March, 2021. Everyone misses gigs right now. Bands miss gigs. Punters miss gigs. Venues miss gigs. That grubby old soundman who you didn’t think was paying attention during soundcheck? He misses gigs. The Clockworks have reason to feel even more aggrieved by the whole sorry scenario. The Irish quartet were just building up a head of steam when the world pulled its shutters down over 12 months ago. Over the previous year, they’d supported Kings Of Leon and sold-out their first London headline show, they’d been back to Ireland for a triumphant set at Electric Picnic Festival and performed a hometown heroes show at Galway’s Róisín Dubh venue.
But James McGregor (vocals, guitar), Sean Connelly (guitar), Tom Freeman (bass) and Damian Greaney (drums) did not let the curtailing of live music put a dampener on their progress. Instead, The Clockworks have used lockdown to take their rattling anthems to the next level. “One good thing that came from not playing live is we weren’t writing songs to play live, we were writing songs to be creative,” says Connelly.
Their new single Feels So Real sums up the electrifyingly good nick that The Clockworks find themselves in at the beginning of 2021. A clattering blend of defiant hooks, searing guitar lines, rhythmic precision and sharp lyricism, it presents a band on the cusp of a big breakthrough. After a run of impressive early singles, The Clockworks have honed their sound down to the vital ingredients, no fat, nothing superfluous, everything you hear on it is there because it needs to be there. It is a feat of musical engineering from four people who have spent so long in each other’s time they have become simpatico. McGregor’s words blur the lines between the mundane and fantastical, crafting something universal out of life’s small print. “The whole song is the idea of walking across Waterloo Bridge as the sun is setting to meet someone and what you see on the way,” he explains. “The lyrics are that thought process, that stream of consciousness.”
The song came together over one pivotal rehearsal, the exhilarating urgency of a band in the midst of a hot streak. “The whole thing was, like, slap dash, just to get it down,” says McGregor, “then we realised that 90% of the song was done.” “We’ve played together for so long, we’re able to work very quickly,” adds Greaney. “We’re all trying to write the best song, not the best part.”
The band met in Galway City as they were all turning from teenage dreamers into adventurous free-spirits determined to make a living as musicians. From nearby Loughrea, schoolfriends McGregor, Connelly and Greaney had already been playing together for a few years at that point – after school, at weekends, whenever they could. They had turned their backs on the thriving local metal scene and bonded over a love of The Smiths, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys and more, enamoured by great indie poets past and present. From Alex Turner and Morrissey, they became pupils of lyrics as melancholic medicine and adolescent storytelling. From Pete and Carl, meanwhile, they were schooled in the glorious honour of being part of a gang. None of that quite chimed with Loughrea’s metal scene, though, so they upped sticks and moved to, if not the big city, then the nearest medium-sized one: Galway. There, they recruited Freeman into the crew and The Clockworks took shape. In Freeman, they’d found a kindred spirit who was all-in.
“Galway is a very artsy, musical, liberal and creative place, for sure,” says Freeman, “but there aren’t that many people who would have wanted to do what we are doing now. The three of them found someone who wanted to do music 100%, as a lifestyle, as a career, and I found them. And I don’t think I knew anyone else in Galway who would’ve wanted it.”
All living together under one roof, their lives became a blur of gigs, clubs, pubs and nocturnal gallivanting, all the while perfecting their songcraft, their formative indie sound now giving way to something harder and more intense. “Our songs have developed over time,” says McGregor. “I think it’s a lot tauter, tighter and more immediate now. I think we felt subconsciously we could push that edginess up a little bit more.” They were beginning to add new inspirations to the pot – the powerful surge of The Walkmen, the lithe grooves of Interpol – and a track they’d written called Bills And Pills set a new standard for them, a sonic blueprint from which to work. “It ended up being our first single with Creation,” says McGregor. “It was a watershed moment for us, simple but not simplistic, more intense. It was a breakthrough for us, like ‘this is a place we can go’.” They ticked off local goals – to headline the small room at Galway’s Róisín Dubh (done, sold-out), to headline the big room at Galway’s Róisín Dubh (done, sold-out) – and realised it was time to move to London.
Once there, they would plot and scheme, eke out a route forward. But the plotting and scheming hadn’t even begun when Alan McGee demanded to come and watch them rehearse. “Damian hadn’t even moved over yet,” laughs Connelly. “We didn’t have a house yet. We hadn’t played a gig yet. I’d sent Alan an Instagram message with Bills And Pills and he got in touch straight away. It really validated our feelings for making the move, like, ‘we can do it’.”
That came out on McGee’s label Creation23 at the tailend of 2019, and they followed it up with a string of captivating singles on the label throughout 2020: The Future Is Now What It Was, Stranded In Stansted, Can I Speak To A Manager and Enough Is Never Enough, each one a leap forward, more lean and vital than the last. “I’m trying to write about the everyday and the particular,” says McGregor. “If you describe the particular well enough, if it’s done well and right, it can create something universal. If you can combine humour and tragedy, it’s powerful.”
Feels So Real is the beginning of the next chapter for The Clockworks as they set their sights on their debut full-length. “We’ve really allowed ourselves to commit to what we’re good at,” says McGregor. “Whether that’s a good chorus or a great part, we’ve learned to bring it out as opposed to burying the more beautiful aspects of the songs.” The Clockworks are about to make a big leap forward.