Originally formed in Dublin in 2006, the post-hardcore-inspired trio Velourias made quite a name for themselves in the local scene. Not long after, the band moved to the UK to gig and record. In 2011, they self-released their debut, self-titled album, which received a lot of critical acclaim in the Irish music press at the time. The band persisted for a while before going on a sabbatical for a number of years.

Now back in Dublin, the band reformed about two years ago and, last year, released three new singles: “We Float Down Rivers,” “Old Age Home Lament,”  and “A Forest of Lungs.” Today, they released their latest single and first of 2024, “Taxidermist.”

The band’s frontman and guitarist, Phil Keogh, talked with Post-Burnout about the track, how he writes, how the band got back together, his influences, how the Irish music scene has changed, their plans for their next record, and much more.

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The first thing I was going to ask, simply, was, this project’s been around for almost twenty years now. I was going to ask, does it feel that long to you? Does it feel like it’s been near-twenty years?

Eh…probably, yeah. I mean, at this stage, it’s kind of like a life thing that we do. There was a big break between releasing stuff; people’s daily lives get in the way and stuff like that. For us, it’s kind of like a life thing, and there will be peaks and troughs, and, you know, if somebody else feels that they need to drop out for a while, that’s OK, too, you know?

Is it the core three members that make up this band? In general, how do you find that this band has differed from other projects you’ve been in?

Well, I mean, it’s funny in a way, because me and Rob, the bass player, we’ve only ever played music together; we’ve never really branched out into other bands. Nick is kind of similar, too. Nick kind of learnt to play drums, he had lessons, and then he kind of found us, and he’s never really played with any other bands. And I think at this stage, between the three of us, I would say that we’re slightly institutionalised. I’m not quite sure I’d have the patience to actually figure people out and start anything else. We’re kind of a unique band in the sense that I’m pretty sure that the guys wouldn’t know how to play many other songs bar the songs that we’ve written as a band. I don’t know. For its positives and negatives, it’s kind of unique.

In general, in the time you’ve been around, you mentioned there was a break in between. I think it was…Actually, how long was the break? I think it was about six years? Am I getting that right?

Probably.

Yeah. How do you find the music scene in your time with this band has changed? Because, obviously, technology has changed, the means of distribution have changed a lot, and the music scene has changed a lot, too. There’s plenty of new stuff coming around that I don’t think you would’ve heard even a decade ago. Yeah, I was wondering how you find what that you’ve heard has changed.

Yeah, I have to be honest, I think it’s changed for the better. I think bands are a lot more connected these days, and a lot of them are more willing to support one another because people are probably trying to figure out what the means to the end is to this, and they’re probably realising that trying to out-do one another is not going to be to their best advantage. So, it’s great to see so many gigs happening and so many bands willing to kind of collaborate together and kind of work together, and we will certainly be no different to that. So, it has changed in that respect. Probably around the time we would’ve kind of self-recorded and released our first record, we’d have been living in the UK. We purposely moved to the UK to, you know, try and “make it,” essentially. That type of thing isn’t really a fashionable kind of thing for bands to do anymore, which I think is great, you know? Because it means that you can forge your own path. For instance, for us, I think probably our best strategy as a band right now is to release things which are of high quality and that we believe in, and, hopefully, people are reactive to that. So, it’s good because you can forge your own path.

In a lot of ways, you were inspired by the, I guess, D.I.Y. punk scene at the time. A lot of the venues in that time – places, like, say, Eamonn Doran’s and Sweeney’s – are gone, but new places like The Grand Social, Workman’s, and places like this, have taken their place. And, also, venues that you would’ve been playing, like Fibber’s and Whelan’s, still exist. In fact, they’re kind of expanding and growing even more so. I was wondering how you find the actual live music scene in Ireland has changed. You were mentioning that you had spent some time in the UK; when you came back, was there a sense of change or did it feel similar to you?

