Take-off time again: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2006/01/22 > Take-off time again

Take-off time again
Sunday, January 22, 2006 - By Nadine O'Regan
Bell X1 have always made the prettiest, and most frustrated, of bridesmaids.

Since the mid-1990s, the Irish band has reached for the stars, only to find the stars constantly circumnavigating them. First, the Bellies were best known as the group Damien Rice fronted before he left to take his soul-scorched brand of folk music to David Letterman, Renee Zellweger and the world. Then they became ‘‘that Irish band’’ responsible for soundtracking the first kiss between Marisa and her girlfriend Alex on the hit television series The OC.

Their song, Eve, the Apple of my Eye, could - and should - have broken them in America, but since their album, Music in Mouth, hadn’t been released in the US, Bell X1 couldn’t capitalise on its success.

Back in Ireland, talk show hosts were having trouble even getting their name right.

Eamon Dunphy called them Bell Life on his television show. Pat Kenny, meanwhile, introduced them to RTE viewers as Bell Eleven.

Far from living up to their namesake - Bell X1 was the moniker of the aircraft that broke the sound barrier - the band were having trouble just getting heard. ‘‘It was quite a struggle for a long time,” says guitarist Dave Geraghty, ‘‘but now it feels like a cloud has lifted.”

It’s about time too: popular recognition for the band is long overdue. But three albums into their career, it seems as though Geraghty, frontman Paul Noonan, guitarist Brian Crosby and bassist Dominic Phillips have finally picked their way through the tunnel and emerged, blinking, into the light.

Their latest opus, Flock, debuted at number one in the Irish charts. Glowing reviews, Meteor and Choice Music Prize nominations swiftly followed. It might be premature to say Bell X1 have donned that nice white dress - Flock is not released in the all-important British market until March - but a move towards the altar is looking increasingly likely.

It’s a success that has been achieved against the backdrop of significant pressure.

The rumour mill had been working overtime, suggesting that the band’s record company Island planned to drop them if they failed to deliver the hits.

Ensconced in the Library Bar in Dublin, Geraghty (30), and Noonan (31), admit they felt the heat of battle at certain points. But they never let the pressure get to them.

‘‘There’s a man in a suit at a desk looking at figures, and he scrolls across the page and sees Bell X1,” Geraghty starts. ‘‘He could be naked from the waist down,” Noonan proffers. ‘‘And wearing a feather boa,” Geraghty grins. That’s the bogeyman silenced, then.

‘‘When you try to write something that’s more commercial than you would naturally write, it rings hollow,” Noonan says. ‘‘There’s nothing wrong with huge success, but when you write with that in mind, it can all go bad.”

Their attitude to their third album was determinedly head-down and focused.

‘‘We had more of an idea of what we wanted to do before we did it,” says Noonan. ‘‘We wanted to make a record that was more muscular, that captured a more adolescent side that we had found hard to do before.”

The fruit of their labours - what Noonan calls ‘‘an album with a better trouser line’’ - is a beguiling, occasionally brilliant offering, a collection of gripping singles and potential singles (Flame, Bigger than Me, Reacharound), alongside mellifluous slow-burners like Trampoline and Lampposts.

Although musically you can hear their influences – PJ Harvey and Talking Heads loom large - lyrically, Bell X1 are miles removed from anyone.

Rocky Took A Lover opens thus: ‘‘He said: ‘I want to shine in the eye of Orion, but I drove my soul through the black hole.’ She said: ‘That’s a wonderful way to wake me. You weren’t so nice last night. You’re such an asshole when you’re drunk.’ He said: ‘At least I’m okay in the mornings.’”

The song documents the life of a homeless man Noonan knew when he lived in Smithfield with Crosby.

Every day, Noonan would look out of his window and see Rocky, a former boxer, who slept in the laneway behind their house.

‘‘He was a courteous, funny guy when sober, but a monster when he was drunk,” Noonan says. One morning, my flatmate looked out the window, and Rocky had scored. He was there with a lady.

‘‘When they got up, Rocky set up a mirror on an electricity box in the laneway, and shaved. He was obviously making an effort. It was very sweet.”

As his widely-focused songwriting approach suggests, Noonan does not conform to the stereotype of the egocentric rock star. Most talkative when not being asked directly about himself, Noonan pulls off the knotty feat of being extremely likable while remaining fairly inscrutable.

Geraghty is more intense, but equally good company.

Together, they are a strong double-act - both in concert and in person.

During their first gig as Bell X1, Noonan and Geraghty performed a Damien-inspired rendition of I Know Him So Well. ‘‘Were you Barbara and I was Elaine?’’ Noonan grins to Geraghty.

‘‘People thought it was a bit ...” He imitates a cat paw striking the air.

Ah yes, the Damien question.

Has his ghost finally been chased away? Perhaps interviewers no longer even mention the subject?

‘‘Everyone brings it up,” Noonan says, affecting a tone of deep gloom. But the band’s party line on the subject is always the same: yes, the band were upset at the time. They did want to make a Juniper album. But they’ve moved on and they wish Damien all the best.

Watching Noonan on stage during the band’s recent tour, it seemed astonishing that this man had ever been imprisoned behind a drum kit (Noonan was the drummer in Juniper, their previous, Rice-fronted, incarnation).

Noonan’s hips wriggled across the stage. He writhed.

He jiggled. In the toilets, I witnessed total strangers uniting to breathlessly craft love songs, not to mention sonnets, in the man’s honour.

‘‘My father was always a lunatic dancer and he maintains I got it from him,’’ Noonan smiles wryly, when I bring up his stage routine.

‘‘You see performances like, say, early Bowie performances or even PJ Harvey or Nick Cave.

‘‘They’re very theatrical and can look almost ridiculous.

“But when somebody is truly lost in the performance, you overlook that. It becomes a magnetic thing.”

Surprisingly, Noonan’s tap-tapping feet are not what the website Eyebrowy has chosen to parody in its animated sketches of Irish musicians.

Instead, it’s Noonan’s liking for lyrics that refer to the Bible. In the cartoons, when the Celbridge musician isn’t in a straitjacket, he’s busy bouncing around the place with the good book. ‘‘It’s brilliant.

“It’s an honour to be included in it,’’ Noonan grins.

It’s also an indication of how central Bell X1 has become to the Irish musical landscape. From unpromising beginnings, the band has morphed into one of Ireland’s most interesting musical propositions.

Whatever happens with Island - ‘‘we are their bitches,” Noonan says, ‘‘we’ll make another album [with them] as long as they want us to make one’’.

Bell X1 say they will continue to make music. ‘‘We’re playing sell-out shows, we’re making headway,” says Geraghty.

‘‘We were booked to play the RDS and I was still pinching myself when I heard it had sold out.”

Who knows? Geraghty and company might have to get used to living the dream.

Bell X1 play at the RDS, Dublin, January 31 and at the Meteor Awards at the Point Depot, Dublin, on February 2.