A short conversation with James OR feels like packing myriad life lessons in a bottomless bag – you apply its contents to your own life, and the bag is refilled on the next coffee date. In other words – the 29-year-old Cork man is pure sound, like.
James is a homegrown artist who fills his days gathering some momentum, or at least trying to. From humble beginnings – and humble he is – this man’s music has taken him a far stretch from blasting out Nirvana covers with his wannabee rock star pals in their childhood bedrooms. When your calendar is teeming with support gigs for The Coronas, Damien Dempsey, Ham Sandwich and the like, you know you’ve made some progress in your career.
This unassuming Cork man is not just a music-head, though. His favourite bear is of the panda variety, he delights in binging on The West Wing with his girlfriend in their London apartment, and he “somehow” managed to nail a law degree from Nottingham Trent University on the wall.
Now making his solo stamp on the hype-worthy London scene, and with a recent single launch and a UK tour on the cards, James OR has a lot to sing about in 2019.
James OR’s latest releases began as an insatiable thirst to keep on creating after an admittedly “weird relationship with music”. “I turned my back on music and bands about five years ago. I felt very directionless. I was angry. I treated music like a friend that had betrayed me, or an ex-girlfriend – you just didn’t want to talk about it.”
A judicious stint back at college gave James the time-out he needed to reconcile with music. When a lucrative cruise ship venture tempted the young Cork musician, something checked in to tell him the original route was the one worth pursuing. “There’s always been that spiritual pull back to music, never aggressive, never something that tells me I’m wasting my life. Law has never come back and tempted me to go down that path. Music has nudged me several times, it asks, ‘are you ready to go again?’”, he sips his flat white and smirks, “And usually, I am.”
Undoubtedly James OR wouldn’t be the musician he is today without his first band and those banging Nirvana covers, though. “We didn’t even have a drummer. It was me, a friend of mine and his sister, who bought a bass guitar and learned how to play just so she could be in the band”, he chortles. “We were kidding ourselves really…we even wrote our own press releases.” The band “wangled themselves in” to their first gig at a drama school party thanks to some timely nepotism. Beginnings – humble as they may be – can be prickly, however. “We started the first song and I hit the wrong chord and swore into the microphone. It travelled down the echoey drama hall. We couldn’t recover from that.”
A year later, a steadfast trio lugged their gear back to the drama hall to perform their redemption song. “We wanted to set the record straight. When we returned, I wanted it to be note-perfect, for that to be the lasting memory – and we rocked it.”
Even still, James speaks fondly of the generous all-ages scene in Cork that strongly supported his band in its infancy. “You could gig every week if you wanted to. Twice in a weekend, no problem. People were going for the atmosphere and the scene – the bands were kind of secondary. We kept playing those gigs and we got more comfortable with our style. And that’s when we started etching out a profile”. A waft of modesty emanates from the songwriter’s shoulders as he winces at the word ‘profile’. In James’ books, a piece of string is “as long as it needs to be”, any flattery that comes his way sincerely is returned.
So how does one go from being almost swallowed up in the bowels of a hollow drama hall on Pine Street to parenting a solo act in London?
Image Credit – Zyanya Lorenzo
A non-believer of natural talent, James OR knows constructive criticism and hard work played starring roles in shaping him as an independent artist. “I’m better when I practise because I’m more comfortable on stage. I know if I spend a few days in the run-up to a gig practising and teasing out parts of songs that I’m not happy with and working on them, I have a lot more trust in myself.”
A short bout of feeling sorry for himself once resulted in a mentor telling him, ‘James, you are here to fix the problems not make the problems.’ “That hit me… right there in that moment. It woke me up. I have tried to pay attention to those little triggers and that’s where the talent stems from. Whether it’s stubbornness or just being obstinate, or maybe a little bit insecure, if someone says I’m letting the side down, that revs my engine even more and encourages me to do better.”
Going solo was an “organic” decision for James, one that allowed him to pick up his guitar and write songs in his own time. “It came from a place of wanting to make music. I sat in my room with a laptop and an acoustic guitar recording demos.”
It’s not all about going your own, says James, who found a music producer and coffee-companion in Jack Ahern, and is counting his lucky stars to have his musician and sound engineer friends to lend a hand at the music making. “I like watching other people working and bringing something to the table, add a drum beat here, add a bass line there, rather than just having my fingerprints on it.”
The young mans deep-seated love of seventies rock music, instilled by his mother, rings true in his melodies, as well as a wealth of other influences, among them indie-rock. “My music is probably best described as biographical. I think I’m more comfortable addressing issues of the heart and issues of the mind – those aspects of the human experience. I used to think I wrote better or more frequently when I was sad. But you know, you don’t have to be sad from the 1st of January to the 31st of December, sometimes you’re just sad, or anxious, or happy. However it looks, it’s going to be OK. It’s not all doom and despair – or it might be.”
Since moving to London over a year ago, James has found that the music scene there isn’t too dissimilar from his home slice of Cork. “It’s much more communal than I thought. It’s easy to meet musicians there because it’s so big. Chances are, someone knows of a great open-mic night in South London. I’m still finding my feet with it, but what I’m seeing there is a really engaging community. They’re all like, ‘you do you!’, and that’s a really nice thing.”
Likening the old Cork music scene to a “sleeping dragon”, the characteristic glint in James’ eye sparkles even more as he recalls going out in the city to listen to bands. “Every gig you went to in Cork, you would meet a musician who made you feel like you needed to improve. It was an elating feeling, you’d go to watch a band and the first thing you’d do when you went home was pick up your guitar and write songs – I think that’s the point of great music in general.”
Earlier this year, James OR supported touring Irish acts like David Keenan and Toucan. “Those opportunities are great because you get to meet a lot of Irish people and have the craic! I’ve been very lucky with the Irish scene over in London.”
Image Credit – Hanna Dillon
The latest single, ‘An Attempt at Momentum’, made its official debut on Friday 26th April and has received rave reviews from a multitude of media outlets like Cork 96FM, Merryn Music and The London Ear.
“Everything came together so quickly – the track got finished, the artwork, the music video, all in the space of two or three days after months of hard work with the band. Now we can kick into a different gear and do something else.”
The new single seen a return to Cork and James’ beloved Coughlans with an Irish Single Launch this past week. “I just love Coughlans. It’s still a huge show to us, it certainly is to me. The feeling of playing there will never wear off, it’s like stepping off the plane at Cork airport and taking in that fresh Irish air.”
Networks still being established across the pond; the UK launch of ‘An Attempt at Momentum’ is a work-in-progress alongside plans for a UK-wide tour. You can catch James at Cork’s renowned INDIEPENDENCE Music & Arts Festival on Thursday 1st August, check out the Bandsintown page for more details.
Kaleigh is driven by an insatiable thirst for travel, many of her creative projects are inspired by her experience of living in Germany and her passion for languages. Her migrant tale tells of awkward cross-cultural situations, hard-hitting homesickness and a plethora of laughed-at moments. When she’s not playing soccer or working on assignments for her MA, her days are spent interacting with communities and organisations to cover heart-warming stories that make seeds grow into beautiful flowers.
Comments are closed.
A short conversation with James OR feels like packing myriad life lessons in a bottomless bag – you apply its contents to your own life, and the bag is refilled on the next coffee date. In other words – the 29-year-old Cork man is pure sound, like.
James is a homegrown artist who fills his days gathering some momentum, or at least trying to. From humble beginnings – and humble he is – this man’s music has taken him a far stretch from blasting out Nirvana covers with his wannabee rock star pals in their childhood bedrooms. When your calendar is teeming with support gigs for The Coronas, Damien Dempsey, Ham Sandwich and the like, you know you’ve made some progress in your career.
This unassuming Cork man is not just a music-head, though. His favourite bear is of the panda variety, he delights in binging on The West Wing with his girlfriend in their London apartment, and he “somehow” managed to nail a law degree from Nottingham Trent University on the wall.
Now making his solo stamp on the hype-worthy London scene, and with a recent single launch and a UK tour on the cards, James OR has a lot to sing about in 2019.
James OR’s latest releases began as an insatiable thirst to keep on creating after an admittedly “weird relationship with music”. “I turned my back on music and bands about five years ago. I felt very directionless. I was angry. I treated music like a friend that had betrayed me, or an ex-girlfriend – you just didn’t want to talk about it.”
A judicious stint back at college gave James the time-out he needed to reconcile with music. When a lucrative cruise ship venture tempted the young Cork musician, something checked in to tell him the original route was the one worth pursuing. “There’s always been that spiritual pull back to music, never aggressive, never something that tells me I’m wasting my life. Law has never come back and tempted me to go down that path. Music has nudged me several times, it asks, ‘are you ready to go again?’”, he sips his flat white and smirks, “And usually, I am.”
Undoubtedly James OR wouldn’t be the musician he is today without his first band and those banging Nirvana covers, though. “We didn’t even have a drummer. It was me, a friend of mine and his sister, who bought a bass guitar and learned how to play just so she could be in the band”, he chortles. “We were kidding ourselves really…we even wrote our own press releases.” The band “wangled themselves in” to their first gig at a drama school party thanks to some timely nepotism. Beginnings – humble as they may be – can be prickly, however. “We started the first song and I hit the wrong chord and swore into the microphone. It travelled down the echoey drama hall. We couldn’t recover from that.”
A year later, a steadfast trio lugged their gear back to the drama hall to perform their redemption song. “We wanted to set the record straight. When we returned, I wanted it to be note-perfect, for that to be the lasting memory – and we rocked it.”
Even still, James speaks fondly of the generous all-ages scene in Cork that strongly supported his band in its infancy. “You could gig every week if you wanted to. Twice in a weekend, no problem. People were going for the atmosphere and the scene – the bands were kind of secondary. We kept playing those gigs and we got more comfortable with our style. And that’s when we started etching out a profile”. A waft of modesty emanates from the songwriter’s shoulders as he winces at the word ‘profile’. In James’ books, a piece of string is “as long as it needs to be”, any flattery that comes his way sincerely is returned.
So how does one go from being almost swallowed up in the bowels of a hollow drama hall on Pine Street to parenting a solo act in London?
Image Credit – Zyanya Lorenzo
A non-believer of natural talent, James OR knows constructive criticism and hard work played starring roles in shaping him as an independent artist. “I’m better when I practise because I’m more comfortable on stage. I know if I spend a few days in the run-up to a gig practising and teasing out parts of songs that I’m not happy with and working on them, I have a lot more trust in myself.”
A short bout of feeling sorry for himself once resulted in a mentor telling him, ‘James, you are here to fix the problems not make the problems.’ “That hit me… right there in that moment. It woke me up. I have tried to pay attention to those little triggers and that’s where the talent stems from. Whether it’s stubbornness or just being obstinate, or maybe a little bit insecure, if someone says I’m letting the side down, that revs my engine even more and encourages me to do better.”
Going solo was an “organic” decision for James, one that allowed him to pick up his guitar and write songs in his own time. “It came from a place of wanting to make music. I sat in my room with a laptop and an acoustic guitar recording demos.”
It’s not all about going your own, says James, who found a music producer and coffee-companion in Jack Ahern, and is counting his lucky stars to have his musician and sound engineer friends to lend a hand at the music making. “I like watching other people working and bringing something to the table, add a drum beat here, add a bass line there, rather than just having my fingerprints on it.”
The young mans deep-seated love of seventies rock music, instilled by his mother, rings true in his melodies, as well as a wealth of other influences, among them indie-rock. “My music is probably best described as biographical. I think I’m more comfortable addressing issues of the heart and issues of the mind – those aspects of the human experience. I used to think I wrote better or more frequently when I was sad. But you know, you don’t have to be sad from the 1st of January to the 31st of December, sometimes you’re just sad, or anxious, or happy. However it looks, it’s going to be OK. It’s not all doom and despair – or it might be.”
Since moving to London over a year ago, James has found that the music scene there isn’t too dissimilar from his home slice of Cork. “It’s much more communal than I thought. It’s easy to meet musicians there because it’s so big. Chances are, someone knows of a great open-mic night in South London. I’m still finding my feet with it, but what I’m seeing there is a really engaging community. They’re all like, ‘you do you!’, and that’s a really nice thing.”
Likening the old Cork music scene to a “sleeping dragon”, the characteristic glint in James’ eye sparkles even more as he recalls going out in the city to listen to bands. “Every gig you went to in Cork, you would meet a musician who made you feel like you needed to improve. It was an elating feeling, you’d go to watch a band and the first thing you’d do when you went home was pick up your guitar and write songs – I think that’s the point of great music in general.”
Earlier this year, James OR supported touring Irish acts like David Keenan and Toucan. “Those opportunities are great because you get to meet a lot of Irish people and have the craic! I’ve been very lucky with the Irish scene over in London.”
Image Credit – Hanna Dillon
The latest single, ‘An Attempt at Momentum’, made its official debut on Friday 26th April and has received rave reviews from a multitude of media outlets like Cork 96FM, Merryn Music and The London Ear.
“Everything came together so quickly – the track got finished, the artwork, the music video, all in the space of two or three days after months of hard work with the band. Now we can kick into a different gear and do something else.”
The new single seen a return to Cork and James’ beloved Coughlans with an Irish Single Launch this past week. “I just love Coughlans. It’s still a huge show to us, it certainly is to me. The feeling of playing there will never wear off, it’s like stepping off the plane at Cork airport and taking in that fresh Irish air.”
Networks still being established across the pond; the UK launch of ‘An Attempt at Momentum’ is a work-in-progress alongside plans for a UK-wide tour. You can catch James at Cork’s renowned INDIEPENDENCE Music & Arts Festival on Thursday 1st August, check out the Bandsintown page for more details.
Kaleigh is driven by an insatiable thirst for travel, many of her creative projects are inspired by her experience of living in Germany and her passion for languages. Her migrant tale tells of awkward cross-cultural situations, hard-hitting homesickness and a plethora of laughed-at moments. When she’s not playing soccer or working on assignments for her MA, her days are spent interacting with communities and organisations to cover heart-warming stories that make seeds grow into beautiful flowers.
Comments are closed.