Ups and Downs, Chills and Thrills: Conor Deasy of The Thrills

When one thinks of Ireland they think of green pastures, leprechauns, four leaf and four leaf covers. When pushed into the direction of music they’ll probably mention the tin whistle or the bodhran drum… oh and of course U2. Seven years ago five guys in Dublin formed a rock band and with a lot of hard work, two years in saw them earn a national number one with their debut album So Much For The City two months later they were featured on the O.C. and that is when the international ball started rolling. Not only did it gain them attention from America but Australia. Now The Thrills have excited Australian fans by hitting our shores this month but alas they have been and gone leaving them with the desperation of hope that they will come back again.

When lead singer Conor Deasy spoke to The Dwarf he was painfully recovering from jetlag but was nice enough to answer some questions.

Have you been to Australia before?
"Yeah we've been there once, so but only once so that's still novel enough to be exciting… It was good, we had our Sydney gig last time where one of those gigs where every single thing possible went wrong, from amps blowing up to guitars out of tune so it was just kind of comical actually at how many disasters we had. But the crowd were really good but it was kind of an odd little tour with different festivals and Tasmania and it was unusual with random venues but it was good fun"

The first two albums (released in 2003 and then 2004) faired well in the UK charts but after a three-year wait for the third album they were dropped by their major label EMI for their lack of success with Teenager. So with setbacks like that what keeps you doing what you do?
“I think a lot of it is the idea of making a great record. I guess you know you have those records that make you feel a certain way and that you love and that's what you want to make someday and I think that's what drives me really… the only problem is the band doesn't make money off CD sales really and you have to adapt to that issue”

The last album took longer to release than the first two but it should be said that it is not easy to write a song. What is your songwriting process like?
“Well usually I sit down with an acoustic guitar or I sit and play the piano and just sit down and start off with some chords and try to find a melody and it doesn’t matter how random from that initial phase there is usually a handful of lyrics that you throw with the song (melody) to tie the song together half of them will always end up staying in there even though at the time they feel random and chucked together ad usually I’ll work on the song quite a lot and then I’ll start working with the band and sometimes they come together quickly and other times it will become a huge ordeal to get it right. You never really know”

So after the Australian visit what can we expect from The Thrills?
"I'm not sure really, we haven't been all together in the same room for about six months now because we haven't really been touring and we just kind of took a time out. So this tour would be good to start and hang out and talk and work out what we want to do next. I don't really know what the future holds for us. We'll see.”

I guess this band is going to keep us in suspense and surprise us when the time comes. Let’s just hope it is something we can be thrilled about.

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