11 minute read
Meet Barry Moore
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
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BARRY MOORE
You must already have in mind the irresistible ritornello of « Hey Now » but most certainly don’t know much about its author…On The Move is here to introduce him! A few months back, the Irish singer and songwriter Barry Moore released his debut EP « Lost Boys » with the talents of Maxim Nucci – also known as Yodelice - at the production. Sat with our team, he talked about his journey, the making of its latest tracks and the ambitions carried in his upcoming album. Let’s meet a solar artist, to which we wish a beaming future!
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
On The Move: Hi Barry! The public doesn’t know you very well, yet. Can you talk a bit about how you first got interested in music?
Barry Moore: So, it would have been from a very early age because coming from an Irish family, music is kind of everywhere, all the time. Everybody plays it and my father was a guitarist so, from a very early age, I was exposed to that and I was listening to all his vinyls and albums so then, we made the transition to streaming and downloading together. I moved a lot when I was a kid, from Ireland to California then back to Ireland then to Spain and to London then to France now. And all along the way, I always did music. Whether it was in the streets, in the bars, or just for me at home. Then, I came here for a job, working for a music streaming platform named Qobuz, a French one. It was then that I kind of got an opportunity to cross paths with Maxim Nucci at his studio. That’s where it all kind of changed, the direction of my life. I was in a career with a « Bac +6 » (second year of postgrad studies), now we’re moving at a really really quick pace towards something that I thought was never gonna be possible! So, it’s cool where we’re at, right now.
On The Move: Your single « Hey Now » has been out for a few months now. What’s the story behind it?
Barry Moore: It’s kind of at the same time an introspective look at my life and where I came from and also kind of the harsh reality of life living in, not necessarily just my hometown, but in industrial towns like this in England, America, Ireland that are kind of stuck a little bit in the past. Everything is a bit raw and unfiltered kind of like in Trainspotting. A town full of « scumbags » once could say, I consider myself as a geeky one. I think the glasses help me because otherwise I’ve got the both sides like the harsh reality dude but I’m not hard on people, you know what I mean. I’m hard on myself but not on others. In general, the song kind of told basically my life and we filmed the music video in a factory that I worked in. The bars, all of the people that you see are either family members or friends, there is no extras or actors. So we actually went to Ireland and asked all of the local people, the local barman : « Can we use your bar ? Can we use this and that ? » I got my best friend to punch me in the face, he had to do it 12 times. He was very happy to do it after 20 years of being friends with me. An opportunity to punch me a few times, for everything that happened before (laugh). After 3 or 4, he thought I didn’t deserve more so I wasn’t maybe as bad as I thought.
On The Move: So, it was kind of an introduction for the public saying « Here I am and where I come from » ?
Barry Moore: Exactly. We have a lot of songs at the moment but we picked the song that we thought was going to be the one that will get in to people’s heads quick and attract attention. And then we picked the images on the video to go with it, to really do a 360° introduction. We had a lot of questions about the yellow vests at some point…
On The Move: Because this song arrives in France at a time where it echoes with our current social issues…
Barry Moore: Yes, it’s pure coincidence because I mean, I’m not very politically involved, more from a societal perspective it concerns me but even thought it can intertwine, I prefer not to go onto things like that. But that was just actually because in my factory, where I worked, you had to wear that yellow jacket, it was a big factory and you could get injured if you didn’t have one, you know. And it was also very convenient to be seen, but in general, yeah, it is more a reference to my upbringing in Drogheda.
On The Move: You’re working on the production with Maxim Nucci (known in the music industry as Yodelice) in the Spookland Records label. Is there one specific lesson you learned from him?
Barry Moore: Hum stop… At one point, you have to stop asking yourself questions and doubting yourself. When you work on an album, you work with a producer, maybe other songwriters and sound engineers. There are so many people involved in the process, everybody is gonna have a little bit of frustration at the end because it’s not 100 % controlled by yourself you know. The one thing I learned from Max is to stop asking myself questions and that « Less is more ». Because when I was doing my productions and bringing them to him, my skeletons and examples of songs, he found that I was overdoing it. The basic melodies were there but he asked « Why did you add 3 guitars there? And 4 drums here?» He stripped it
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
back and added kind of a layer of post-production that brought it into more of an electro-pop urban area whereas as we were when I met him three years ago. I was very much Ed Sheeran first album folk guitar and singing, you know. But he saw something in my music that could occupy a bigger sound space. That’s the direction we took then!
On The Move: That’s how your tracks work very well both acoustically and on their studio versions.
Barry Moore: But all the tracks work, we can adapt it both ways. I suppose the evolution that we’ve done between – because this is a second or third list of tracks for an EP that we’ve had because we keep changing and chopping things and reproducing things. The first album Ed Sheeran put out – I think « + » - was very stripped back and this is before he met his producer, his Pharrell. Yodelice, if you want, that’s my Pharrell (laugh). As he brought me from this specific sound – which had the main ingredients – but he brought it up to the next level. So, I definitely couldn’t have done it alone. And I’ve learned alone in this process as well.
On The Move: You’ve just talked about the selection of tracks featured in your debut EP « Lost Boys » . So, what can we expect from this body of work? Why did you choose this four among others?