Em…I think, definitely, over the past, I’d say, five years, I think there’s been a trajectory where it’s slowly improving, and I think it’s at a very healthy place, right now, from when we would’ve come back from England, say. Like, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t think there was, certainly, as much of a sense of community as there is now, which is great because community breeds creativity, and there’s a lot of cross-pollination that kind of occurs around that. To be honest with ya, we played a gig with HUNTINGS there a couple of weeks back. It was so nice to be asked by them, “Hey, do you want to play a gig?” It was just a fun thing to do and nobody thinks too much about it. I think the music scene is in quite a good place at the minute. I mean, you would hear people possibly complaining about it, but I don’t know. I think it’s in a fairly healthy place.

Do you find the advances in technology, even from when you would’ve recorded your first album – it came out in 2011; I assume it probably would’ve been made around 2010ish – do you find, even, the technology has advanced in that time? And it’s funny because, to me, [Laughs] that seems like yesterday, but it is fourteen years we’re talking about, I guess. So, yeah, do you find the advances in technology have been able to help your band or do you find that you’re still kind of doing stuff as you would have done then?

Yeah, I guess the approvement from our side is, you know, we’ve kind of tried to streamline the process around recording. I mean, with this record that we’re working on, we kind of have it down fairly well, streamlined, in terms of how to record a track and what all the processes are along the way to kind of get it to an acceptable level that we’d be happy with. You know, the first was really a learning curve in how to do everything wrong! [Laughs] No, I listen back to that record and I’m really proud of it, and I think it’s genuinely a good record. At the time, we didn’t really push it because we didn’t really know what we were doing. I think we were all probably sick of one another by the time the record came around, and we were just trying to…I don’t know. We weren’t talking that much. But, I mean, we’re in a good place, in the sense that we know what to do when we want to record a song. So, yeah, sure, technology definitely does help in certain regards. I mean, we do do a lot of self-recording. Our drummer, Nick, he kind of does all the computer-y stuff and how to record, so that’s his kind of role, besides being the drummer, obviously. But he is kind of our go-to guy. And it’s great to have him there because, me and Rob, I don’t think we’d really have the patience to figure it all out, so, yeah, we’re lucky in that respect.

You guys regrouped about two years ago, now. Was the project coming back always something that was on the cards or was it something that happened gradually? When you guys initially split, was it a sense of, “This is a temporary thing,” or, at the time, did it seem permanent?

No, I think it was probably a temporary thing. I mean, me and Nick, you know, we tried out a couple of other bass players and we were writing new songs and stuff like that, and it was all going fine, and then COVID came along and kind of knocked that on the head. But it’s funny, you know, me and Rob, we hang out a lot; like, we do a lot of fishing and stuff. I think we were fishing one evening, and he was asking me about the band. He was like, “What are you and Nick doing, like?” I was telling him about…I was babbling on about some new song that we’d written, you know, and I was kind of reciting the riff, and I was telling him about the drums and how punchy it is and, I don’t know, I think I kind of coaxed him into coming back [Laughs] because, I think, a week later, he was like, “Oh, I’d really like to come back,” you know? So, it’s great to have him back. And the funny thing is, as soon as he came back, it sounded exactly right. We played with a couple of bass players, we tried out bass players, but, as soon as Rob slotted in, it just sounded exactly as it was supposed to sound. I would’ve heard bands talk about that kind of thing in the past and been a bit cynical towards it. It wasn’t until I went through it, myself, that I kind of realised, “Yeah, that stuff does matter,” you know? And people’s individual styles do matter. So, yeah, it was pretty interesting.

If I’m correct, you guys are based in Dublin, now. So, when it came back to playing local scenes, did you find people had remembered you and were interested in checking you out, or did it feel like starting afresh? How did that feel?

