Interview with The Moceans

  

Last Tuesday, I ventured out to Swords to meet up with Indie Rock band, The Moceans. We sat in Cafe Libro while I hosted the band’s very first interview. In true fashion, Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan began to make jokes to lighten the mood. While they may have been kidding around a bit, from the sounds of their EP, Warmth of the Shade, they’re very serious about they’re work.

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Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan

Me: First thing’s first: who are The Moceans?

Eoin: I’m Eoin, one half of The Moceans, some would say the better half, others would say the better half.

Rob: I’m Rob, lead singer of The Moceans. I’m actually learning guitar at the moment, so hopefully I’ll be able to touch up on that and add something more to the band, but for the moment I’m just the singer. I can talk a bit better than Eoin.

Me: *laughing* But he does everything else.

Rob: Well, we work well as a team, I think Paul, you know, when it comes to song writing and everything.

Eoin: Eoin’s the lead guitarist and singer in The Moceans, lead song writer as well. Next question.

Me: Eoin’s talking about himself in the third person here! *laughs* What brought you together as a band?

Rob: First day of college, I knew his face, ‘cause Eoin was in my primary school. I did know him before. Not as friends, more as enemies – the different classes, and the stupid childish rivalries between classes. I was in a different secondary school. And it was just, “You’re Eoin, aren’t you?”, “Yep”, “I’m Rob.” And the rest is history.

Me: What was the first time playing on stage together like? And where was it?

Rob: Well it wasn’t on stage, it was in the oratory in college. We were asked to organise a prayer service, and I obviously couldn’t play guitar, I was singing.

Me: Well, first time on stage.

Eoin: Eh, Pint Pub on Eden Quay. It was open about a week. We thought it was going to be the biggest gig ever, and about five people from the college football team showed up, and my girlfriend and a friend of Rob’s that’s a girl. That was it.

Me: Do you ever argue about the songs you play?

Eoin: Yeah, all the time.

Rob: *joking* Eoin comes up with the real kind of poppy songs, like Busted and the likes, and I’m more Oasis.

Eoin: What?!

Rob:  You kind of have to draw a line. Year Three Thousand was one that we did, but that’s it.

Eoin: This is quickly becoming one of the most inaccurate interviews of all time.

Me: Who are your biggest influences in terms of what you play? And who do you compare yourselves to most?

Eoin: Well, I’d be very well influenced by Oasis and the Verve

Rob: *whispers* Busted.

Eoin: And, eh, Busted...

Rob: My favourite band growing up was Red Hot Chilli Peppers, so I was very into them and I’ve kind of moved on to Oasis and a little bit back. My dad was a great fan of Queen, so I started listening to them, and like that, real 70s-80s rather than the 90s.

Me: So it was older music rather than the modern stuff.

Eoin: Queen and Bon Jovi would be big influences of mine as well, yeah.

Rob: Yeah, Oasis, Queen, Bon Jovi – they’d be the three big ones.

Me: In terms of what you play, who would you compare yourselves to?

Rob: I think the songs are different in ways; The Cycle is very Oasis-y, you know a laid back kind of song, Only You Know has a bit of a Verve sound to it.

Eoin: Yeah, we’ve been compared to Brit Pop sounding. No one in particular.

Me: According to each other, what are your best and worst traits when it comes to The Moceans.

Rob: *joking* Mood swings, they’re the worst.

Me: So Eoin has mood swings.

Rob: Yeah. I suppose his best qualities would be his ability on guitar, ability with the aul voice and he’s a genuinely nice guy. Can’t fault him really. Just the mood swings. It happens.  And I’d be like, “We’re playing this song” and it doesn’t go down too well. Just little disagreements.

Eoin: *joking* Eh... Rob’s worst aspect would have to be mood swings.

Me: So you’re both quite moody.

Eoin: We’d be quite moody, quite hormonal. Quite manstrual. Ah no, he’s a great singer, I suppose. It has to be said. His song writing’s come up tenfold since my tutoring, coming along good. I’m proud of him in a lot of ways like that, you know? And his guitar’s getting better!

Me: That’s good to hear! So, it’s still early days for The Moceans – your EP has just been recorded. What would your ideal gig be like?

Rob: Hundreds of people.

Eoin: Thousands.

