The Coronas Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 11th 2010 10:45AM by Farah Ishaq
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The Coronas have this month just scooped U2 and Snow Patrol to win Best Irish Album at the Meteor Ireland Music Awards with their second full length release 'Tony Was an Ex-Con.' This week they are set to play two gigs as support to Sir Paul McCartney's son James -- great prep for their shows at SXSW next week -- the Dublin band's first shows in America since 2008. Singer Danny O'Reilly took some time out from a soundcheck in London to speak to Spinner about the band.

Describe your sound in your own words.

It's hard to describe yourself! We sound like our influences really. Everything from the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac to Radiohead and Jeff Buckley and everything in between. Hopefully people will come see us and be able to describe us themselves.

How did your band form?

We were in school in Dublin, and playing in lots of different bands as we were growing up and we met Dave [McPhillips] our guitarist in Vancouver -- of all places. We just happened to be on holiday there and he was over there for the summer with his friends, and we were living and playing music in the same area. When we got back, we felt that the band needed a magical touch, so we asked him to join us full time -- that was about three-and-a-half years ago, and everything has been going great for us.

You've touched a bit on influences, could you go into some more detail?

The ones I said before like the Beatles, Radiohead -- but it's great that we don't always agree on the same things. Dave's into the Stone Roses. Conor [Egan] is into the Rapture and bands like that. I think it's good to have some personal influences as well as collective ones.

How did you come up with your band's name?

We were watching 'Almost Famous,' the Cameron Crowe film, and in that the main character writes his articles on the really old school typewriter the Corona Smith. Originally we were called just Corona but there was another band called that so we changed our name to the Coronas.

What's your biggest vice?

I bite my nails a lot. I'm trying to give up for Lent but I'm not doing too well. There's a couple of weeks left, I've already broken it but I might give it another go.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Baby wipes are really essential and so is lots of water. Suncream is very important as my skin is quite fair and I always get burnt.

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Maybe Madonna or someone. Back in the day when she was good looking! I was a big fan of Kelly Kapowski from 'Saved by the Bell.'

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

A lot of my old record collection is labelled guilty -- I used to love bands like Travis and Stereophonics. The first record I ever bought was Coolio's 'Gangster's Paradise.' That's a great record, I still put it on to this day.

Beatles or Stones?

Beatles. We'll always put on all the Beatles' records. Every single album is amazing and the way they developed as they went along. There's something about those records that is completely timeless.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

The last time we were in America, we rented a bus to travel all around and we had this crazy bus driver. It became quickly apparent that he was actually totally insane and was trying to kill us all, it was really scary! We got to about two hours outside New York, and we abandoned him on the side of the freeway. He had been driving around with no lights, not telling us where he was going, and we were late for a gig. It all got really crazy, we called the police and everything. We actually got home and wrote a song about him which became the title-song of our second album 'Tony Was an Ex-Con.' Sometimes we look back and think 'did that actually happen?' but it did. Luckily another Irish band were playing in New York that night, and came and saved the day. We had all our backline and everything by the side of the road. We played the gig and it was great.