The band going from Covid rehearsals to brilliance abroad

If you were to watch Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman this past year you might be forgiven for falling into the assumption that being in a band is partying and misadventures. Very little screen time is attributed to the long hours of graft in those early years, perhaps to convey the rise to stardom.

Whether you are Freddie Mercury and Queen or not, the early grind is all the same. In addition to Lypton Village, one thing that sets any band apart in Ireland or globally at the minute was having to contend with Covid-19. 

The band known as Lypton Village is made up of Kildare’s Claire Nolan (lead vocalist/songwriter), Carlos Foster (synths/keys/vocals), Aengus Samuel-Maher or ‘Goose’ (percussion/electronic drums), Lee Murphy (lead guitar), Gavin Byrne (bass guitar) and Trevor McEvoy (Drums).

In their first gig back from the pandemic, Lypton village were headed across the channel to the Pixie Lott-headlined ‘Sheb Fest’ in Devon. 

Speaking before the gig, lead vocalist Claire Nolan said, “It 100% feels like a big step, I cannot wait to get back onto a stage in front of an audience. There is something terrifying and invigorating about standing in front of people who have never heard your songs before and trying to win them over. It’s always good to play things live to see if it's working, it’s all very well to stand in a room and go ‘yeah we’re deadly’ but that might not translate. 

“There is no safety net because if we play at home or up in Dublin we have a group of people who will come to support us.”

Upon the band’s return from Sheb Fest they received acclaim for their performance from festival goers and organisers alike. An enormous boost for any band to see the fruits of their labour work out the way they had hoped after two years of what they called “the great session depression.”

In the midst of the aforementioned dark period for us all, Lypton Village had their studio time cut in the middle of recording an album. But decided to give fans a flavour of what they had been up to.

“We decided to release a single to show that we had been putting the work in, because he had been working so hard,” Claire explained.

The band’s single ‘No Offence’ was released on June 19, 2020 and to the band’s delight and surprise got them their first radio play on the popular music station, Radio Nova.

“Usually you would have certain contacts that you will email and say ‘up and coming Irish artists’ and different radio stations have DJs that are primarily focused on that,” Claire described.

“But a friend of mine Cara Boyce who’s a videographer worked for Nova at one stage and mentioned about us and our single…We got an email back the day of it playing out saying it’s going to play in 20 minutes. There was this mad dash of us all ringing each other and making sure we were all beside a radio or anywhere we could listen.”

The proud moment finally came after the band scrambled for a radio station and screamed at their laptops to load the Nova website faster to hear their song play out.

“It was uplifting, because like it was for everybody, it was a difficult time. And for musicians especially, we spent time figuring out whether we were going to be able to make it work and was it feasible,” Claire explained.

“The two years that we couldn't do anything also brought us closer, like a family. That will stand to us when we come back with our tour and release everything.”

The band themselves summed up their journey eloquently as “five years together but two years interrupted.” The band found one another through a mix of secondary school and college encounters through music until Lypton Village was born. 

“Once we put the band together we put on some amazing gigs, like we did the Grand Social, the Workman's club up in Dublin and some festivals around Ireland,” Claire recalled.

“Battle of the bay, Something in the Water, we really hit the ground running in 2019 and we were gigging nearly every week. We decided to record an album, go full steam ahead and then just everything stopped.”

The band are now happy to reflect on how things panned out as they grew together and honed their genre-fluid sound. Fans wont have too much longer to wait as the group builds towards new releases in the coming months.

Despite the hard graft and their careers essentially grinding to halt before life restarted for us all, Lypton Village like anyone in an artistic endeavour have had to endure listening to their journey be reduced to a hobby by outside voices.

“The hardest part of all of it is people going ‘awh are you still doing the music?’ or people saying how lucky we are to get to do your hobby for your job. They don’t understand what goes into it. I can't speak for every band but for us, Carlos lives in Longford, Goose lives in Offaly, Gavin is in Portlaoise so we are all dotted around the country and are all also working full-time,” Claire explained.

“We get three hours a week, in a room, to work. Carlos takes a bus and train from Longford to get here for three hours to work intensely for three hours. We might have a few days without him and we send recordings so he can work from home. There is a lot of work that goes into it because nobody is paying you for the rehearsal. Unless you're a session musician, but when you are an original band you are doing that for the passion, love and drive of it.” 

However, the solace to take from these negative meetings with people on the outside will always be to prove them wrong. There is no motivating factor quite like dealing with someone of a judgemental ilk.

“There is an urge and drive that it gives you to prove yourself. I feel immense satisfaction knowing that the show we put out will turn a few heads. I dont think it’s necessarily a bad thing to take your time to get something right, especially when it’s a passion. Instead of throwing out content aimlessly, which can be empty,” Claire said.

The band after their brilliance in Britain are now working more than ever to put the perfect touches to their next releases as they look to build on the success of their single release and festival shows.

You can find out more about upcoming dates and new releases on their social media.