Rob: Billions of people! *laughing* But seriously, you have to start small, work hard – we’re all about hard work. We knew it wouldn’t just be a matter of recording a CD and that’s it. We’re putting together packets at the moment to send to record labels. We’ve to get professional photos done, we’ve a few interviews with papers this week and we’ve to record a professional video for one of the songs, Only You Know.

Eoin: Just on that gig one: it doesn’t matter whether it’s The Ambassador or Slane or Croke Park, just to have a group of people knowing the words and singing it back would be great, a dream come true.

Me: If you could play with any other artist, who would it be and why? We’ll assume they’re still playing.

Rob: It’s a pity Oasis aren’t still playing...

Eoin: Bono? Maybe Shakira. I think that might work well. I think we’d work well musically.

Rob: Well, Oasis broke up, Queen... Freddie Mercury is dead.

Me: Yeah, that’s definitely a downside!

Rob: A modern day band... I mean, we went to see The Script. Maybe the Script. That might work. For me that’d be good.

Eoin: I wouldn’t want to play with bands, I don’t think that’d work. But when it comes to idols, Brian May from Queen – he’s still playing. I’d play with him.

Me: Where do you see yourselves in five years time?

Rob: The big time. Eh, we’ll be teachers hopefully, both of us.

Me: Eoin doesn’t look like he agrees!

Eoin: No, I see ourselves sitting in Hughes and Hughes, five years down the line. Perhaps, they’ll open up maybe in somewhere like South America, sitting opposite Paul Carroll, we’ve all come so far, we’ve a tour and you come over, guest interview. It’d be savage.

Me: What about more short-term plans? You’ve just done your EP; when will it be released and how can people get their hands on it?

Eoin: Well, at the moment, the short term – the very short term – with the EP is, it’s basically just through gigs and through our Facebook and Myspace if people mail us with interest we can arrange more informally how to send it out to them, or meet up. We’re looking to set up a PayPal account, we’ll be able to post out CDs, and in the next few weeks hopefully sort out the iTunes situation.

Rob: Which may be the best solution.

Eoin: But for the time being, come along to a gig.

Me: Which actually leads me on to my next question, will you be playing during the summer?

Rob: Yes, we play local on Monday night at Gibney’s, it’s acoustic sessions, Friday in Oscar Taylor’s, that’s also an acoustic session.

Me: They’re both in Malahide, are they?

Rob: Yeah. We have one on the 25^th of June in the Pint Pub on Eden Quay, and there’s a couple of other bands playing. Slow Motion Getaway are playing that one as well, I think. That should be a good one. Beyond that, we’ll be sending the EP - obviously to the labels -and to hotels and pubs to try get some gigs.

Eoin:  I mean, the main plan is to have an official EP launch, but we’re trying to spend the next month building up a fan base to make sure there’s people actually at the EP launch, try make it as successful as possible. We haven’t been gigging much because of college exams, so we’re going to get the ball rolling again.

Me: Cool. What makes you different from other bands?

Eoin: *joking* Talent.

Rob: I’d say, in terms of our sound...

Eoin: Honesty would be key. There’s a lot of honesty in them.

Rob: I think people could relate to our songs.

Eoin: In a lot of ways there’s stripped back. We’re not too concerned with gimmicks, with lyrics or with the music itself.

Me: And for new listeners, hopefully there’ll be some, what one of your songs would you recommend to give people an idea of what you sound like?

Rob: Only You Know.

Eoin: Yeah, there’s a video for that on YouTube. There’ll be a proper video for that as well, soon, and it’s the number one track on the EP as well. And it’s on Myspace and Facebook. It’s our first single. It’s our “Hello” from The Moceans to the world. “Hello, how are you?” actually!

Me: Do you have any more remarks? Anything else you’d like to add?

Eoin: On a serious note, we actually do have self-belief, and we’re just trying to get people to actually listen to the music, because we believe if people listen to it they will like it. It’s just that initial stage of getting it into people’s hands. So hopefully that’ll go well.

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The Moceans can be found at the following sites. Be sure to Subscribe, Follow, Like and Friend them!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMoceans

Twitter: http://twitter.com/themoceans

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/themoceans

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/themoceans1

Thanks again to the lads for taking the time out for the interview. Keep an eye on this spot for a review of The Moceans’ first EP, Warmth of the Shade.