In 2017, three school friends with mutual musical interests from Swords, Co. Dublin formed a little project called AZURE. Initially comprised of Devin Hanson and Evanael Regnier on guitar and Seán Woods reluctantly learning bass because they felt they couldn’t be a band comprised solely of three guitarists, the trio never really went anywhere until last year, when they decided to take AZURE a bit more seriously.

“The way I like to think about it is, before 2023, it was just kind of a few lads who played music together,” Seán tells Post-Burnout. “And then at the start of 2023, I went to Devin and I was like, ‘I want to get this band going, properly,’ and that’s kind of when we started thinking about taking stuff seriously. And then around February or March, is when we started looking.”

The first new member they enlisted was vocalist Sam Jones, whom Seán met online after announcing that they were looking for musicians for a band inspired by the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Arctic Monkeys. “I first talked to Seán online, and I first saw the kind of music he was into, and I was like, ‘I can work with this’,” says Sam, on what made him consider joining the band.

He continues, “I had been in a band before that was a lot less serious; we kind of were just goofing off. So, the first couple of times that we [AZURE] had practised together, and everything was sort of well-regimented and there was actually some vague structure to what we were doing, it seemed well-intentioned. I was like, ‘Oh, shit. This could actually be something interesting. Let’s see how it plays out.’”

Sam had been writing poetry and lyrics for a while, and AZURE allowed him to finally marry his words with music. He says, “I think I’m sort of running out of them now, but I had years and years of…I never really released too much stuff anywhere, but I had a lot of songbooks, where I’d write bits and pieces that I intended to use. So, the first couple of songs we wrote, a lot of them just came from bits and pieces I had written, years ago. Like, I know for [their second single] ‘Leave It Out,’ it was a poem I wrote when I was, like, sixteen or seventeen.”

The final piece of the puzzle was a drummer. Sam Parcon (whom the other members affectionately dubbed “Sam 2”) would soon be spotted by Seán on a Facebook group for musicians. “I like to say that it was on Facebook Marketplace,” jokes Seán. “It’s an inside joke kind of thing. But, yeah, there’s a lot of groups on Facebook that are like ‘Musicians looking for other musicians,’ and I think I posted something, looking for drummers.” “We definitely lucked out on him,” adds Sam 1.

 “And he just messaged me and was like, ‘Hey, are you still looking for a drummer?’ and I was like, ‘Yes’,” concludes Seán. Sam 1 adds, “We had the few interim drummers, who kind of flaked out a little bit or weren’t as available. Whenever Sam joined…I think we got lucky with him because he had just sort of moved over here, a while before that, and he was sort of looking to get back into music, right around the time that we were looking for a drummer, and the two kind of collided at the right time.”

Now a five-piece, the next thing the band had to contend with was the distance between them. Fortunately, the three original members all lived close to each other in Swords, but Sam 1 lived in Monaghan (but commuted to Dublin to attend college) and Sam 2 lived “near UCD” with his wife and kids. “Anytime he’s [Sam 2] not in work and I can make it down from Monaghan is basically when we practise,” explains Sam. “We’ve kind of fallen into this odd timeslot of, late nights on Sundays is when we manage to get practices in. It’s handy enough for me because I stay in his [Seán’s] spare room, Sam drives back home after, everybody else is in Swords. So, it’s not too bad.”

Now officially a band, AZURE actually got their first gig before their official announcement in September of last year. “The first gig was off the back of some friends of mine, who had planned a gig in Fibbers,” says Seán. “They knew that I had joined a band and that we had been practising for a couple of months at that point, and they said to us, ‘Here, if you want this gig, it’s in October and you can open up the gig. We’ll happily help yis.’”

Immediately, the band enjoyed their taste of live performing and wanted to have complete control over their gigs, despite their inexperience. “I don’t think any of us knew what was going on, when it came to gigs at all, until we had started playing them,” says Sam. “And I think now, six months on from our first gig [at the time of the interview], we’re very used to it, now, booking our own gigs. We’re playing outside of Dublin, and we’re still alive.”

Since September, the band have played at various Dublin venues, such as Fibber Magees, The Workman’s Club, and The Sound House, as well as The Ol’ 55 in Galway and McHugh’s in Drogheda. They have also released three singles which highlight their versatility: The instrumental “Introduction” in October (which was initially meant to be an unreleased sample track to show promoters), the swinging, Arctic Monkeys-esque “Leave It Out” in November, and the fun and funky, high-octane “Getaway” in January.

Today, the band’s first six months of existence are punctuated by the release of their debut EP, Casa Del Dáil, which is named after a lyric from “Getaway.” Despite what seems like an almost quantum turnaround rate from the band’s beginning to now, Seán says, “It’s felt like an age.” “It’s been a while,” adds Sam. “Two months, at least, since we recorded the songs. And how long since we wrote them?” “We recorded the songs in January, and we’ve been sitting on them for a month-and-a-half,” replies Seán.

With the release of the EP and its subsequent launch gig at Dublin’s Anseo on Monday marking the end of the first era of AZURE, the band look forward to spending the rest of the year continuing to build their network, hopefully playing some festivals, and looking to tour outside of Ireland. “We’ll see who will take us,” laughs Seán.

AZURE’s debut EP, Casa Del Dáil, is out today on all streaming platforms. The band will perform a launch gig for the EP at Anseo on Dublin’s Camden Street on Monday, with guests Soundstrand. Tickets cost €5 and are available here. You can keep up with the band’s music, live dates, and social media accounts here.

Tune into today’s episode of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… at 14:00 (IST) on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts to hear our discussion in full.

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.