“I think we do pop music in the right way,” says Sam Halliday, the lead guitarist of Two Door Cinema Club, the trio that have fast become one of Ireland’s biggest live exports in the past two years.
Halliday’s statement isn’t a bold proclamation and nor was it taken midway through a tirade against the current state of popular music.
Instead, the guitarist was trying to make sense of what he describes as a “very bizarre” situation in which Two Door Cinema Club have found themselves in the same music libraries as One Direction.
“But at the same time, you feel that it’s good in a way because at least kids aren’t just being surrounded by fake music,” reasons Halliday.
“Its not like these guys are writing their own music,” he says of the pint sized boy band, “they aren’t really inspiring anyone to pick up an instrument,” importantly avoiding the stereotypical rant about mainstream pop music.
Rather than you’d expect, Halliday – honest yet somewhat humble – never imagined that the band’s rise would find them stealing indie music fans’ hearts as well as crossing over to mainstream audiences.
Their sophomore release, Beacon, debuted at #2 on the UK charts and has afforded them a successful American tour, with late night television appearances along the way.“We didn’t really go in with a mindset of making something that was more appealing.”
Speaking of their ever-increasing success over the phone from Munich, midway through a European tour, Halliday explains that their love of accessible melodic music is just one reason behind their quick ascension. Although he believes that “it’s done in a credible way.”
“We write our own music and play everything and we’re interested in chimes and instrumentation,” he says. But while the guitarist finds the growing diversity of their fanbase as ‘strange’ he admits that, “we’re definitely ambitious as musicians and as a band.”
“We want to keep coming back to places and playing to more people and playing to bigger rooms and to countries we’d never thought we’d ever get to go to,” he says.
Coming together in Northern Ireland in 2007, Two Door Cinema Club’s debut album, 2010’s Tourist History, has sold platinum figures, won multiple awards, and earned them a rabid fanbase, who refer to themselves as the ‘Basement People’ (in reference to the lyric from breakout single ‘Undercover Martyn’).
With two years of hectic touring under their belt, the band decided that it was time to get started on the follow-up.
However despite the success of Beacon thus far, Halliday reveals that the trio never focused on creating something that would find them topping charts worldwide.
“We didn’t really go in with a mindset of making something that was more appealing, but we definitely felt that with every step of making the album that what we wanted to do was based on musical interest,” says the Irishmen.
Their second release, while still at times containing the same pop frivolity of Tourist History (musically at least), it sees the band playing a slower, more mature brand of their indie style.
“I think working with Jacknife Lee really helped,” says Halliday, the album recorded with Garrett ‘Jacknife’ Lee in California in just five months.
“His production is more common on bigger records,” admits the guitarist, referring to Lee’s work with the likes of R.E.M., Weezer, Bloc Party, and fellow countrymen U2 – just to name a few.
“[Lee] knows how to record songs in a way that works, he’s just far more knowledgeable about music than any of us, to be honest,” confesses Halliday.
However, part of what has made Beacon the stylistic growth that it is comes in the form of the lyrics that lead singer Alex Trimble conveys.
Rather than litter the record with clichés about life on a tour bus, their second album has themes, which are connected to the touring life, but are broad enough for listeners to relate to.
Although Halliday reasons that life on the road isn’t so bad for the band, who are almost certainly addicted to touring. “We’ll complain about not having time off and then we’ll be home for a few days and the pace is just so much slower at home,” he laughs, “its hard to get used to it.”
Undoubtedly though, the Irishmen can see the benefit of playing bigger venues, rather than playing smaller clubs for years like so many other bands do.“[Jacknife Lee, producer] knows how to record songs in a way that works, he’s just far more knowledgeable about music than any of us, to be honest.”
“I think we’re in a better position now where we can meet up with people on the road and bring people on tour to spend a weekend,” offers Halliday.
Having barely taken a break since they started touring their debut, according to Halliday, it’s simply because they’re bad at turning down offers.
“We’re our own worst enemy,” says the guitarist. “Over Christmas it would be fun to spend a bit longer at home but we’re like ‘nah lets go to Australia where it’s warm and fun’.”
Their upcoming tour of Australia will see them play New Years festivals such as Falls, Field Day and Southbound. Their tour will also take in sideshows at the biggest venues they’ve played in the country to date.
Last time they were in Melbourne for instance, they played the medium-capacity Prince Bandroom, this time around it’s the large-scale Festival Hall. A fairly good indicator of just how much their popularity has grown since they were last touring down under for Laneway in 2011.
Yet Two Door Cinema Club isn’t all about success. In one of their press releases, there is the declaration that Beacon is the next step towards the trio becoming the band they’ve always dreamt of being.
While Halliday concedes that all three members imagine different bands, the trio are very much still growing.
The modest lead guitarist, true to fashion, envisages something a little less grand than the lofty words of their promo material would have you believe.
“I think that the better we become at translating the ideas across the music,” finishes Halliday, “we’ll definitely get to where we want to be.”
Beacon is out now through Dew Process/Kitsune. Two Door Cinema Club play Southbound (details here), Field Day (details here), and the Falls Festival at New Year’s, details here; as well as a string of headline sideshows in early January. Full dates and details at the band’s website.
