There are enough terrors in the real world to keep you awake but when you’re a music fan, you can find yourself distracted from sleep with philosophical questions. In an algorithm-driven world, what happens to the acts and artists who don’t fit neatly in a tickable box. One band we’ve a lot of time for is Jill Lorean, a genre-fluid act who melds folk, rock, indie and occasional danceable beats to make great songs that maybe don’t sit neatly onto processed playlists.
The group consists of Andy Monaghan (Frightened Rabbit), drummer Peter Kelly and of course, Jill O’Sullivan, who SNACK caught up with to discuss the new album Peace Cult, working with others, the horrors of life and any other topic we could work into the conversation.
Jill, SNACK last spoke with you in April 2022 in the build-up to releasing your debut album, This Rock. This might well be the first time since then you’ve had an hour to spare, you keep yourself busy, don’t you?
I do, I have to keep myself busy, because otherwise I feel like I’m going to drown. I’m aware I have a personality that needs to be constantly spinning millions of plates. But I also have a necessity born out of needing to pay the bills, so it’s like two things at once.
There will be people who assume Jill Lorean is a solo venture, rather than the three-piece band it is. Peace Cult is a cohesive record, but there’s definitely moments I think you can feel Andy has led that or there’s a strong sense of Pete. How was the song-writing process for the second album?
It was not too dissimilar to the songwriting process for This Rock. I tend to come in with sketches, sometimes the sketches will be smaller and sometimes they’ll be bigger. If I was to compare it to something physical, the difference between a rough outline of a face, or sometimes I’ll have it more filled in, the eyeballs will have dimensions, for instance.
Because we’ve now worked together on the EP, Not Your First, and the album This Rock, we all know each other better when we’re playing. There is a trust amongst all of us, and I work probably most closely with Andy – Pete tends to come in a little bit later, when we’ve fleshed the ideas out a bit more, and then he comes in to do his magic on the drums.
There were a couple songs where I had been listening to a bunch of sketches Andy put out on piano or guitar. And I said ‘Can I go away with that, write some lyrics and mess about with it?’ I’m very keen everybody feels like they have a stake in it. And it’s been a tricky one because the whole reason I went solo is I felt I needed the freedom to express myself, and to do shows without a whole band.
In a weird way, I feel like I’m still trying to serve that. Andy and Pete are both very busy, and I don’t want to put pressure on them or say this has to be your only thing, or I need you to be free all the time. I think all three of us have, I think, come to an agreement that if we can do this altogether, we will. If we can’t, I’ll go and just do a solo show.
Bands need an office manager these days to manage the logistics of working as a group.
I’ve been playing music my whole life, and with my first band, Sparrow & The Workshop, the reason that band worked, the only reason when I reflect on it now, we got lucky; an A&R guy heard us on MySpace, and the next thing you know, we’re signing record deals.
Those record deals came with money. They gave us money to record an album, publishing money, and they also gave us what was called tour support. You don’t even hear of that anymore. I don’t know any band that gets tour support. We had money to go out on the road, to go into rehearsal spaces whenever we wanted. I think back how unbelievably lucky we were, and it also breaks my heart for people starting out now. They’re stuck, they’ve got a bigger mountain to climb and it’s a steeper one. Also, the cost of living is higher now, and everything is compounding on itself. To be in a band, you have to be either incredibly stubborn and determined, or financially independently wealthy.
In one aspect, there’s an upside as we have a wealth of brilliant bedroom producers coming through, but for fans who love seeing live bands, it’s depressing, isn’t it?
You’re right, I was reading Little Women with my daughter the other night, and there’s a quote in there by the mother, and it’s because the girls have no money, and they’re trying to make a play. And they make these brilliant costumes out of things around the house. And the mother says, ‘Well, they do say necessity is the mother of invention’.
I’ve been thinking of that recently because I think that you’re right, 100%, that’s what people who are getting started now do. They record in their bedrooms, and they try to be five band members at once by themselves, using the tools they have at their disposal. Sometimes that works really well, and can produce wonderful results, but it can also get a bit sad. Also, collaboration is great to have another mind to bounce ideas off. And that’s what I love about going in with working with Andy and Peter. I often say to Andy ‘Can you look at this thing I’ve done, I really like it, but some of it’s not working’. And he’s got that distance and perspective from his own wealth of knowledge, he can help, and it’s just having somebody else to bounce ideas off. It’s really lovely, you know?
For This Rock, you spoke about maturing and moving away from anger. What’s your mindset for this second album?
Okay, I was moving away from anger, but I realised that was maybe a position of privilege, that I wanted to sing about flowers and positive things. I’ve been reflecting on this because a few people have asked me this.
