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Interview with Simple Kid
By: Patrick Steven Patterson
 Irish-born Ciaran McFeely (aka Simple Kid) is about to take America by storm. Already he has won over peers and critics alike with an interesting amalgam of Beck-ish retro-folk, Fatboy Slim dance-pop and Johnny Cash honesty. Ciaran's method of performing, then deftly chopping up his own music as a sampling technique might only find two tribulations here, across the pond: kids finding the right record bin to look for the diverse album and Tower being able to keep it in stock.
Just before starting off on his first string of US dates, Mr. McFeely spent a few minutes with NowOnTour to talk about his new record (1), his American tour, day jobs and Bon Jovi.
NowOnTour: My girlfriend asked me an interesting question the other night. I was being my usual jaded self, watching some artist performing, maybe it was SNL. I was complaining about how bad it was, as usual, but she said, 'Then why are these people selling so many records?' My answer, even more jaded, was, 'Most people have no taste in music.' Then I followed it up with, 'It's all styling and pop culture.' But someone like you, someone who's trying to do something at least a little bit different, can you explain to me why people just rehash the same old thing over and over? Basically, why are there 15 Puddle of Creeds and 30 Sum Found Glorys out there?
Ciaran: I wish I had the answer for you because that way you could go about solving it. But I don't have a clue. It actually makes me...I've actually thrown so many of my shoes and stuff at my television for the same reason.
Is it just because the business is so cutthroat, maybe?
I think that a lot of people are quite careerist about things and if your ambition is to 'make it' and you really have this 'agenda' then maybe you don't want to take chances. Maybe it's the radio stations that play limited kinds of music; that's the way it is in England anyway.
It's the same thing here, and it isn't specific to a certain genre. Whether it's Pop or Country or Active Rock, they have a list of about 25 artists that they'll play. It's not just the UK.
It's definitely a strange state of affairs. I guess that I wouldn't mind if they called one of them 'music' and one of them something else, so at least they weren't wrapped up in the same bubbles. One of them should be called, I don't know, shit on a stick, and one of them should be called music.
Well, I was going to put it in a slightly more p.c. way than that, but to me it seems that it's a pop culture thing or a styling thing as opposed to...a music thing.
That's where all the marketing and that sort of stuff comes into it. I definitely think you're best off to not think about these things because life is too painful if you do actually think about these things. You just try to do your bit to make things more interesting on your own level.
There are 10,000 records that come out every year. How does one wade their way through those to find yours?
It's always good to have lots of friends that are really enthusiastically into records and root through all the drab stuff and just give me the really good ones. That's really handy.
When you record, I know you sample your own live stuff and re-mix it, but do you also use other people's material?
What I often do is I'll sample anything that comes to mind from any record and if it ends up turning into a good song I'll go back to the bit I sampled and play it in myself or something like that, or just change it, something like that...I'm too tight to pay all these legal things. "Staring At the Sun" originally had the Aerosmith "Walk This Way" loop as the drumbeat, but because it turned into a good enough song I ended up just playing the drums and doing a beat somewhat similar myself.
What's the story with Vector Records? Is it a Warner Brothers company or do you just have distribution through Warner?
It's all very new. I'm just sitting here and have no idea what way it's set up here, actually. I just deal with it creatively, to be honest.
I know there are a couple of other artists on the label: Damien Rice, Chris Robinson...that's pretty good company, I suppose.
Yeah, they came over and we were talking and we were hearing those names and it was sort of like, "That's fine. That works for me. I'll go."
Are you touring solo or with a band or backing band?
My brother is coming over, and a friend of mine, and we are going to do it acoustically with my laptop and a drum machine. So it's going to be kind of acoustic-y with three people on stage; so it's neither totally solo nor a big rock band, either.
You put out a couple of records with the Young Offenders, on a major, but the band split up soon after the deal ended. Did that spoil you on the band experience or are you looking to keep some players around as opposed to being a solo musician?
We've got this big circle of friends in London. We all play. Sometimes I'll play in my brother's band if one of them isn't there. Most of my gigs have different people in every line-up; itís not really set. It's this big community of people and if anyone's around that's actually playing a gig, we just do it. It's totally free, which for me feels like the best of both worlds because you get to play with other people, but you're also free to go off on your own whims and tangents. You're not limited by other people's wants and needs.
