At a gaudily laid-out table in a nondescript eatery in Cork sit Director and hotpress . It’s not just the day-glo table cloth that catches the eye, but the incongruous sight of balloons peaking out from behind menus, and coloured streamers weaving between glass tumblers. It’s someone’s birthday. Or at least it appears to be. Bassist Rowan and erstwhile band spokesman decides to blow the lid on the whole operation.
“So who’s celebrating tonight?”
He smiles wryly.
“Wasn’t it my birthday the last time, so it can’t be me again.”
The ruse is up. In a flagrant breach of restaurant etiquette, the band regularly dine under the impression that one of the party has just turned a year older. It’s for the free cake, you see. And possibly the giggles. Welcome to the height of on-tour mania with Director.
Flash-forward to their show in Cyprus Avenue that evening. Another sold out house, another ecstatic crowd reaction, another accomplished performance, probably fuelled by that essential free pre-gig sugar rush. Whereas once Director appeared almost a little too callow for the stage, they’re now beginning to look, feel, and sound a lot more comfortable. They’ve lost some of their inhibitions, and have learned to flaunt what was hitherto kept in reserve. Tonight, in a city they always enjoy playing, they do well, and they take that momentum into the following night’s sold out show in Sligo.
Cut to the round table discourse, where appetites are being sated and frontman Michael acknowledges that the band’s gigs have improved markedly since their early days.
“We had some poor shows right at the start, but I guess all bands have those,” he admits. “We’ve had a steady rise the more we’ve been playing. We’ve always been taking it seriously.”
One always got the impression that Director were a band who preferred to be holed up in their practice space rather than gigging for a living. Rowan gives his two cents.
“We didn’t gig for the sake of gigging, that’s for sure,” he says. “We were all still in college so we didn’t have the time anyway. We were trying to rehearse more, and that was more important to us. We didn’t want to be a band with a good live show, but with no songs to back it up.”
The initially taciturn guitarist Eoin beings to open up.
“Our show is longer too. We’re striking a balance between not playing too long, or too short. I think the gigs we’re doing now are probably our best ever.”
Which segues nicely into the band’s sepia-toned nostalgia trip. It’s not quite back into the dark ages, but the band collectively talks about their last gig in the Ambassador in front of their home town audience with a misty eyed reverie. It was their biggest headline show, and, as the cliché goes, there was a lot of love in that room. Rowan elaborates.
“We’d played there before and we were slightly tentative about performing in front of a crowd just there for us,” he says.
“We had our shit together this time,” adds drummer Shea, chirpily. “It just felt really good and the audience were really into it.”
If that show marked the apogee of their live success, then they haven’t let it go to their heads. There’s a distinctly businesslike aura about the Director operation. They eschew wild after shows parties for bailing back to Dublin for a night’s kip, their stints supporting both the Razorlight and the Goo Goo Dolls return a paucity of anecdotes, and gradually the line between dour and determined becomes more and more blurred. Their cherubic features mask either a blithe innocence, or a complete disinterest in the sex, drugs and booze part of the rock and roll. Rowan simply views it as matter of pragmatics for life in an aspiring band.
“We can’t afford to be going crazy,” he says. “We’d love to throw some televisions out of hotel rooms, if we had the money.”
Whatever about their sombre attitude to partying, the band can point to the rewards this steely discipline has brought, namely 30,000 sales of their debut album We Thrive On Big Cities and a Choice Music Award nomination. There is certainly an affable atmosphere about the band, with little of the histrionics one might expect from apprentice rock stars. Their avuncular sound man Joey keeps them in check. Perhaps with so much talent gone to waste through over-indulgence, Director’s neo-puritanical attitude should be commended. Shea makes no excuses for the band’s self-control.
“We’re probably the least ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ band on tour, whatever that means,” he says. “I think a lot of bands try to put out that myth about themselves, but the majority we’ve met are pretty low-key too. We prefer to wait until the end of a tour to let the hair down. We’d be dead in a week if we did otherwise.”
The main source of on tour antics appears to be Shea himself, whose natural boisterousness has seen him collect a slapstick showreel of out-takes, from setting off the fire alarm during a headline band’s performance, to mistakenly calling for help from a disabled bathroom umpteen times and causing panic. His own most cherished memory on tour is witnessing the band’s first stage dive amidst a pickled crowd of punters at UL rag week. He reckons it was a seminal moment in the evolution of Director.
“It was pretty much my grunge dreams come true, to see a guy stage dive to the music of my band,” he says. “I checked that off the list of things to have done.”
They’ll undoubtedly witness many such sights before long. A summer of festival appearances, both big a little, is a particularly nice fillip. The thought of being marooned on the main stage at Oxegen leaves them a little cold, but the day has its perks.
“It’s strange playing on such a large stage, but it’s great to hang out with the bands,” offers Michael. “And get in for free.”
The warbling Amy Winehouse soundtrack cuts out over the PA only to be replaced with a synth-pop Happy Birthday. Eoin, it turns out, is the lucky recipient of our heartfelt serenade and the complimentary slice of cake. It’s devoured collectively and quickly. The talk is if this cake con works in the next stop on tour in Sligo, of how no-one except Rowan likes football, and what the tour bus really lacks is wireless broadband. They leave for the gig; full bellies, and a prospective full house.
“So who’s birthday is it tomorrow then?”
Fade to black.