The indie pop band Diveboy is the latest iteration in a project that has been ongoing since 2012. “There’s been a few incarnations of the band, like,” the band’s vocalist, Tony O’Donovan, tells Post-Burnout. “Me and Pete[r Piggott, their guitarist] have kind of been in it from the start. It was just a school band, really, at the start. We had a totally different name, and we were doing pub gigs and stuff. We were going well for a while. We did the competition, the Red Bull Bedroom Jam.

“We had luck with that, and getting to the finals of that in Whelan’s and stuff, and we had a good local following, to be fair. We brought a bus up to Whelan’s with us that time. But we got a bit of momentum, and we decided to take a year out and change the name, and we just wanted to become a more serious, original band, you know? So, we took a year to write songs and stuff, and we just didn’t gig for a year.”

When they came back a year later, they had changed their name to The Burma, and brought in the Doolin drummer, Cian Doherty, who they had known from college and had gigged with in his other bands. In 2019, the band released their first single, “Phoney Personality,” and gained immediate attention from the music press.

In the years that followed, the band have played at the Glastonbury Festival, supported Kneecap, released two albums (2022’s Sucker for Stars and 2023’s Crazy Dreams), and accrued a loyal fanbase. Then, in March of this year, the band announced on their social media channels that they would be changing their name to Diveboy ahead of the cycle for their upcoming third album.

Explaining this new name change, Tony says, “The name, The Burma, actually derived from…me and Peter are from Cobh in Cork, and there’s these steps in Cobh called The Burma Steps, and they’re kind of famous in Cobh, or infamous, whatever way you want to look at it! [Laughs]

“But, over time, we were getting a lot of questions about the country. Obviously, it’s Myanmar and stuff. It got a bit cloudy in places – a bit too cloudy for our liking, really – and it was never about that, you know? It was about the steps in Cobh, obviously. And we thought that it might maybe potentially become a problem down the road for us, and it was just something we didn’t want to get involved in, you know? So, we just decided to get out ahead a bit.”

After about six months of searching for a new name that they all liked, they found what they were looking for within their setlist. “We cover ‘Born Slippy’ [by Underworld] as part of our set,” Tony explains. “We mix it in with one of our songs, and it’s a lyric in there. At least we thought it was! Since, we’ve realised that he might actually be saying ‘Dog boy,’ so it’s totally our own creation! But we thought it was from there!”

Despite taking six months, choosing a new name was the easy part. Once they had locked it in, the band had to retroactively fit all of the material that they had previously released under Diveboy, including reediting the artwork for all their releases and changing their online handles to account for the change.

“It was pretty intense,” admits Cian of this process. “There was a lot to change over. You kind of forget exactly how much you need to change over until you’re in the middle of it. Even with the streaming and all that stuff, all of our music was uploaded. Peter kind of looked after all that, and that was pretty intensive for you, Pete, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” responds Peter. “It was about two weeks of holding your breath, really; like, thinking, ‘Is it all going to swap over, properly?’ Luckily, we kept all of our streams and stuff that we had, that was associated with the old name. It all swapped over, but there were things here and there, now, that we had to start over from scratch, really.”

“And, also, our website, as well,” adds Cian. “That had to be switched over. We wanted to keep our email, our business email, without starting a new one, and just changing that whole contact setup. We were, actually, able to do that; we just can forward our old email into our same business email and stuff.

“But, yeah, a lot tougher, I think, than we realised. Also, it didn’t all go to plan, either. We lost our Spotify followers and stuff like that. We kept our streams, but lost our followers. On YouTube, there’s a glitch on our YouTube channel. We’ve switched it over, but it still says ‘The Burma’ on certain parts of it, like.”

The first single from this new iteration of the band, “Suntrap,” was released on the 18^th. “It was one of the first songs that we wrote for the new album,” says Cian, explaining why they chose it for the first introduction to Diveboy. “And, I think, one of the first ones that we were really like, ‘Yeah, this is a great tune!’

“So, we were confident in it. We just feel it’s a nice, fresh sound for us that ties in with our new name and stuff. It’s the first piece of music we’ve released in coming up on two years, maybe. So, it just felt right. It felt like the right song to release.

