A FLOWER BY ANY OTHER NAME

As The Hothouse Flowers come to The Whale one more time, we jump back to our 2017 interview with Fiachna Ó Braonáin.

You’ll be onstage with the beautiful Peter O’Toole, another Hothouse Flower and Michelle Shocked sidekick, on the night. I’m guessing there’s a degree of musical telepathy involved after 32 years, right…?
There is a huge degree of musical telepathy with the Flowers… Peter, Liam and I have been playing together for over three decades! And what we do onstage is full of intuition and telepathy! Peter and I have that when we play together too, and, indeed, over the past two years Lisa has fit right in to that dynamic.

In just about every artist’s memoir, they talk about the early, hand-to-mouth years as being their happiest. Is it like that for you when you think of The Incomparable Benzini Brothers, or are you happier in the here and now…?
My natural leaning is to try to be happy in the here and now! Dwelling on the past can be a waste of time sometimes – however, there is a bright glow in the memories too of those early days. Those invincible days full of utterly blind confidence! It’s a wonderful thing to think of… and to tap into… in the here and now!

The Incomparable Benzini Brothers were cocksure, brave and knew how to grab attention to gather a crowd. Our success depended on that, and the life we were leading at the time was freewheeling. There is something in the essence of all that that remains with you even though life evolves and all of us now have families and responsibilities that we didn’t have back then.

If anything, we can now watch as our kids grow up with that sense of owning their world, and grabbing opportunities to be creative and to work. That is an inspiration also big time!

There was a point when The Hothouse Flowers were being groomed for international pop stardom, but it would appear that the band themselves were never entirely comfortable with that MTV red carpet world. Or did you truly want to be bona fide stars?
There was a lot of talk about being the next big thing in the early days of the Flowers for sure, but, funnily enough, I was always pretty comfortable with all the craic that went with that. I enjoyed the bright lights and still do! The only thing that became weird was if you got surrounded in the street and couldn’t move on.

Getting from A to B on foot sometimes took a while longer! But then again that was fun too. Still, the notion of stardom never really meant anything. We did what we did and essentially we still do. We are just in control of it now, whereas, in the early days, we were not our own bosses in terms of how we spent our time. We worked hard as a band, and got to a real level of success without which we probably wouldn’t still be able to tour and play all over the world now 32 years later!

Given The Rolling Stone accolade of Best Unsigned Band In Europe, the Bono endorsement, that first album, People, going to no.1 in Ireland, and no.2 in the UK, the Eurovision audience of millions – was it all a case of too much, too soon…?
I never thought of out as too much too soon. It all felt right to me at the time. It was very exciting to have this sense of opportunity surrounding us. There was a confidence there – we knew we were good! And the subsequent albums, Home, and Songs From the Rain, were very rewarding albums to make too, and to tour behind.
Our careers grew, and the size of the venues grew, but we never wanted to be defined as being a band that only played arenas. In fact, we took ourselves off to do secret tours sometimes to stay in touch with the energy of the smaller rooms.

Then we took a break when the touring seems too endless, and we had young families and life situations to attend to. Then we got back together and made Born and Into Your Heart, and a new album, Let’s Do This Thing, which is available on our website.

And now we are comfortable playing in any context, be it the main stage in Glastonbury or a folk club in rural Ireland. Completely different but equally rewarding in different ways.

It’s rare that a band will change an album sleeve – what was the thinking behind that? I know Paul Brady re-released Hard Station with a new mix, beyond The Beatles with dead babies on their laps, I can’t remember an album sleeve being changed…
Our first album, People, had a different sleeve in Ireland when it was first released. It was literally a collage of photos of ‘people’…  but when we were going for the international release the label felt we should put ourselves on the cover, so we happily went for that too using Amelia Stein’s evocative photos of us doing our thing.

From Poetic Champions to Late Date, radio is another musical outlet for you. The conspiratorial curator is a dying breed on radio, with very few Wolfman Jacks or John Peels out there today…
Radio is certainly another musical outlet for me – I call it my music sanctuary! I get to listen to new music and create playlist of old and new, Irish and International, classic and unknown in a way that I truly enjoy. It’s a little like putting a setlist together for a gig; that feeling of bringing an audience on a journey.
I’m glad it’s viewed as curation, because thats the idea… I guess I present music that I love… and my love for it comes across, I hope!

Finally, tell us why you chose to raise your family in sunny Greystones? The people? The scenery? The close proximity to both Aldi and Lidl…?
My wife, Síona, is originally from Greystones and when we started to raise out family it seemed like the perfect place for us. We love it… It is a vibrant and wonderful community, which is growing. I hope it doesn’t grow too much!

We lived on the main street in Greystones for a few years, then moved to Newcastle for a few more years then moved back to Killincarrig to be a bit closer to the village. The kids education is all happening locally and having the beach and the beautiful surroundings nearby is a real blessing.

The Hothouse Flowers play The Whale on Friday, May 16th and Saturday 17th – waiting list here: https://whaletheatre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873650862