“I blame my dad, probably, for the music thing. It’s his fault,” jokes musician Daniel O’hEidhin, when reflecting with Post-Burnout on how he got into music. “He used to have these classic rock LPs that he used to play on rotation, back in the day – so, you’re talking, like, old Led Zepplin records, Black Sabbath, AC/DC – just constantly on rotation all the time. And I got really obsessed with Led Zepplin, in particular; Led Zepplin IV being the one that he put on all the time, and I suppose it just kind of grew from that. I remember he had, it might’ve been a tape, like, a VHS tape [Laughs] of The Song Remains the Same, which is, like, a live concert from Zepplin, and I used to watch that as a kid and go, ‘Whoa! Jimmy Page is like the coolest guitarist ever!’”

From Page’s influence, Daniel became obsessed with becoming a guitarist. Eventually, his mother bought him a nylon-string acoustic guitar. As he recalls, “I remember my mother at the time being like, ‘You know what? You’ve picked up a lot of stuff and dropped a lot of stuff’ – because, at that age you’re trying to figure out what works for you. You pick up all these interests and hobbies and then you just drop them, six months later – so, at that point she was like, ‘This is just another thing. You’re just going to pick it up and you’re going to drop it. So, you know what? I’ll get you one, but it’s going to be within budget.’ And then I had to prove myself, and I had to go into the lessons, I had to learn the songs, I had to basically show that this is something I’m going to keep before I went begging for my first electric guitar.”

After proving himself and graduating to electric guitar, at around 16, Daniel proceeded to play in school bands that were covering popular indie acts at the time, like Arctic Monkeys and The Raconteurs, as well as classic rock bands, like Thin Lizzy. At 18, Daniel moved to Dublin for college, and quickly got involved with the city’s music scene by volunteering his now-honed axe skills for various local acts. Through this, he got introduced to some kindred musicians, including bassist Ciarán Hurd, who plays in his current band, Riserfall. Almost sounding like a teenager’s record collection comprised within a single project, Riserfall incorporates the members’ love of hard rock and metal with their appreciation of what the grunge movement brought to those genres.

“I personally feel like every band or project, by its very nature, is going to be super different, because it is the accumulation of every single person in that room,” replies Daniel when asked how he feels that Riserfall differs from other projects that he has been involved with. “So, if you go into a room with three other folks, it’s going to sound entirely different to what this band will sound like, and even through the last couple of years, where, like I said, we’ve [had] a few couple of changes with our own members, each one has sounded different and brought new stuff to the table.”

Yesterday, the band released their first single since May of 2022, titled “Claim The Kingdom,” which is their most brutal and heaviest song to date. “With that particular track, I guess it’s growing in confidence,” says Daniel. “And I think that’s been part of why I’m so excited about this track, in particular. We’ve kind of been on a journey to try and find, ‘What do we sound like?’, and…I would listen to our back catalogue and kind of feel that we haven’t quite found how we sound. I think this new single is the first time we sound like how I hear us sounding, long-term. Like, this is it; we found the approach.

“So, yeah, that’s kind of why I’m so excited about this particular release. It’s the first time I felt like each member of the band has found their rhythm, has found their groove, has found their particular place in the music, and I think that just comes from time. It’s just playing with the guys [and] figuring out what each person brings to the table, what each person is capable of, and working on it. It’s been a great process, and this is the way it’s going to go, going forward, as well. So, obviously, I know what the next single is going to sound like, and the single after that, because we have all that stuff written, and this is the direction it’s going. So, it’s fantastic to hear…coherence within what we’re going to do in the future.”

Riserfall’s latest single, “Claim The Kingdom,” is available to stream now. You can keep up to date with the band’s music, live dates, and social media accounts on their website. Check out the full interview with Daniel here, where we go into further discussions about how Riserfall is the first band where he performs lead vocals, the transition to becoming a vocalist, the music industry, the massive metal scene in Ireland and the lack of domestic festivals accommodating that, plans for an EP or an album, and more.