INTERVIEW: The Academic

At TRNSMT Festival earlier this month, WTBU DJ Zoe Salvucci chatted with the Academic, an indie rock band from Co. Westmeath, Ireland. They closed out Friday night with their aftershow at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in downtown Glasgow, and played early Saturday afternoon on the King Tut’s stage at the festival. The Academic is Craig Fitzgerald (guitar/vocals), brothers Matt and Stephen Murtaugh (guitar and bass, respectively), and Dean Gavin (drums). They discussed their recent debut release, Tales from the Backseat, their musical influences, and starting out as a band in Ireland.

Zoe Salvucci: First off, fantastic show last night at King Tut’s; the whole crowd was super into it, they knew all the words to every song. In an interview you once said you prefer festival shows to intimate gigs, so after last night—why is that?

Craig Fitzgerald: I think it was a mix.

Matt Murtaugh: I definitely said intimate shows, for sure.

CF: I’m a mix of both; I think it’s nice to break it up. Touring’s fun, but then it’s nice to just be at a festival and be outside, which is always nice.

Stephen Murtaugh: Yeah, it’s weird, because sometimes you get intimate festival crowds, and then you get like festival-wild-type crowds in small venues. So it’s tough to know—I do like festivals, though.

Dean Gavin: Yeah, it is hard to know. I like a good mix of both. Intimate shows can be better, when they’re at their best.

ZS: You guys were in the US twice already this year, once on your own and once opening for the Kooks. What’s it like at those shows, where you have a smaller headlining show versus a larger show where you’re opening and the crowd might know you less well?

MM: It’s definitely a different vibe. I mean, our headline shows—although they were on a smaller scale—there was such great energy in the room, because everyone knew all the songs and was singing them, kind of like King Tut’s last night. And then with the Kooks shows, there were definitely people there who knew us, but you’re sort of trying to win over the people who don’t as well. So you kind of have to step up to the challenge a little bit, you know?

ZS: Right.

CF: And when you’re supporting a band like the Kooks, things are a little bit nicer, dressing rooms are bigger.

SM: Yeah, I was gonna say, there was a bit more comfort on the Kooks tour, because, you know, bigger venues, better—yeah, all that stuff.

ZS: You were touring for your (relatively) new album, Tales From the Backseat, which debuted at #1 on the Irish charts. That was a little over six months ago, but how many years has it been in the works now?

CF: Probably about four, maybe?

MM: Four, definitely.

ZS: Is it nice to finally have it out there?

MM: It is, yeah. We took a long time getting there—we just wanted to get it right. And we were promising an album for a long time and then just sort of not doing it. But it’s a great feeling to finally have a record out there and share those songs, and the stories of the songs, with other people. And hopefully they can relate to them and stuff, you know?

ZS: So when you were writing the album, were you consciously writing an album, or just sort of writing enough songs to call it an album?

CF: It was just a buildup over the last couple of years of old songs and new songs. But that was fun, because there were songs that we felt it would’ve been unfair [to leave out]. Like “Bear Claws,” which is one of the older ones. We, as a band, always wanted that on the debut album, no matter what we wrote in between.

ZS: It has a very cohesive sound — it sounds like an “intentional” album.

MM: Yeah, there were a lot of songs written as well that, while we loved them, they just wouldn’t have suited the album at all. And it was kind of tough to let some of them go as well and think, “Well, they’re not gonna be on this record and they might never be on a record,” you know? But I think with the way the writing’s going now, it’s definitely more album-focused. We’re thinking, “We are making another record now,” and it’s already sounding more cohesive.

ZS: You cite bands like the Strokes and early 2000s indie rock as a major influence—is there anything you listen to from the 20th century, or are you strictly no-nostalgia?

SM: No, I’m all nostalgia. We’re all big Beatles fans, I love Van Morrison. I listen to a lot of Talking Heads and stuff, so my listening is mostly nostalgia-based.

CF: Yeah, 20th century would definitely be most of my music. I’m kind of into the ‘80s stuff at the moment, like New Order, Joy Division—that type of thing.

MM: Yeah, I’m into the Smiths, Pixies, Television, bands like that, just for my own nerdy guitar stuff.

DG: I go back and forth—it’s modern one day, then could be ‘70s the next day.

ZS: Cool, cool. So how has it been starting out as a band in a country like Ireland, where there’s not only such a big history of music, but such a strong modern music scene, with hundreds of bands gigging every night in cities like Dublin?

CF: Yeah, that’s an interesting one, because we’re from the midlands in a pretty rural area, so there wasn’t a lot of places to play. So naturally we moved towards Dublin to try and get some shows. But it wasn’t too bad. I think it’s nice not coming from a city, because then you’re up against a lot of competition.

MM: There’s so much competition in Dublin; it’s quite tough to sort of stick your head out above that and break through. Like you said, there’s hundreds of bands in Dublin and the scene is really strong at the moment, and there’s so much great music, so we kind of just had to keep banging our head against the wall until we could branch out further from Ireland.

ZS: You seemed to make it out pretty fast, I mean with—what was that, Eurosonic, that you played a couple years ago?

CF: Yeah, that was the start of —

MM: That definitely got us farther into Europe.

CF: Radio was big as well, in Ireland, which helped us play shows and sell more tickets and build up as a band so we could actually leave Ireland and go play in different cities.

ZS: That’s great. So, what’s next for you guys? Are you already working on the next album, or focusing on gigging at the moment?

CF: We’re just writing. I don’t want people to think we’re in the studio.

MM: Yeah, we’re not recording it, but it’s being written at the moment.

CF: Just demos, stuff like that. But no, we’re on the road, you know, that’s it. We have our biggest Dublin headline in July in the Iveagh Gardens. It’s like 4,000 tickets, so that’s our biggest headline ever. And then we’re doing a couple of festivals, and more tours in October and November—it just comes around again.

MM: Just touring till death!

Check out The Academic’s #1 debut album, Tales from the Backseat, available on Spotify and Apple Music.