“And, because we were so quiet, we’re hoping that it’ll pick up now again, so it’s nice to have some new stuff out, to release, and to speak about, again. Because we could’ve been throwing a lot of stuff out on socials last year, but we didn’t have much to talk about, really! [Laughs]”

“Suntrap” is the first single off Diveboy’s upcoming third album, which, at the time of publication, has yet to have its title announced. Inspired by their range as listeners and wanting to flex their musical muscles, the new album will display more sonic versatility with consideration for connectivity between tracks.

“The three of us probably have varied interests, or tastes in music, anyway,” Peter says of the new album’s direction. “Everyone’s influences would change, individually, as well. I think it has changed a good bit. Even when we’re picking the set now and stuff to play live, some of the songs are clearly a bit more electronic-influenced or something, than maybe indie.

“Sometimes it’s hard to fit it all together a bit. I think with this album, before we started the recording, was the first time that we really sat down and said, ‘Let’s try to make something cohesive,’ you know? So, I think [with] this one, the influences are a bit more defined, I suppose.”

This cohesiveness that Peter speaks of was also on Tony’s mind as he penned the lyrics. “From my point of view, lyrically, it was the most focused I’ve been on having a direction for the album as a whole,” he says. “I think we did a gig last year, for the last album, and we met someone after, and they were asking questions about the lyrics on the album, and I kind of had a realisation that it didn’t have much of a direction, you know?

“It was a bit too sporadic, you know? And there was a lot of stuff in there that was just in there for the sake of it, without having much thought behind it, you know? So, I think this time, I really did want to sit down and think, ‘Who do I envision listening to it, and what do I want to say, and what do I actually care about,’ you know?

“So, I think, lyrically, it’s more cohesive this time. It’s all within the same universe, you know? I think, the last album, there were maybe four or five tunes that were in the same universe, then there were a couple of aliens that are just totally different from the rest of it.”

The band also went in with a concrete idea from a production standpoint. “Before we started recording, we were saying that we wanted the album to feel more like a live set,” Peter says. “Like, if you went to see a band playing in a big venue, what would it sound like, you know? So, yeah, we kind of cut out a lot of slow songs and more downtempo stuff that we would’ve worked on before. I would say this album has more of a live feel to it.”

Through the recommendation of Cian Synott, the band enlisted the talents of the Dublin-based producer Ruadhrí Cushnan (who has worked with Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, and Snow Patrol) at Camden Recording Studios to help realise their vision. “We set out to achieve the album in a totally new experience, you know?” Cian says of this collaboration.

 “A new process and everything, and new people, and that’s when we ended up getting in touch with Ruadhrí Cushnan, who produced and mixed it. That was a real learning curve, working with him and his engineer, Alex [Di Camillo], in Camden in Dublin.

“Like, they brought a totally new perspective to recording the album. We bounced opinions off him. We asked him…so, say we have these five or six songs done, ‘What kind of song would the album benefit from, for one of the last four?’ We kind of aimed at ten songs, maybe.

“We were kind of writing it the whole time. We didn’t write the whole album, and then we went to Ruadhrí, and then recorded it all; it was a whole year process. We recorded some, then wrote some, and then recorded some. So, that was interesting to get his take, and then to work off that, and what kind of song he thought the album needed.”

From the members’ perspectives, the sessions were productive, amicable, and collaborative. “I think he definitely has his own ideas of what he wanted to do with us from listening to our previous stuff, you know?” Tony says of working with Ruadhrí.

“Obviously, he listened to our albums, the first two we did. He liked them, but he had his own idea of what he wanted us to sound like, you know? I think he got that across to Cian in his first few meetings. Particularly, for me, I found him quite helpful for vocals and stuff.

“We’d hold up in the studio ourselves, and the lads would go away for a pint or something, and me and Ruadhrí would kind of get stuck into it for a few hours. He was really good with getting the most out of my vocals as possible. I learnt a lot of stuff in there, and did a lot of things in there, that I didn’t think would’ve been possible going in. So, yeah, I thought he was brilliant that way.”

While the band are keeping some of the details for the next record close to their chests, they give us an indication of what fans can expect over the next half a year. “I think we’re looking at, give or take, six weeks in between singles,” Cian lays out.

“And then hoping to have the album out [in] late February or early March. I think that’s all to be confirmed with tour dates and stuff, and the availability of the venues and stuff like that. So, as long as we can coincide tour dates and stuff, it will be around late February/early March.”

Diveboy’s latest single, “Suntrap,” is out now. You can keep up with them through their website. They will also play at All Together Now tomorrow. Check the ATN app for details on stages and times.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 21:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

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.