What happened was we were coming out of lockdown, things seemed positive, I felt happy to do this again. I was in a room with the guys, we started playing live, it was a rush, like going down a river in a kayak. I was hopeful, tuning into the birds and thinking nature is stunning, it gives us so much. And then I calmed down! I can’t help but react to my environment, I’m human, I make music and art. Maybe I was ignoring certain things or I was too elated about certain freedoms to not notice other things that were the opposite of that.
When I first moved to the UK 17 years ago, there were only a handful of food banks, and that’s become normalised, that makes me sad. Also, what’s happening in Gaza has really, really affected me. I was writing towards the beginning of that, seeing live streams of genocide and reading about what’s happening in Sudan, even seeing my friends. I’m a person who if my friends are happy, I’m happy; but if I see people sad, despondent, worried or upset, I react. I think there’s maybe a little bit more of that in this album, I calmed down from the original excitement of lockdown ending and the sense that maybe the Tories were going away, and then other realities hit me in the face.
Sadness and a sense of mourning are prominent on the record, as is nature – but there’s threads of hope though it. Do you ever feel you’re going too far with an emotion and you need to pull it back, or are you generally across these emotions?
I think it’s all over the place, because generally, human emotions are all over the place. It’s rare you find someone who only has one emotion. I’d sometimes be jealous of those people because I’m an emotional animal. I work in the community all the time, meet different people, they’ve all got their own stories and I immerse myself in that. The human experience isn’t always happy, people aren’t always sad.
When I’m sad, I’ll say it. When I’m happy, I’ll say it. I think that’s okay, I know it can be intense, and sometimes I think, ‘can you just write a happy song?’ And sometimes it won’t happen, but ‘Peace Cult’ (the song) was my attempt to write a happy song.
You touched on human experiences, and live shows are amongst the best human experiences. There’s Glasgow and London shows in December. How would you compare the live experience to the album?
Live experiences are always better than the album, it doesn’t matter who’s playing. I love going to see live music. If people enjoy the album, come and see us live, because we really give it our all. Sometimes it can help make sense of what you’re hearing on an album. When you see it live, it clicks. It’s fuller and bigger and, and while I know there’s a sadness, there’s light and hope too.
You’ve also got a couple of solo shows supporting Afterlands in November. Last time we spoke for an interview you said that you’re like a ‘snail with an itchy foot’. Are you just compelled to work and play live?
I think so. Yeah, that was a line from Julia Donaldson in The Snail and The Whale, I loved that. I’ll always say I’m tired and I want to have a rest and then I rest for a day and then there are things I want to do. I’m also fortunate that people will invite me to do things. It can be really exciting, because you never know what will come out of the project. I know some people are cagey about that. They just do one thing, one project, or maybe two, and that defines them. But I’m always seeking out interesting experiences through connection.
That’s why I love Hen Hoose (songwriting collective), they pair random artists, you don’t know who you’re getting paired with, that excites me, it might scare some people, but it excites me.
You’re an established artist in Hen Hoose, and you do a lot to help others, but how much does it give you as an artist?
I never think of myself that way. I’ve struggled my whole life with my confidence, and it’s only now that I’m starting to think I could do this. Imposter syndrome, we all have a bit of that, so I’ve never really looked at myself that way. Not to suggest I have no ego, that that would also be a lie, but we’re all babies, man; like that Diggable Planets (American hip-hop trio) lyric.
I feel that this sometimes is my mantra. I never want to get old, even when I’m old, I want to experience things with people. And maybe I can bring certain things I’ve learned to the table, but I always know other people have something really, really great that they can show me or teach me, whether they’re new to it or not. And also, there can be a beauty in naivety.
When children draw, there’s a freedom to their drawings, like they’re wild and crazy, and they don’t make any sense to adults, but they also look fantastic because they haven’t learned enough to start putting walls around themselves.
Another project you’ve been involved with recently is A Giant On The Bridge – described as gig theatre. Is it all just storytelling in one form or another?
I think it’s a really beautiful piece. If I was to describe it, at its heart, it’s a story of somebody coming home from prison and all the people around them, what they’re also experiencing, and that’s told through song. So, whether that’s the social worker, the songwriter going into prisons, or the sister, the person coming out. And then, of course, there’s a character, which is played by Kim Grant (another SNACK favourite, Raveloe) who is telling this beautiful fairy tale. So, there’s two threads, one guy coming out of prison, and also his daughter, what story she’s telling. It’s the sister’s story, the social workers story, his sister’s telling, the social worker’s telling and the story that the song writing tutor is telling so it’s quite beautiful in that you’re getting different perspectives of the same thing and how different people experience it.