Em…to be honest, it was kind of just like a bit of a contin…Like, we were asked to do a gig. A friend at work was putting on a gig, up at the Bello Bar, and we just happened to be just about ready to gig. So, it was going to be an interesting experiment to see if we could still play or something, as ridiculous as that sounds. But it went down really well on the night, and there was a guy who came up to me at the end of the gig, and he was like, “I wanted you to know that I knew you guys would get back together,” and I was like, “OK, cool,” and he’s like, “I want you to know that I learnt how to play drums from listening to your album,” and I was like, “That’s really cool. Thanks a lot,” and he says, “Yeah, I’d really like you guys to know.” So, that was really heartwarming, like, to get that type of feedback. At least we got through to some people or whatever. But, yeah, at this stage, it just feels like a continuation, really. Albeit, a continuation that will, hopefully, be more of an upward trajectory.

Do you guys find it difficult to arrange around everyone’s schedule? Because I think one of the benefits of a three-piece is that it’s three people, so it’s easier to rearrange, in that sense. But have you found that life commitments, in general, have in any way halted the progression of the band, or has it been easy to commit to gigs and to commit to any kind of events or opportunities, recordings, rehearsals, or anything like that?

Yeah, I mean, we only practice once a week and people’s lives are busy. In any real sense, it’s made us more kind of selective in what we do as a band. So, anything we do do, we want it to be really good as opposed to doing any random gig or any kind of…We’re trying to maximise the time that we are together, so when we are together, we want whatever we’re doing to be the best thing that we could be doing.

Yeah, and you guys really wasted no time [Laughs] in getting music out. I mean, last year, you released three singles. You have a single coming out, which we’ll talk about, but, in general, are you guys recording in bulk and then releasing individually, or is it one song at a time that you’re taking it, now?

Yeah, at the minute, we’re recording in bulk. So, actually, we were in the studio on Monday night, recording vocals for a track. Generally, the way we’re doing it is recording in bulk. So, usually, four tracks each time. So, yeah.

And your new single that’s coming up on the 15^th, “Taxidermist,” – this will be out when that single’s out – but, yeah, if you could talk a little bit about this track and what it’s about and what it means to you, I guess?

Yeah, well “Taxidermist” is a weird one. I mean, I didn’t really know what it was about until it was completely recorded and I listened and read back through the lyrics. I was kind of like, “I don’t really know what I’m on about, here. It’s like I wrote it, speaking in tongues,” or something like that. But, yeah, I think subconsciously, really, it’s got references to church, to serial killers and persecution, and resolve, if you will. So, it’s kind of along those lines. Em…does that sound like I’m ignoring the question? [Laughs]

[Laughs] No, not at all! I think that’s very interesting because I think a lot of your tracks since you’ve come back have been really dealing with things, seemingly, that are on your mind. What I find really interesting is the choice of topics that you sing about. How much of the lyrics are consciously thought out, re-edited, things like that, and how much of it is stream-of-consciousness, “What seems right, we go with”? From the songwriting process, do you start off with a theme in mind or do you start off writing songs and the theme naturally kind of forms?

Yeah, I don’t know, I’m not a great one for kind of singing about myself and laying my feelings on the table or onto other people. I don’t really like it. I don’t like it when other people do it, either. So, I do like writing about the kind of slightly stranger things. I think that’s kind of similar to a lot of the bands we would probably be listening to, as well. When I’m actually writing a track, though, the music would usually come first and I would kind of write the lyrics, then, around the actual music, whatever that may be, you know?

Yeah. I think it’s an interesting way to write because I do think when you listen to, say, instrumentals from other artists, you do, naturally, start formulating lyrics in your mind, or, at least, that’s how I kind of view music. I do think that’s an interesting way of writing, I think. But whatever’s effective is effective, I guess. So, you wouldn’t consider yourself much of a poet or anything like that, no?

