McMorrow proves to be an early morning riser

WHAT happens when you withdraw to an isolated seaside cottage for six months with little more than your instruments, a microphone and your own recording equipment? Well, if you’re James Vincent McMorrow, the result is the atmospheric Early in the Morning. Doused in his soaring, sorrowful voice, the Dubliner’s debut album has won critical acclaim and commercial success and songs from it will feature prominently when McMorrow plays the Róisín Dubh on Friday, as part of the Galway Arts Festival.
Released here and in Britain in 2010, Early in the Morning was shortlisted for this year’s Choice Music Prize, the Irish equivalent of the Mercury Prize. Songs from the album have featured in the TV series’ Parenthood and Grey’s Anatomy and, in May, James made his British TV debut when he appeared on Later…with Jools Holland. It’s been a hectic couple of years for the Malahide man.
In the autumn of 2007, James’ demo – the first songs he had ever written – sent managers and music publishers into a frantic chase for his signature. After deciding on EMI, McMorrow moved to London with an open mind about the album he might make but his record label had very specific ideas. They had decided how they wanted him to sound and his future course. Frustrated with his lack of control, McMorrow split from EMI and returned to Dublin at the end of 2008.
James has said that in retrospect his problems with the record label were two-fold as he joined EMl before he was ready and was naïve about the workings of the music industry. More significantly, he felt restricted by the way the label sought to push him down a set path.
When the Dubliner withdrew to the deserted cottage on the east coast, he dispensed with plans and, instead, focused on experimenting. He intentionally removed himself from almost all distractions. When not writing or playing music, he read or ran on the beach. That he emerged with an album was almost a surprise to him.
In the past, James has said that the record took six months to make and every day he tried as many different things as he could to see what would work. “All the time I chipped away at it and, in the initial stages, it was a little bit torturous. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I went off with the idea of just trying to figure out what I actually wanted to make. I didn’t approach it with the notion of making a record.”
The evolution of Early in the Morning reflects James’ attitude to song writing. He doesn’t start with big ideas or themes but prefers to follow his instincts. He has compared his way of writing to another art, saying, “It’s probably quite like sculpting, you have a chisel and you know what’s waiting for you inside the stone. All that’s left is to chip away the pieces and reveal it.”
While the intimacy and sparseness of the album’s lyrics seem rooted in the manner of its recording, the singer cites the novelists Roald Dahl, John Steinbeck and F Scott Fitzgerald as the main influences on his song writing.
Since the album’s release in the US at the start of this year, the singer has played at the prestigious SXSW festival in Austin, Texas and has toured the American Mid-West and West Coast. When when he first started playing shows, the Dubliner felt very awkward onstage. It was only after supporting Tracy Chapman on her UK and European tour in 2009 that James appreciated that live performance is a completely different discipline to making music.
He still gets anxious before a show but has said that playing songs from Early in the Morning eases the strain.
James Vincent McMorrow plays the Roisin Dubh on Friday as part of the Galway Arts Festival.