What was the last 'day-job' that you had? I figure that if you can sit around with friends and drink and play guitars all night...
Well, I got a record deal about January 4 of last, so until then I was working every absolutely horrible day job ever. Just pushin' things up at the warehouse, being a night porter - minding buildings that are empty in the evening - all these horrible, vacuous jobs.
What the hell is a 'night porter'? Is that some sort of security guard?
Well, you're not actually trained to do anything. You're basically sitting in the window so that people supposedly don't come in. Basically just sitting there on the Internet looking at porn for about eight hours on your own.
Do you just sit there looking 'fierce' out the window?
I can't really look fierce; I don't think [laughs]. Nobody is even around; you really don't need 'em. The idea is, I suppose, that if there is a burglar...but they don't even tell you...they just get you to sit there, not knowing what to do with yourself. It's ridiculous, really. Kinda good for writing songs, though, if you can sneak a guitar in, I found.
You're originally from Ireland but live in London now? Are you a British Act or an Irish act? And is there any insult or slant in being one or the other?
Some people assume I'm English because all my stuff is set up there. But obviously I'm an Irish person, so I have a very Irish perspective - if there is such a thing. Maybe I'm an Irish act, I suppose, but through a British system. Does that make sense?
Actually, it was just a stupid question. I was bouncing around some British and Irish Web sites I found that there was a slight revulsion coming from both sides.
Yeah, it's not something that you just invented; it's definitely there. When I go to Ireland, I get asked questions about, "So, why do you live in England?" You can almost feel something weird in the air when you are asked that question, just in case you say the wrong thing. I just lived in England when it all kicked off so it kind of set up that way.
We have that same thing here...maybe between the North and the South, Southerners and Yankees, or at least I notice it living in the South now. There are semi-polite jabs tossed on occasion.
I think every country I've ever been to has that...what is it with the North and the South?
Well, here it was that the South held thousands and thousands of people in slavery, and the North figured that it wasn't such a good idea. There was a war. Now the Southern people are pissed that the North kicked their asses. Hey, they're angry. You lose a war, you're angry. I can understand that. Great, I'm going to get this in print and I'm going to have people with Confederate flags knocking at my door.
Well, you have to get into trouble somewhere.
You're playing the Bonnaroo Festival this year. That's just about an hour-and-a-half outside of where I am.
Yeah, I can't wait for that. Well, I'm a County fan, so Nashville is this kind of Mecca, this kind of mythical thing. I'm going to be there for three days before Bonnaroo, so I'm going to be such a tourist, going around to the Country Hall Of Fame and hopefully catch the Opry if I can.
In my opinion, Bonnaroo is a hippie festival. Of course you've got your Willie Nelsons and your Bob Dylans and classic artists like that, but you've also got tons of people out in the parking lot selling grilled cheeses trying to get to the next Phish show.
Yeah, yeah. That's cool. We have the same king of thing; it's called Glastonbury. People go there and don't even bother catching some of the bands - it's just this whole atmosphere of getting back to your inner ape, getting filthy by day three and covered in shit and drinking and living a dream, really.
So, paraphrasing your bio, at some point in your youth you brought home a Bon Jovi record, your brother tossed it out the window and turned you on to Led Zeppelin. Is that true? It sounds like something a PR person made up.
That's very true...and much more besides as well. He had hundreds of records, vinyl as well - which has always been a good thing. It was up in the attic of our house. I don't know if he actually chucked the record out the window, but he disposed of it or broke it or something. I went up and he played me Led Zeppelin and David Bowie and just let me be. I stayed up in that attic for like the next five years going through it all. That's one of the best days of my life, I reckon.
In the same situation, say a ten-year old brings home something like oh, N*Sync, back to his older brother, what would that brother play?
These days, I think he'd be good to play the Yeah Yeah Yeahs first record. That song, "Maps" just blows my head off every time. Actually it's weird at the moment, in England it's a lot of really good music that's popular at the moment - The White Stripes and all that kind of stuff. That's definitely better than Bon Jovi.
What would an older brother do if the younger brother brought home your record?
Well, it depends on the older brother. They might throw it out and play Led Zeppelin, who knows? I can't be worried about these things. I'm likely to go crazy if I think about it like that. You should just be doing music for the sake of, you know, if you like it there's bound to be someone else who likes it. That's all you've got to worry about.
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