No, I wouldn’t go that far. [Laughs] But I don’t know what to say, because I know I’ve just said I don’t write about myself, but I’m not writing about myself, I’m not being so blatant about it. There would be things in there which I would relate back to myself that no one else would know about, but that’s kind of how that works. But, I don’t know, I just think it’s more interesting to sing about topics that can make for interesting lyrics and you’re not just singing interesting…It has to, obviously, be about something but there’s ways you can make that more interesting, you know?

No, totally. And, if I’m correct, I know the idea of reforming was to work on album number two. Initially, it was meant to come out this year. Is that still what you’re working towards now, or are you more focused on singles, perhaps an EP, or things like that, or is album number two still your primary focus?

Yeah, I mean, it is still in the proc…Hopefully, it will be done by some stage, next year. I can’t see why not. Currently, at the minute, we’re having a lot of fun. We’re releasing everything that we have, you know what I mean? Like, we kind of look forward to these track releases. It means we can do fun things with videos and stuff like that, and there’s nobody telling us what we can and can’t release. So, why not, like? [Laughs]

You were talking about the music video there, and, obviously, I was watching the new video you have for “Taxidermist,” and I was wondering about your relationship with music videos, because some artists I talk to really enjoy doing them, some find them to be an obligation they have to do. How do you find that, and, in general, how much of the music video is based on your vision – “Yours” as in the band – and the director that you bring on for a particular video?

Yeah, so the video’s directed by a guy called Miles Davis Murphy, a really talented artist/director. The video is really his concept that he brought to us. We didn’t really have much of a say. We just wanted somebody talented to help us create a video, and we knocked a couple of things around, and, Miles, he basically said, “Look, let’s just do a video in a blacked-out room. Let’s just get you playing, and we’ll shoot something really cool.” And we did it out in the Film School out in Dún Laoghaire, I think. So, yeah, we don’t really have…Videos or whatever, that’s their world. It’s not like we’ve done a hell of a lot of these videos, anyway. The previous ones were kind of just like, “We need a video,” so we had freelancers make us a video without us in it, if you get me, just to represent the track. This time around, I was kind of telling the guys, “We can’t keep just making videos where we aren’t in it,” so, yeah, we just wanted to be in a music video this time around. Thankfully, Miles was willing to direct it.

One thing I think is interesting is, for artists now, independent artists have always worn different hats – like, you know, they’ve been promoters, they’ve done PR, obviously, they’re the musicians, themselves – but, now, I think social media management has become a really crucial part of that. Social media in the 2010s would’ve been going to something like Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and just announcing gigs, and that’s all it was for. But, now, it’s sort of seen as the primary way of selling yourselves to new listeners, through auditory and visual mediums. What’s your relation to, I guess, the new way of selling things on platforms like TikTok or Instagram, or even older things, like YouTube or what have you?

I mean, it’s great, really, just to have that outlet and that medium to get your music out there is fantastic, really. The great thing is you can make things look really good for very little. To be honest, Rob does most of our social media stuff, thank God, because I’m not 100% sure I’d have the out-and-out patience to do it, constantly. But Rob’s got a good grip on it at this stage. But, you know, it’s great because it connects bands and you can get your stuff out there. It helps with increasing your profile, and people are looking, you know? You mightn’t think it, at the time, but they are. It’s helped us get radio play and stuff like that. The DJs are on there, too, you know? There’s people on there. Everybody’s always looking for content, to speak about, to push. I mean, I remember being a teenager and recording demo tapes [Laughs] or demo CDs and putting them into envelopes and sending them off. Things that seem ridiculous now [Laughs] when we can just go and press a button and it’s out there, in the world. It’s fantastic, really.

Do you ever find it’s removing the middleman, in a way? Because it used to be, before, you’d have to get on a certain publication or certain radio playlist, and, obviously, now, people want that, just as a means of showing their platform, I guess, or showing their reach, but, in general, now, fans can have more of a direct communication with artists, on a global scale, too. Because [Laughs] I remember when I was in bands that didn’t go anywhere, when I was a teenager, looking at international publications, going, “I wonder if we can send stuff here and there?” Now, as you said, you can just upload something, and everyone across the world can see it. Did you notice since you’ve come back… – because now you can look at heatmaps for where people are listening to your stuff – …do you notice an international fanbase growing or anything like that?

