Bell X1 revisiting both The Marquee and their own songs!

“One of the best ways to kick the hornet’s nest creatively is to approach the same thing in a different way, and that hopefully inspires some momentum to do something new.”

David Geraghty, one-third of Bell X1 is straight talking when he lays out the modus operandi of the band in recent years.

The band are all multi-instrumentalists, with David playing guitars, drums, banjo, harmonica, and piano as well as singing, ahead of their gig at Live At The Marquee, he and the rest of the band are considering how they will be performing songs from their new album Merciful Hour, released last week, alongside with songs from their previous seven albums.

Having released a collaborative live album last November with Dowry Strings (recorded in and named Live At St Luke’s), Bell X1 credit their creative connection with Dowry Strings’ founder Éna Brennan for opening a whole new chapter for the band. Paul, who plays guitar, drums, and piano and also covers lead vocals, explained the connection,

“We were playing at a charity gig and got chatting to Éna, we asked if her she might fancy arranging one or two songs we were kicking about. Cut to a year later, and we were on a full national tour with a string quartet!”

That process of collaboration with violins, viola, and cellos clearly had a substantial impact on Bell X1, as Paul continued: “Working with her and strings definitely informed this new album. With the old songs we were sort of retrofitting strings into the catalogue, but some of the songs on this one we actually started with strings.

“It certainly gave us a richer palette and we could lean into that sort of melodic melodrama that kind of music gives you.”

Paul sees a connection between the musical possibilities of the instrumentations and the content of the songs they wrote for the album. “There’s traces of folklore and characters that feature in the songs,” he says.

“For instance, on the first single from the album, ‘Haint Blue’, it has themes about a voodoo tradition from parts of the Southern States in the US. A ghost or ‘haint’ couldn’t enter your house if you painted your porch blue, we took those kinds of ideas and played with the drama strings bring.”

The link between revisiting their whole catalogue and then making a new album is something Dave also focussed on. “Redressing the old material as an octet helped us revisit all the music and found new layers. Paul’s always been great at saying: ‘Let’s go over here and do this’, so it was great to delve into that.”

However, the concert at Live At The Marquee will not be featuring Éna or the rest of the strings quartet, Paul clarified,

“The Cork gig will be a rock ’n’ roll gig, we won’t have the strings with us at this one,” he says. “We will be ‘unstringifying’ the new album and then we’ll be doing the old songs through the prism of the new songs. We will be looking at the catalogue through that prism, and we are really excited about that.”

This being their eighth full album, Bell X1 know the balancing act required using their experience of the industry and all that comes with releasing something to sell, but also keeping it creatively pure. “We don’t sit down at the start of making a record and decide ‘this is our strategy’ or anything like that,” says Paul. “We actually learn a lot talking about it afterwards and verbalising what we felt in the ether or left unsaid. One of the things we’ve been coming back to recently is talking about how the art needs to be front and centre. You can get lost in the minutiae of how things are put together — you might like the sausage, but you don’t want to see how it’s made. Given all we’ve learned ‘going down the mines’, we try to tap back to the purity of the energy when we first started, even in our dotage it’s such an important place to go to, and not be talking about the machinations and the industry.”

Bell X1 released their first album 20 years ago, and before becoming this band they had been in a band with Damien Rice called Juniper, so all three members are very much aware of how creating music without distraction can be tricky.

When reflecting on their very earliest days as musicians, Dominic remarked: “The hardest thing for a band is to pick a good name and we had to pick a band name twice! The thing is when you start off, there’s the first artwork, the first logo, the first song you cover, the first song you write, the first everything you do defines everything you do. After eight albums, these are just ‘another thing’, so we are less precious and there’s less pressure, in that sense. There isn’t one thing that makes the band or concert.”

Dave also reminisced about the early days and how tapping into that now is crucial. “It’s such an ignorant bliss, that sheer energy, every dream you can conjure is in the air in your first band sessions — there’s nothing to muddy it, no frustrations or let-downs,” he says. “I remember playing drums or guitar to whatever song was a hit at the time, the absolute joy of it — the world is your oyster and everything is possible.”

Speaking of days of youth, it turns out Dominic has a long connection to Cork.

“I used to live in Youghal as a kid, so I get very excited when I come down. I drive down on my own and almost slow down the car to make it last longer. When I came down yesterday, I found myself really feeling that happiness of being here and then realised I hadn’t even spoken to anyone yet! This was before I even heard the accent, the lilt, the sense of humour and all that.

“I was thinking this is deadly, I’ve always had that connection, so the Cork dates really are my favourite gig on Irish tours. I’m just waiting for the point I can move back!”

Bell X1 and special guests Soda Blonde play Live At The Marquee on Saturday, June 10.