Athlone songwriter to release new single
A singer-songwriter from Athlone is to release a new single next week, having re-written its lyrics years after first writing it.
Indie-folk singer Rob Irwin, 26, originally wrote the song ‘Puppets’ while he was a sixth-year student in Athlone Community College, but returned to it during lockdown.
“During lockdown I got this creative buzz and I wrote a lot of new songs,” Rob says.
“One day I was trying to write a different song but I couldn’t find the inspiration for it. I was kind of waiting for something to come to me, was just strumming through Puppets and thought it’d be brilliant to re-write it.
“The first version was very ‘teenagery’ I suppose, but I really liked its melody and I knew that something could come out of it in the studio. So I re-wrote the lyrics, and it was a cool experiment to write the same song but from a different age and perspective.”
The song now has a stronger story, and Rob even brought on another vocalist, Leah Moloney, also from Athlone, as the song is a conversation between two people.
The pair had previously teamed up for Rob’s single ‘Last December.’ Rob explained how that came about: “Leah and I were in mutual friend groups growing up. One of my favourite sounds is a female voice with a guitar or piano, and I thought it would be great to have a male and a female voice on the track.
“I was wondering who I could get on board to do that. I didn’t even know Leah sang until she posted an Instagram story of her singing and I messaged her straight away to ask her to sing with me.”
“I loved how she interpreted my lyrics for that and how she sang it was so different to how I sang it, so it was great to have her back for Puppets.”
Throughout the song both voices mix, flow and interweave with each other to capture a portrait of two vulnerable souls attempting to find each other in the light, and help each other through darkness.
Rob and Leah recorded the song in Lakeland Studios over various sessions.
Rob has been writing music since he was 14-years old, with some of his biggest inspirations being Dermot Kennedy, Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver and Julien Baker.
“Ever since childhood, none of my songs have ever really been about specific experiences, rather they're all attempting to re-capture fragments of moments, emotions and memories, even those that may be heartbreaking or uncomfortable,” Rob said.
“I’m really into the arts and theatre and reading, so during lockdown I set aside an hour or two each day to that and then I’d walk around in my socks sometimes at 3am to just try and come up with something.
“Even if nothing great came from it, I still thought it was good to get into the mindset of doing something creative. That expression ‘you can’t steer a parked car’ works well, you really just have to get something moving.”
Rob has plans to release four more singles called ‘Beautiful,’ ‘Let Me Go,’ ‘Before the Rain Began,’ and ‘The Wolves pt. II’ over the coming months.