The Sweet Hereafter

Take it from a man who knows – the best way to approach an Irish record label is to take their promises and enthusiasm with a pinch of salt.

“Generally, my maxim is stay away from them,” declares Halite’s Graham Hopkins. “The majority of people working in record companies don’t have a clue. They go to gigs and are waiting to see what the other A&R person is thinking. It’s a world built on cocaine and cool trainers.”
These may come across as the sour words of an artist who has recently departed the major label fold. Having previously released his debut, Head On, on Warner Music Ireland, Hopkins insists that his departure from the label was entirely amicable.
“It was absolutely fine,” he says. “Because I had so many record deals before with Therapy? and My Little Funhouse, it always seemed to go wrong. You can’t have any realistic aspirations for it to work out well because it always goes pear-shaped, inevitably. Maybe it (the departure) was a blessing in disguise because once I got the band together and started playing, it turned into a different animal. When we had finished with the label, it seemed like a good thing. It felt like we could start properly.”
During this period of massive transition for the multi-instrumentalist, Halite itself morphed from the singular vision of one musician into more of an ensemble. Keith Farrell, Binzer and Derren Dempsey now complete the band’s lineup, and with that, the mellow introspection of Head On has given way to a more muscular and ambitious sound.
“Musically we’re all on a similar page,” he explains. “When we started playing, it took its own shape. I liked the interaction between us. I still have a vision in my head about how the songs should be. I take them into rehearsal but what comes out is something very different. It’s good fun.”
Without the considerable weight of a major label behind them, Halite also decided that the ‘guerilla’ approach to making Halite’s sophomore album, Courses, was the right way forward.
“It was very much ‘us’,” says Hopkins of the album. “Keith engineered and mixed it. My brother works in McNaughton Paper, so he gave us the paper to press the album. We borrowed gear, we hired gear. Derren was house-sitting this place in Wexford, so we went down there and recorded for three weeks.”
Of course, having many friends in the business can be of some help in adverse times; however, as one of the more well-connected musicians in the industry, Hopkins claims that this can be a double-edged sword.
“I get it all the time,” he shrugs, referring to the begrudgery for which Irish musicians are renowned. “Even when we played Slane I got it. People were wondering what exactly I had done to deserve it. My honest remark is, ‘I’ve been working my bollix off since I was 17, and I deserve what I get because I’ve worked for it’. I love making music and that’s what it boils down to. If I get the opportunity to do these gigs, why would I say no?”
So what, then, is his response to such untoward criticism?
“To anyone who would say anything about another band, I say, get out and buy records and listen to other music,” he declares. “I love what I’m doing and I love the music I listen to. If people latch on to it, great, and if not, go buy the new Franz Ferdinand stuff, and buy your little tie and piss off!”

Courses is out now on Brassneck