Cut to Measure

“I love that story about Lennon turning around to George Martin and saying ‘I want this to sound like an orange,’” says Ken O’Duffy, singer and principal songwriter with Dublin beat combo Saville. “I kind of know exactly what he means, but seriously, how do you translate that? I love those stories, because the reality is we don’t get many moments like that when we record though. Our other albums were recorded in a garage. The first one was recorded with a Tascam eight track. It was very, very basic. For the second we brought equipment in. This was the first one we recorded in a studio – the Bunker in Tallaght. We’re self-financed so there’s no fecking around when we record. I laugh when I read about Radiohead saying things like, ‘by the third studio and third producer we really had the sound we wanted’. Well, by the third take we have the sound we use whether it’s what we wanted or not. There aren’t many ‘we want it to sound like an orange’ moments with Saville, we’re usually just working hard to get it done.”

Ken laughs. Despite a musical career based on the DIY model of scrimping, saving and juggling dayjobs, Ken and co generally sound like they wouldn’t have done things any other way. Well, maybe one other way – with a lot more money. “If somebody had come along with a big cheque we’d have jumped at the opportunity,” says Ken. “You’d be mad not to. I’d still love the idea of being able to do what Nick Cave does – go to an office from nine to five to write. He can do that. And much as I think the playing on the album is great I sometimes feel a little sorry for the lads that they have to get it in the old three takes. I’d love to be able to make an album without the time restrictions.”  
He’s also cynical about some of the romantic truisms about independence and creative freedom in the age of the internet. “There’s definitely something massively different happening online,” he says. “But when people go on about the internet in some ways making music more democratic, I’m not so sure. In theory possibly, but not in reality. When Kings of Leon play in town they have a poster in every billboard and are played on every radio show... why would they need that if the internet had levelled the playing field? The other idea I’m not sure of is this notion that being independent gives you some sort of abstract creative freedom. Okay, we get to choose the kind of music we want to make and nobody can tell us what to do. Well that’s true to an extent, but we had this ready three years ago but couldn’t release it due to lack of money. We had to play a lot of weddings and covers gigs to get the money together for the album. This abstract idea of being able to make whatever we want is a little overshadowed by the enormous cost of financing things by ourselves.”
At around this point his bandmates, his brother Vin and guitarist Tosh Flood, join us and they start telling me about the group's origins.
“Well, I’ve known Tosh since we were 13 and we’ve been best friends ever since,” says Vin. “And Tosh was friends with our drummer.”
“I was a bit older and looked after the guys a bit,” says Ken.
“He had a Rickenbacker under the bed and I didn’t have a guitar so I’d sneak in and have a go of that,” recalls Tosh. “Back then I thought I was going to be a footballer but then I figured this was a better idea.”
“And the first gig I ever went to was Ken playing in McGonagles,” says Vin nostalgically.
And this brings me on “neatly” to the new Saville album which, curiously enough, is titled Nostalgia. “The theme wasn’t a conscious thing initially,” says Ken. “Certainly it wasn’t a concept album. But quickly one of the working titles for the album became ‘the garden of remembrance’ because for some reason so many of the songs referred to the past in one way or another. So the first track is basically someone nostalgic for the old certainty and ideologies. The line in the chorus is “when left was right and right was wrong”. It’s about back in the times where everyone knew where they stood politically. It’s hard to do a political song without sounding crass but dressing it up in nostalgia means you can get away with it more, I suppose. The second song then is about nostalgia itself. I tend to personally leave the past behind so that’s a bit of a contradiction. And the theme’s there right through the album.”
And when they do look back are they happy with what they’ve achieved? “I think the idea from the beginning was just to write and record very good songs,” says Ken. “We never saw ourselves as part of a scene, not in Dublin anyway. If anything we saw ourselves in a wider scheme of things, in the lineage of bands like The Beatles and The Kinks and The Small Faces; bands with a legacy of really good, solid song-writing. That’s always been our thing regardless of what’s been going on around us. We’ve never really felt part of what’s been going on around us.”
Yet, three albums on, and 10 years later, Saville are still there, doing it all themselves.  
“And we never had a manager either,” says Vin, slightly amazed.
“Well we’ve had a couple, but it’s like Spinal Tap - they keep blowing up,” says Tosh.
“When we started we knew it might have to be part-time and that was the idea and we stuck to that,” says Ken.  There were some people interested in us before that first album came up, and maybe if someone had come up to us then we’d have gone for it. But I hate when people say ‘it’s a hobby’ because it’s not – we take this really seriously. Every day I sit down and play guitar. It’s something I love doing and just because I don’t do it full-time doesn’t mean it’s not a serious passion and vocation.”  
But do you ever fight or come close to breaking up, what all the pressure from the gigging and the recording, the geographical separation (they’re scattered from Carlow to Drogheda these days) and the day-jobs. “Nah, we always have fun times, which remind us why we’re doing it,” says Vin. “A few years ago we played a festival in Spain. It was the best fun we ever had. I remember it really rejuvenated us. We were playing a flamenco festival. I think we were the only non flamenco band there and we still rocked the shop every night. We loved that. We sold nearly every copy of our first EP over there.”
“So we’re big in Spain,” says Tosh dryly, before adding, “Which is great. I’d rather be big in Spain than big nowhere.”