I couldn’t perform in the August shows because I was doing Dear Billy (Gary McNair’s A Love Letter To The Big Yin, a tribute to Billy Connolly) at The Fringe. I went along to see it, and I was in tears, because I could see it from afar and really feel that. Having gone into prisons and worked with people inside and out, and also worked with parents and children in prisons, when they’re rehabilitating back into society, I feel a show like A Giant On The Bridge is really important. And I think Joe Mango and Liam Hurley (the devisors of the show) have done a really, really good job of telling that story and honouring all the different people involved.
As someone involved in community projects supporting people with music, how can society do more?
Well, one of the organisations I work for has this phrase, ‘there’s a lot to hope for’. When there’s fewer resources, how do we make that impact? I think we need a community of hope, it’s got to be almost like grassroots on the ground, people working together and helping each other.
In an ideal scenario, we have institutional help in the arts so that these places exist, and they’re not just places that exist because a developer hasn’t bought that land yet. To me, that’s the heartbreaking bit, so many wonderful arts facilities only exist because they’re on land that’s earmarked for development, or they’re in a building that’s either going to be torn down or redeveloped into condos. And I think that this mindset in our society is destroying the arts. We need to have actual buildings that house these communities that aren’t going to disappear in a year or two, as might happen with Summerhall.
You get people together to work on things, bring their ideas together, and hopefully build a more hopeful future, and if there are resources and finances available, they can move into these places. Apart from that, I don’t know, I’ve got more questions than answers.
Investment is key, whenever projects work, you see that there has been money, resources, time and people invested into it. And then you get a government in that doesn’t believe in that, they tear that back down, and you’re starting from scratch, and it just seems pointless.
In terms of A Giant On The Bridge, to relate it to that, it’s maybe not really offering answers but it is shining a light on a system, the punitive justice system, as one that maybe isn’t working, that restorative justice is better. And I would apply that out beyond the criminal justice system, and for all walks of life.
You have to nourish people’s ideas and educate people, but you need the money. I don’t know, it’s so hard to articulate.
Do you think your life would have panned out this way if you didn’t get the chance to play violin at school, or would you have stumbled into music regardless?
I like to think I would have done it anyway, but I don’t know if I would have had the same tools that I have now. The program I benefited from in school, free violin lessons, that was just the Mayor who believed inner city kids should have access to the arts, and it wasn’t quantified. It wasn’t based on a measurement. It wasn’t because we think these kids will become musicians, or be in the arts. It was just we believe the arts should be accessible for them. And I feel that way still.
So, if I didn’t have that program, I might have still found my way, maybe age 14, when I heard The Clash and I went, whoa, I want to play guitar. Or I heard Cat Power when I was 18 and I see she’s doing power chords. I want to learn those, they sound cool.
I might have come to it anyway, but I think it nourished me in other ways. It kept me focused in ways that can’t be measured. I feel at that age, nowadays, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD, as I had so much energy, but playing the violin calmed me and focused me. And music has always done that. For me, it’s a place where I could go to and feel happy, and I feel it’s like that for other kids too.
I’m not expecting you to have any answers here, but I’m keen to hear your thoughts; you got that breakthrough funding and Creative Scotland have supported both Jill Lorean albums. How do artists keep going?
My answer is a long laugh, just kidding!
Remember why you’re making art or music, because you love it. If it comes from a place of love, it’s likely honest. If you’re true to yourself, and sharing that love, it’s beautiful. Beyond that, I’ve no answer, it’s getting harder and harder but if you can, keep making it because the benefits of it are so beautiful. We need it, we need music; the pragmatic person in me says get other jobs, make sure you can feed yourself with food, and once you can do that, strike a match, make something. If you can do that, you’re doing good.
Returning to the album, how are you feeling as you set it off into the world?
Nervous, every single time I release something in any guise, I’m so nervous. You’re wearing your heart on your sleeve, but part of me says, it’s just a document you made with two good friends, they’re good eggs, and I’m so lucky every day I get to work with them. It was made from a place of honesty, integrity and love…and with Creative Scotland funding. We got lucky in that way and I feel constantly lucky anyone is listening.
I know you hope to do more Jill Lorean live shows in spring but beyond that, any plans?
I won’t lie, I feel a little tired! I feel winter coming and I might take a beat before the next album. We’ll need to let the dust settle, see how everyone is, how we’re doing and start writing again, but I don’t want to let this go. I love it, it brings me a joy that is hard to explain in words, I love it, love playing live and as long as I can carry on doing that, I will. It’s fun, and I’d love to play more with the full band. I’ll need a break to experience the world, do some living and work and then see if I have anything to say.
Peace Cult will be released on 15th November via Monohands Records, and Jill Lorean play Mono, Glasgow 4th December
Featured photo credit: Andy Monaghan
