Interview with... Kodaline

After wowing us at The Portland Arms in Cambridge we've caught up with Kodaline. More specifically Mark from the band to chat about their influences, future plans and the fun of recording their debut album. The "High Hopes" EP is out 17th March and their début album "In A Perfect World" is out June 10th.

Just wanted to get a general history about the band, so please could you tell us a bit about yourselves and how you met?
This is Mark the Guitar player here. There's 4 of us in the band and were from a small town in Dublin Called Swords. Me and Steve met in school when we were very young. We met Vinny through skateboarding when we were about 15, and we met Jason on valentines day of last year.

What inspired you to start playing music?
For me music was always a big thing in my house growing up. My dad played a lot of Bruce Springsteen and Dire Straits and my sister had a guitar so it kinda started from that.

Who would you cite as the band’s main musical influences and why?
The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, LCD Soundsystem, Talking Heads, Sam Cooke, Jon Hopkins and Radiohead are some of the people that influence us. Mainly because they're all quite interesting and have been consistently putting out great music.

What other artists/bands are you currently loving right now?
We're listening to a lot of Peace and Haim on the road. Foals new album is pretty cool too.

You've received such praise for "All I Want", are you pleased with the fame that has come with writing such awe-inspiring songs?
Yeah it's been quite overwhelming really, were weren't expecting to get such a great response from the song. It's great, when we play it live people sing every word back to us. It's weird, we love it.

After releasing the "High Hopes" EP next, are you going to be releasing any more material off the album?
I'm not too sure if I'm honest. We might put out another single around the time of the album release date but for now were just focused on "High Hopes".

I've always wanted to know about your writing process, as an aspiring guitarist do you plan a song from lyrics first, guitar structure or do you even bring up old loops and work from them?
A song can kind of come from anywhere really, quite often it's written stripped back on piano or acoustic guitar. Steve wrote one of the songs on the album using GarageBand on the IPhone. It can be quite random.

Once the album comes out will you be itching to get out on tour and play it relentlessly, or will you go back into the studio to write more?
Yeah were really looking forward to touring the album. We've starting playing a lot of the songs off it at our shows and the reaction has been incredible. We're constantly writing new material so hopefully when we get some time off we can go into the studio and put it down.

One last thing, if you could tour with ANY band in the world who would it be and why?
Hmm tough one, I'd have to say Radiohead, there's a band I could watch every night.

My thanks go to Mark from the band for answering the questions. You can check out their latest song "High Hopes" just below!

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