Followers of Otis bring new buzz to local music scene

It’s a very interesting time in the Galway music scene as plenty of bands are emerging with their own sound and style. However, not all of them have the subtle, melodic power of The Followers of Otis. The band play upstairs in Róisín Dubh on Friday, May 14.  

Their sound has evolved from a host of new instruments that lead singer Eoin received for his 21st birthday. New songs began to emerge from his dabbling with a melodica, a glockenspiel and a few harmonicas.

“I started messing around with these instruments and I started listening to other genres of music, things I wouldn’t normally listen to,” Eoin recalls. “Around then, I got a microphone for home recording. I was kind of getting frustrated before [that] I wasn’t getting enough recording done. I always felt that I could do an awful lot better.”

Eoin rallied his friends Brian and Danny and they agreed to put some tracks on to tape.

“It was a Friday evening, over a few cans at somebody’s house, and I was like ‘right, we’ll do it tomorrow’.”

The recording went well and The Followers of Otis were born. They now had a four-track EP to their name.

“It was a real buzz,” explains Eoin. “I’d been playing in bands since I was 13. The idea of the band was we’ll just get some good people together and, I know it’s so clichéd, but just really focus on getting records out and a good body of work together, and playing gigs.”Buoyed by their new endeavour, The Followers of Otis agreed to play at a charity gig that a friend had organised. They came to the show with their instruments and box of their CDs.

“We only practised that day,” says Brian.

“I think we sellotaped covers together,” Eoin says about their first EP. “We gave them out free to people and we made up badges as well. The idea of giving away stuff for free gave us a bit of . . . momentum?”“Probably,” Brian answers. “People like free stuff.”

The Followers of Otis released their debut album, And Those To Come Hereafter, last March. The idea behind the band is that every member is free to contribute, rather than follow the whims of a chief songwriter.

“This is our first full length album,” says Eoin. “Two guys have come in recently, Adam and Kieran. It’s not like ‘you play this and you do this’ it’s ‘how are we going to make this a good record? How are we going to make this a good gig?’.”

“There’s no dominant voice,” adds Brian. “Everyone throws in their ideas and no-one’s right and no-one’s wrong. It is a collective, very much so.”

Playing melodic folk is hardly anti-social behaviour but complaints against the band in their formative days in the city almost scuppered their album.

“The record we made before, we had a lot of trouble with neighbours,” explains Brian. “We were living up in College Road and anytime you’d strum a guitar you’d get a knock on the door. Or the landlady ringing. It was a nightmare.”“We moved to a house

on the Docks, where we started this record,” Eoin says. “It was a much better place; there were big, thick brick walls and we only had a neighbour on one side. She was a really nice old lady. We could just play away to our hearts content and there was no worries. We were probably two months at it.”

Bands who work in studios will tell you about the challenges recording presents. Making a 12-track album in your front room is equally trying.“We did come against a few problems,” Eoin recalls. “What we did before was four or five songs – you could do that in a couple of weekends. With other commitments – work, life, different things – there was a bit more of a challenge to get that bit more condensed in.

“There was some long hard looks in the mirror,” says Brian. “We recorded over the winter. We just got so heavy into it and you’d listen to something so many times you didn’t know what you were listening to.”

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.