Total Fiction: Bell X1

“Thought is often your enemy”

Three years on from their highly acclaimed long player ‘Music in Mouth’ Irish quartet Bell X1 released the follow up ‘Flock’ in February. An album that grew from a recording process that involved building a shrine to middle of the road legend Daniel O’Donnell and the whole band growing moustaches. Paul Noonan recently took time out from attending awards ceremonies and promoting to talk to Gigwise about everything and nothing.

Gigwise: You’ve been together since 1999, how do close are you as a band offstage and how do you cope with the pressure?
Paul: I would say that there is a familiar contempt that kicks in with those you spend so much time with, and who have been so much a part of your growing up. So there's a general air of arseyness, like you might have with your family. We deal with the pressure by letting it build, and then cooking something in it, so it's nice and tender.

Gigwise: When songs from your album ‘Music In Mouth’ appeared on T.V shows like ‘Teachers’, how did you feel?
Paul: I suppose that's a marker along the road that begins with playing gigs that only friends and family come to, moving on to gigs that people you don't know come to, to bigger gigs, hearing your songs on the radio, in da club, in the butchers as he's handing you your pork chops and smiling knowingly... and so on. I still get freaked out for a while when I hear something of ours, and for the first few seconds I know I recognise it, but don't realise that it's ours

Gigwise: Your success with that album must have had an effect on you, how would you describe that?
Paul: Well, I suppose it makes it easier to see a future where you can keep doing it. It would be pretty shit if we went to all that trouble and nobody liked it, and we just said "oh, never mind" and slunk back into our hole...

Gigwise: What other bands are you listening to yourselves at the moment?
Paul: I'm listening to Gillian Welch a lot, who I am loving. The Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens records from last year are still popular, and I'm just about to put on the new Neil Diamond record, “12 Songs”.

Gigwise: Which band / artist has influenced you most?
Paul: I think that's changed a lot as I've aged. Bruce Springsteen was my first love, at maybe 10 years old. REM were a big inspiration in starting to write music. I love going to gigs and feeling really charged and enthused about music again. Seeing people like PJ Harvey, RadioHead and Sigur Ros always do it for me.