Wander into a performance by Delaware and, once you’ve managed to visually untangle the mass of hair, limbs and mic stands cluttered together on-stage, chances are you’ll want to join their gang.
Some bands do cool, others do noise. With their up-beat melodies, feel-good choruses, and air of camaraderie, it's a safe bet that Delaware do great house parties.
“There’s never been an agenda,” says bassist Culann McLaughlin. “I’ve been in loads and loads of bands over the years and it’s always been a big deal how we looked, sounded, and behaved.”
Right from the beginning, Delaware were different. “Once we all got together, none of that was important. It’s all been very natural and organic,” says McLaughlin. “We spend most of our time sitting around, chatting about records, having a smoke and a few beers.”
All well and good, you may be thinking. But why should anyone outside the six members of the band care about whether they’re enjoying themselves or not?
Well, give Delaware a chance and you’ll quickly see that, far from keeping the fun to themselves, they’re only too happy to share the love.
What their music may lack in originality, it more than makes up for in heart-warming tunefulness and endearing collective spirit.
“It started off as a solo thing,” explains Dominic O’Neill, the chief songwriter. “I was going to call myself Donnie Delaware.”
However, he couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for life as a solo artist. “Then it became a three piece called Delaware Dead and I still had a hankering to get more people involved.”
He recruited vocalist Owen Lamont after hearing him sing at a party. If Delaware have an ace in their back pocket, it is Lamont, whose rich and emotive baritone has a Gene Clarke quality.
“He’s never been in a band before,” reveals O’Neill. “He’s just been sitting in his house being brilliant without anyone knowing it.”
“He’s amazing,” Culann adds. “He’s a great big white man with the voice of an old black woman.”
The unique chemistry generated by the band has had a direct creative impact on O’Neill.
“One of our songs ‘Learning To Love’, I wrote that especially for Owen,” he says. “It’s really weird. I could never have written [that song] if Delaware didn’t exist. It’s opened up so many possibilities.”
Recent sojourns to the Donegal hills, to “live out our Led Zep and the Band fantasies” have yielded an impressive catalogue of quality material. Meanwhile, an album sampler rustled up during a recording session in London is putting a smile on the faces of their growing fanbase.
For now, Delaware’s thoughts are concentrated on their crucial next move. Any act capable of writing such pristine pop songs runs the risk of being polished into mediocrity. Luckily, this is one band that appreciate that much of their appeal lies in their awkward angles and scruffy charm.
“Ideally, what we want to do is capture the sound of the band sitting in a room singing and playing music together,” says O’Neill. You’d think that was easy but lots of people just can’t seem to get their head around it.
The band have no intention of changing their image. “I think if we were to get tarted up it could kill us,” says O’Neill. “That’s not the type of band we are and not the type of people we are. We’ve already heard comments about how difficult it will be for us to be marketed and sold. All I can say is: good luck to anyone who tries. Six hippies will be a tough sell.”
Maybe not as tough as he thinks.