Kodaline: "I still remember our first time at Electric Picnic. We rehearsed so much, then we turned up and there was no one there!"

Kodaline’s Steve Garrigan is answering a Zoom call from his parked car in the immediate aftermath of a rigorous gym session. By his own admission, he’s a little sweaty and after a well-earned shower, he’ll be off to the studio later in the afternoon, suggesting there might be something in the pipeline for fans of the platinum-selling Dubs to look forward to. “I’m always writing – if you put me on a desert island, I’d still be writing songs,” says Garrigan. “It’s been a long time since Kodaline released an album, so that’s well overdue.”

Well overdue, in Garrigan’s workaholic mind, means four years, with the band’s last full-length being 2020’s One Day At A Time – the last LP of original material before the four-piece underwent a much-needed hiatus.

“We’ve just constantly released stuff since our first album,” he says. “There’s almost 70 songs in total, which is a bit mad to think about. After lockdown, we came to an agreement that we’d take our foot off the gas and take a step back to actually live outside the bubble of the band.

“Our drummer Vinny has two kids now, and he’s very much settled down, our bassist Jason just had a kid and he’s married. It’s also given our guitar player Mark a chance to explore his own stuff creatively, which is what he’s wanted to do for years, so it’s all worked out really well.” Garrigan himself has enjoyed a significant personal milestone, proposing to his long-term partner last Christmas.

Kodaline at Musgrave Park. Copyright Trevor McGrath.

“Is it the start of a new life or the end of my life?” he ponders, laughing. “It took me a long time to actually build up the courage and ask her to marry me, luckily she said yes.”

The break from Kodaline also gave the frontman an opportunity to reflect on a successful, albeit relentless, life in music.

“It’s crazy what taking a little bit of a step away can do,” he affirms. “We’ve been very lucky to have the career that we’ve had. It hasn’t always been easy. After each album, I was already worried about the next one, so I never took stock and appreciated what was happening. I’m an anxious person by nature, but it all added to my anxiety, because I was constantly in fear that it would all be over.

“You’re only as good as your last song and the music industry is fickle, so I was putting all this pressure on myself to make sure the next album or song was good enough. Looking back, I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing, but what I do know is that we are lucky to still be able to tour and have fans around the world. The music has travelled so far.

“We did a big tour of Asia last November and it was amazing. I’d say I speak for the rest of the guys in saying that, if we went back to our teenage selves now and tried to explain all that we’ve done, they definitely wouldn’t believe it.”

Back in action on home soil, Garrigan and Co. are relishing the opportunity to step up as one of the top billed acts at Electric Picnic later this month. It’s holy ground for Kodaline, being the site where the group made their inaugural festival appearance.

“There’s something about that festival,” Steve grins. “I still remember our first time there, we played the Body and Soul stage. We were so excited and nervous about it and we rehearsed so much, then we turned up and there was no one there. We had only just released our first EP and our biggest song ‘All I Want’ was on it.

“There was a friend of an ex-girlfriend I had, sitting on the grass about 10 feet in front of me. We started playing that song and she went, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the song he wrote about such and such.’ I was cringing really hard and trying to keep my head down.”

Subsequent Picnic slots have provided Kodaline with a litany of career highlights. In 2014, they were upgraded to the main stage, where they were joined by the Dublin Gospel Choir, an experience Garrigan describes as “absolutely phenomenal.”

“We went from nobody to this huge crowd singing along,” he says. “It’s a moment that will stick in our memories forever. It was one of those turning points where I was like, ‘This is actually real.’”

Steve Garrigan from band Kodaline. Copyrtight Miguel Ruiz.

Five years later, they were accompanied by Cranberries axe-man Noel Hogan. Garrigan reveals that his band owe a lot to the Limerick legends, who provided Kodaline with an opportunity to cut their teeth early on.

“The first big tour we were brought on was with The Cranberries around France,” he explains. “We were loose enough at the start, but by the end of that tour, it was a real sink or swim moment for us, because we became a much tighter band and better musicians. In 2019, I asked Noel to join us. I remember rehearsing for that show.

“We were in a room playing ‘Zombie’, probably sounding like any pub band you’d see down the road. When Noel joined in, the hairs on my arm started standing up. That never happened to me with a guitar before. I figured out afterwards that it was because he was doing what was done on the original recording, and not many people can recreate that.

“He was doing all this weird stuff in between my singing, every little gap was full with these little hits and noises which totally caught me offguard. When we actually got on stage I was like, ‘Oh My God’. It was a wild crazy dream that came true because like everybody else, I would have played that song in my bedroom.”

Garrigan further enthuses about the track.

“There’s such a thing as a good song, and then there’s a great song,” he continues. “Then there’s timeless songs, and ‘Zombie’ has really stood the test of time. It came out in the ‘90s, but in 2019, you still had 17 and 18-year-olds on each other’s shoulders singing every word at Electric Picnic. There’s something magic about that.”

Back again 12 years on from their Picnic debut, how do Kodaline approach playing festivals, when compared to their own shows?

“With a festival, there’s always people in the crowd that might not know all of your songs,” notes Garrigan. “So I try to encourage them to sing along as much as possible by playing our well-known ones. I always feel nervous going into a festival show, it’s hard to know what’s gonna happen.

“It’s been a while since we’ve played and we haven’t released an album of new material since 2020, so there is an air of anxiety. We’ll put on the best show we can. It’s worked out in the past and we’ve had some great moments, particularly at Electric Picnic, so hopefully that continues.”

As a punter, is there anyone in particular that Garrigan will be keeping his eye on this year?

“I’ll be hanging around for the weekend, but I usually like to just wander around,” he says. “It’s often those little corners of the festival where you end up seeing someone who’s fecking epic, or someone performing and they just blow you away.”

Finally, the lineup features numerous Irish acts who are known to be quite outspoken on socio-political issues. Where does Garrigan put the responsibility of the artist when it comes to addressing the quandaries of the modern world?

“We’re not really a politically minded band to be honest,” he says. “In the past, we’ve done the odd thing at shows where we’ll make a statement or dedicate a song to something, but we do tend to take a step back – not to say that couldn’t change. I really do admire bands and artists that are politically minded and put themselves on the line like that. It’s very admirable and takes a lot of balls.”

Read our interview with Kodaline as part of this month's Electric Picnic special! Grab your copy today: