Hogan to use Monroe’s gig to debut new songs

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Indie-pop trio Hogan play Monroe’s Live on Thursday next, April 28.  Their name might be new to many Galway punters, but Hogan have been together for quite a while.

“It got started about six or seven years ago now at this stage,” says lead singer and guitarist, Mark Hogan.

“I was doing a load of gigging myself in bars and as a singer/songwriter. My old manager, who owned the Tullamore Sounds music shop, was organising a festival in Tullamore and said ‘do you want to play on the big stage? But you have to have a band’.”

Wayne Brereton (guitar) and drummer Ronan Nolan were recruited and the trio started performing as Hogan.

“I was going under Mark Hogan for a while, but everyone was coming to the shows expecting Damien Rice, a more chilled-out type of thing. My sound was a lot more energetic, indie-pop type songs.”

Hogan are back on the scene after taking a short break from gigging in December.

“We took a few months for ourselves,” Mark says. “The drummer is getting married in June and he’s organising his wedding in Italy. The guitar player did a bit of travelling, and he’s studying Irish – he loves Irish!

“I did a bit of travelling myself – I went to visit my sister in Alaska. And I did a lot of business stuff as well. I’m a songwriter for other people, and I mostly work with Asian artists out in Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam.”

Hogan have also spent a lot of time recording and touring in Germany, and have built a bit of a name for themselves there.

“We haven’t been back there since August, but we’re going back over to do a few festivals, and we’re looking at our first release over there at the end of the year,” Mark says. “We’ve done loads of festivals and our own shows there.”

Working with producer Greg Haver (whose CV includes Welsh trio Manic Street Preachers) has really helped Hogan find the sound they’re after. Mark explains how the collaboration came about.

“He was basically at a music convention, and the studio that we worked in was looking to buy a new desk,” he says.

“Greg was one of the guests of a desk company, to say what it was like when he worked with their desk. Someone from the studio asked him would he come over and work with this Irish band, to try the desk out. We brought him over for one song, then we ended up doing our first album with him.”

For a band with aspirations like Hogan’s, finding a producer like Greg is a vital part of achieving success.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.