Barry Moore: We kinda go back to the reason why we picked « Hey Now » and the way that we clipped the video. These four songs probably give enough of a taste of a few directions because we got some songs that are more reggae, some songs that are more Rock’N’roll, some songs that are more rap, some songs that could be even ballads you know. We didn’t wanna do an EP of four tracks that were completely different because then, nobody could have a real idea of who I am and what was coming then, later. We tried to pick four tracks that stayed quite in the same universe so that we can give a consistent view of what it is first. But on the album, I think we’re gonna let ourselves go a bit crazier. And you know, pick some crazy songs that just wouldn’t have made sense for the EP. But hopefully if things go well for the EP, we can allow ourselves to do things a bit more crazily and carefree.
On The Move: We must say our favorite track on the EP is « The Little Things », because its structure isn’t exactly the usual radio-friendly one. We especially like the last part after around 2:40, which is very hybrid and kind of futuristic. A lot of elements mingle. Can you talk a bit about its making?
Barry Moore: That would be where Maxim Nucci and Julien Martinez really brought their contribution, in that area. The basic melody was there, the lyrics were there, the structure was there, brought by myself but this ending, we did not have it. We started doing tests with voice distortion and stuff like that. We had been hoping for something that really goes from a ballad into something quite electro – that could actually be « mis en scène ». That makes it a bit more realistic for the festivals and big concerts. It wouldn’t have been something that I would have been able to do myself. My original song finishes at 2:40 you know, but then, working with these guys was great. We could spend hours changing one thing or we could change 10 things in a minute. I had my doubts about how we were working at those little things at the time but now, it’s actually one of my favorite songs. It’s also one of the only introspective ballads that we have. So, it provides a bit of relief among those big tracks, as well.
On The Move: You had a life that was constantly moving, as you explained it earlier. The cultures and musical fields are different from here to there. Did it impact your own sound in a way?
Barry Moore: I started writing a few songs in Spanish when I was living in Spain, and in French as well. I think more than influencing directly my musical tastes, it more introduced me to new music and new groups that I didn’t understand the language before so I wouldn’t have been interested in. We can talk about an artist saying « this is the french Bob Dylan, and this is the Spanish one » and that created a reference in my head. I suppose in every country that I went to, I performed in the streets so it gave me a good insight into the people and the way they appreciate music. In London for example, in Camden, you would think it’s the most perfect place to go and play music whereas it’s more considered a social good that’s provided by artists. If you go to Camden, there are streets performances so you’re not going to make a big buzz or earn your salary for the week. Whereas in small towns like Salamanca in Spain, you can spend an hour
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
and completely clean up, you know. So you just get to see, I suppose, the side of people in different cultures and towns, how open they are or how they interact with each other. It probably gives you a globalized view of how they relate to music, or not.
On The Move: Talking about performances, you’ve opened for Jain in the past months, in venues all over France. Is it hard to win over a crowd in such venues compared to your street gigs?
Barry Moore: It is actually quite similar to busking. When you open a concert you know, people are not there for you, they don’t expect you, they are not waiting for you. In one way, it might be hard to get their attention out to begin with. But in another way, it can be quite exciting that if you actually make an impact then you know you are going in the right direction. And Jain’s fans are just music lovers, they love a good time, they love music, they represent all generations so it’s not like playing concerts for a heavy metal band where you need to play the right genre of music. They’re just open to everything so even though it’s considered « ok, it’s right, you’re doing Zeniths straight away ! » I’m like « yeah, but they were really nice Zeniths » because Jain attracts very great crowds. In that way, we were very lucky!
On The Move: What can we expect from you in the following months?
Barry Moore: So, we had this EP released and the tour with Jain. This summer is more about festival stages. Musilac, Jazz à Montreux, Europavox, Aluna Festival and others. So most of them are my own act, so it’s the first time that I’m not opening, I’m playing 45-50 minute sets with my musicians, that’s for me, you know. So that’s a new experience as well. At the moment, there are only 4 songs on the EP and we have to do a set of 9-10 tracks so we test unheard materials. We have 6 extras, a cover or 2 as well and then 3 or 4 tracks that will hopefully come out with the album. I hope we’ll also be able to clip a new track in the near future, to be decided which track. Then, hopefully, we’ll be back with a full album in October. We wanted to release at list 4 tracks now, because we got a good response from « Hey Now » and we’re having a lot of promo and a lot of gigs at the moment so, we knew that we had to provide something to the people that are following us at the moment. It’s a taster, it can be frustrating to have just 4 songs, it’s frustrating for me. I’m like « Ok you’ve heard that, but just wait ‘till you hear the next one, the next one is gonna be great ! » But in that way as well, that’s part of the creative process. In my head, it’s always the next one that’s gonna be the best. It’s the hardest part to synthetize definitely, because we have a lot of material at the moment, we could make 3 albums you know!
Barry Moore by Nazym Hermouche exclusively for On The Move
On The Move: Did Jain give you some advice?
Barry Moore: At the beginning yeah, and she still does. We actually talk quite a lot now, I started doing concerts with her back in 2017. Back at the time yeah, her and her musicians – she was on stage with musicians at the time – plenty of people in the team and everybody was always there to help because I was completely lost, I didn’t know where the ears were, where the cables were and stuff like that. So, she was very nice from the beginning. All of her team was very nice and helpful from the beginning so in that way, even though it was a baptism of fire, it went very well thanks to them. I was surrounded by the right people, I guess.
INTERVIEW BY CORALINE BLAISE // PHOTOS BY NAYZM HERMOUCHE
