour and elephants…
How was your V Festival set for you?
Jay: We had a few technical issues at the start as we’ve had about 12 days off with the crew doing family things and our equipment got knocked around on flight back to America. When we opened the box, we were like ‘oh things are a bit shaky.’ But it’s out first time at V Festival and the sun came out when we started, so it was great! Everyone’s freer after results so the crowd were just having fun, fun, fun. This is us finished for the festival season now.
Who is your dream festival headliner?
Jay: Dream headliner? Daft Punk – they have to headline, it’s been too long.
Vinny: Everyone thought this year at Glastonbury it would be Fleetwood Mac or Prince. Maybe next year…
Jay: We never hear about the secret shows, we’re not cool enough.
What can your fans expect from a Kodaline gig?
Vinny: Our next tour is in The States in October and we’ll be road-testing some of our new songs off our new album.
Jay: By the time we get back to Europe we’ll be playing album number two so we don’t know what to expect ourselves!
Can you give us a sneak-peak of the new album?
Vinny: Next week we’ll be in the studio for five weeks recording and we’re really excited about our new album.
Jay: A lot of our first album was us playing but at different times. We’re a very studio-based band, but this time, it will be a bit more of us playing on it together at the same time. Whether anyone will hear the difference, we’re not sure (laughs).
Vinny: It’s an evolution, a progression; we’ve grown up and we’ve experienced a lot in past two years touring this album so our next album will be taking on those influencers and us personally growing up. We’ve had a lot of experiences on the road so we’re evolving ourselves.
Jay: For two years we’ve been on the go, since In a Perfect World came out we haven’t stopped and been a band in a rehearsal room. We kind of miss it – that’s what the fun part is. So for the next five weeks we get to go back, be a band and figure out what we’re saying.
What’s the best crowd you’ve ever played in front of?
Jay: Best crowd? Where are we? (laughter).
Vinny: We have been very fortunate in that we have got to travel a lot to places we’d never been and played in front of some amazing crowds. European mainland crowds are fantastic and playing in Ireland is always special as it’s home turf. Crowds in the UK are excited and pumped-up. The only major difference in crowds is in the States – some of them are quite subdued.
Jay: You can’t ever judge what’s going to happen that night. The States is so big, every state is a new country, so you never know what to expect – but in the most part it’s been really positive.
Vinny: October is our biggest US tour yet; a proper big band tour with our whole crew. We’ll be like one big family on the bus and we’re excited.
What’s the funniest thing that’s happened on tour?
Vinny: I got left behind in the States… don’t ask. Surely make sure there is the four people in the band there?! We left Steve (lead singer) behind recently… We played a show with Kings of Leon in Dublin and flew to Switzerland the next day. We got a really early flight so everyone went straight to bed as soon as we got on the tour bus. We were on the road and our tour manager got a call from Steve… We’d left him behind at the airport and had to turn around! How can you not make sure the singer is on board!?
Are you seeing JT later?
Vinny: We want to see JT later – he has a closed stage of just friends and family but we keep asking to see if we can get on it. We just saw the back of his head earlier. Lots of bands have a closed stage as otherwise it gets too crowded, but we have an open stage.
Jay: There’s a spot open in the band for a tambourine player (I suggested I fill it).
Any new music that you’d recommend?
Jay: I’m discovering stuff that’s new to me at the moment, rather than new music. Peter Broderick does some great ambient stuff and I love his remix of ‘It’s Alright’ by Nils Frahmn. It’s just amazing.
Vinny: I think Band of Skulls is amazing. It’s going to be surprising but we’re big fans of Skrillex – we were on the stage watching him at Reading and Leeds – it was amazing watching the crowd react to him.
Jay: I wish we could do the space journey – we’ll have an elephant on stage eventually….
Vinny: We’re taking to our LED person to do something mad, so we’ll have to see what happens on the next tour….
And I for one, can’t wait.
