Melodic Train Room to launch debut EP

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Celebrating the release of their debut EP, Delicate Bones, Train Room come to Monroe’s Live on Friday next, May 19.

The band are helmed by Mayo based musician Joe Monaghan, who wrote and produced the four-track EP in his home studio in Balla.

“I taught myself how to produce because I had been going to so-called producers for a couple of years, and it just wasn’t working out,” he says about the EP. “I spent a lot of money not getting a product I wanted.  So, I basically wrote all the songs, arranged them and played most of the instruments except for enlisting a few friends who are drummers, and a couple of backing vocalists.”

Delicate Bones is an aptly-named delicate, melodic collection that grows on the listener. Given Joe’s initial inexperience as a producer, did he find it hard to achieve this sound?

“At the start, it was quite difficult because I wasn’t that used to it and I wasn’t technically brilliant,” he says.  “There was a lot of trial and error, especially with boring work like dynamics, compression and all that kind of stuff. It was pretty daunting initially, but I took a long time over each song. I think each one took about three months on average. “

Talons is a standout track from the collection – how did it come about?

“I wrote all the songs on the EP around the same point, about three or four years ago,” Joe explains.  “That was an acoustic song that I wrote at a stage when I didn’t know if my songs were any good but I think that was a big turning point for me, that particular song.

“It was the first one where I just recorded a song and put it up on social media,” he continues. “There was a positive reaction to it on Soundcloud and Youtube. Then I wanted to re-record it and put the whole band on it. It was probably written about a broken heart at the time, or something – the usual!”

Talons features Catherine McGuire on backing vocals.  The two are friends since their school days and they duet to great effect on Horizons, the beguiling first track on the EP.

“I hadn’t seen Catherine in years but I met her – ironically – on the train from Dublin,” Joe says. “We were just sitting with each other and I said I had this track, an acoustic song, with a call-and-response structure to it.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.