Jeremy marches to his own beat with superb Be It Right or Wrong

Date Published: {J}

Drummers are renowned for creating a racket but back in 2008 a new kind of noise began to turn heads. Kilkenny man Jeremy Hickey released his debut album, Organic Sampler under the band name Rarely Seen Above Ground (RSAG) and Irish music fans and critics got very excited.

Organic Sampler fused Talking Heads, Fela Ku

ti and early rock ‘n’ roll to create one of the noughties most impressive debuts. The album was nominated for the 2009 Choice Music Prize but it was the RSAG live gigs that kept the buzz going. Hickey’s one-man show sees him combine live drumming, backing tracks and visuals to mesmerising effect, and his performances at Oxegen and Electric Picnic in particular earned RSAG a reputation for superb live shows.

RSAG comes to the Róisín Dubh this Friday, June 18, as part of a tour that marks the release of his second album, Be It Right Or Wrong. The album was recorded in Thomastown in Kilkenny by Leo Pearson, who has previously worked with U2 and Elvis Costello.

“I had known Leo for years but I didn’t know exactly how good he was,” says Jeremy. “I was looking for a place to do the album. We got on very well – we were talking about different styles I wanted to do and we were very much on the same kind of level.”

Although it contains the same elements that made Organic Sampler so appealing, Be It Right Or Wrong also marks a new chapter in RSAG’s evolution.

“The whole idea, and I hope I continue to do this, is to create a different vibe on each album,” Jeremy explains. “It’s not a band. I don’t believe in doing the same thing twice, really.”

The first song to be released from Jeremy’s latest release was The Roamer, a textured piece that adds another aspect to the RSAG sound.

“It was called The Roamer because I knew it was going to be long, and I knew the idea was to start from somewhere and then end up somewhere else completely,” Jeremy says. “One interpretation could be someone taking a journey which ended up somewhere they didn’t think it was going to take them.”

The Roamer is also different to some of the more raucous, rocking numbers that appear on the album.

“I wanted to, not go against the grain, but I didn’t want to go with one of the more rock ‘n’ roll-y ones,” Jeremy explains. “I just wanted to people hear that other side of it first. It’s probably the one track that’s kind of different; it’s almost the opposite of the first album. And it’s actually quite catchy; so I decided I’d go for that one.”

Although Jeremy is first and foremost a drummer, he is a multi-instrumentalist with an unusual method for composing pieces for the RSAG project.

“When it comes to writing music I would normally write on a three-string acoustic guitar,” he says. “I put it through an amp, so I have this kind of raw thing. I’d written most of the stuff on that, I’d map out the arrangements. From there I would put percussion on it.”

Being able to follow every tangent Jeremy’s inspiration takes him on means each RSAG track has a unique feel to it. And sometimes the song he will end up with is very different to the one he started with.

“You have an idea of the drums and the bass, which is the basis of the song,” he says. “Then when you start experimenting with different sounds and vocals it becomes something different. The whole process evolves; it turns into a finished song.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.