Yeah, for all the criticism Spotify gets, there’s some really interesting tools that you can see as an artist, and you can see where your track has been streamed. I remember logging in to it a couple of months ago, and there was suddenly this huge spike of, like, 350 plays from Finland! That’s just crazy, like, you know what I mean? [Laughs] That’s just off the wall, man! I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to go to Finland or had any reason to go there, ever, like. I’m sure it’s a lovely place, but I just did not expect to see that, like. So, that’s really cool. And, yeah, those tools, there’s a whole industry built on people who are very good at knowing how they work. [Laughs]

That’s the other thing, too. You were kind of mentioning the independent connections you can get with promoters and other artists, but, I think, also, the multimedia art of it, too, where a lot of artists who are trying to show themselves, perhaps, as videographers or editors or things like that can kind of have their platform, too, and, for the sake of the art, come together and kind of make interesting things. I think it’s very hard to wear all of those hats at once, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I think a lot of…I think, going forward, a lot of bands and a lot of people in those roles…[Sighs] Definitely for us, I think the only way we’re going to be able to manage this is to do it on a part-time basis. I think, probably, gone are the days that, you know, bands would be able to go out there and make it, unless they’ve a lot of money stacked by, you know? So, I think what you’re saying there, about the creative element of it, I think that should probably be the most important thing. Essentially, for me and the guys – or definitely for me, anyways – the band is, first and foremost, [Laughs] a creative outlet that I use because I enjoy writing songs, like, you know? I’m not going to forget that, you know? Whatever else happens after that is good, but, yeah. We fully encourage cross-pollination between directors and bands, and whoever else. Guys in studios, guys mixing, whatever.

One final thing I wanted to ask you is, obviously, since the band’s come back, I think there’s been a great continuity between the music you’re putting out now and what came before it. I was wondering, is that a consistent thing or is it, as you were saying, when you guys come together, that’s just the sound that comes out? Because, I’m sure for you as a listener, as for the other guys as listeners too, as you grow, you just listen to new things, and you take on new influences and inspirations in weird ways. Even in very unconscious ways. I talk to plenty of artists who, you would not think it, but they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I take inspiration from country music,” and they’re a huge shoegaze band or something like that. Have you found that new influences have been coming into your music or do you find that it has been the same for you guys?

Em…Yeah and no. I’m kind of the chief songwriter, so it’s kind of me bringing the songs to the band, most of the time. If there is something new that impresses me, I will try to do my own version of [Laughs] it, or whatever. At least try! So, definitely, we’re always trying to improve as a band and stuff like that. But, you know, it’s funny. I know we’re a three-piece band, there’s a lot of three-piece rock bands out there, I get that, but I do think we genuinely sound like our own, unique band, if that makes sense. It’s not like you’ll listen to us and go, “That sounds like Fontaines D.C.,” you know what I mean? It’s like, we’re not trying to emulate anybody in particular, except ourselves, which is great. I don’t know. If I get into a band, I go down a rabbit hole where I get really obsessed with them. The last band that did that for me was a band from the U.S., called Pile. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them?

Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard of them.

Just this amazing band, like. Just incredible. The lead singer is just such a talented dude. So much so that I flew to Belgium to see them play because [Laughs] I was like, “They’ll probably never come here, so I’ll get a flight.” I met the band after, and I was like, “You guys are awesome.” So, I tend to go down rabbit holes if I get really impressed with an artist and it probably will rub off on how I write, if I really like ‘em.

Velourias’ latest track, “Taxidermist,” is on all streaming platforms from today. You can find the band’s music, live dates, and social media accounts through their website.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.