Kinsale band Cardinals are fast becoming the most feted band in Ireland - and they prove why on their excellent debut EP. Front man Euan Manning talks to Alan Corr
Growing up in the countryside outside Kinsale, the young Euan Manning's mind often drifted to Cork City.
It was only 17 miles away but to him "the real capital" held a seductive, mysterious allure that was to inspire his prodigiously good songwriting with his band Cardinals.
"I'm in love with the winding streets of Cork, the pubs and how the city looks and the characters that we’ve met," Euan says on the phone from the band's HQ in St Luke’s on the city's north side.
"We are transplants in a way. We only became immersed in Cork City in our early adulthood, I think we were able to see it in a different light and be enthralled with it.
"The music scene here is very DIY, it’s about independence and inspiring you to feel we can do this."
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It’s a romance that looms large on Cardinals’ six-track debut EP. The songs range from the decidedly Smithsian indie pop bounce of Unreal, which somehow also manages to have something of the chirpiness of Leeside heroes The Frank and Walters, to the fagged and menacing Amphetamines, and the throwaway Nineteen.
With a name like some sixties psych beat group on one of Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets compilation albums, Cardinals - who are all in their early twenties - have a cinematic widescreen sound that hints at all kinds of future possibilities.
"Artists like Frank and Walters, Sultans of Ping and Rory Gallagher. They made us realise that you can make rock `n' roll in Cork City and it can be powerful."
The band, which also includes Euan’s bother Finn on accordion, their cousin Darragh on drums, guitarist Oskar Gudinovic and Aaron Hurley on bass, have become possibly Ireland’s most feted new band.
Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. has said they are one of his favourite new acts, while music hacks have compared Cardinals to everybody from Echo and The Bunnymen, Yo La Tengo, The Pogues (that’ll be the gentle lilt of Finn’s accordion) and even Fables era R.E.M. for their dark and cavernous guitar sound.
Ask the decidedly laidback, articulate and angelically cheek-boned Euan who he reckons Cardinals’ influences are, and he says, "Many and different. We are certainly influenced by the people around us in Cork, bands we know from the nineties but also more current stuff like The Altered Hours.
"Of course, the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed as a writer, there’s a music and literary connection with us. We’re big into the Mary Chain, The Pogues are obviously an influence but also any Cork artists like Frank and Walters, Sultans of Ping and Rory Gallagher.
"They made us realise that you can make rock `n’ roll in Cork City and it can be powerful."
The new EP was recorded with Richie Kennedy (U2, Interpol) in Sonic Studios in Stoneybatter in Dublin and it’s out now on UK label So Young Records but while you can take these boys out of Cork, you can’t take Cork out of these boys. In fact, Euan has said the band’s ambition is to write "the classic Cork album."
And the psychogeography of their hometown is always there in the background. "It’s the spirit of the city which maybe sounds a bit wishy washy but there’s a real independence here," Euan says. "A feeling that we’re doing our own thing than the rest of the country.
"Cork people are in love with Cork, it’s a cliché, but there is a great pride and independence down here that is reflected in the people."
A Cork landmark takes centre stage on the centrepiece of the band’s new EP on a song called Roseland. It's an expansive and poetic epic featuring waves of cathartic guitar and lyrics that Phil Chevron would have been proud to call his own.
"I went down to MacCurtain Street Station," Euan half-croons, half speaks. "Where I first said my last goodbye, If love was there, it was thin in the air, It only came here to die.".
It sounds like Euan Manning might be a bit of a doomed romantic . . .
"Emmmm, yeah, in a way . . . " he begins with a nervous laugh. "But there are multiple facets to that lyric and you can interpret it in different ways. From my personal experience, what I believe about those lyrics, I definitely think there was hope there when I was writing it. Doomed romantic, yeah. Sad bastard music. Hahaha."
Have those glowing reviews turned their heads? "It’s nice to hear these things. We take it in and then put the head down and keep working," he says.
"The most frightening thing would be that you hear that someone likes your music or you get a good write-up in some notable magazine and it would influence the way we write and play - `they like that so let’s do more of that’.
"To me, music should always be about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and moving onto new things because that’s what keeps it exciting and fresh."
The band go back to their foots and play the EP launch show at The Kiln in Cork on Saturday, 8 June and they also perform at the sold-out celebration of So Young magazine's 50th issue at The George Tavern, London on 12 June.
So, with a brace of singles and one killer debut EP down, now all Cardinals have to do is deliver that "classic Cork album". And it sounds like it’s going very well.
"Well, I’m heading up for practice after this phone call," says Euan. "We’re throwing ideas together. We debuted new songs on the UK tour. It’s an exciting time for us definitely but there is work to be doing."
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
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