Kodaline lead singer Steve Garrigan tells David Hennessy about his struggle with anxiety and depression, why the band owe so much to Dolores OâRiordan and the Cranberries and about how the band were shocked and saddened when a 17-year-old fan collapsed at one of their shows and later died.
Since bursting onto the scene in 2013 with their debut album In A Perfect World which boasted hits like All I Want and High Hopes, Kodaline have established themselves as one of Irelandâs best bands.
From the beginning, there was a buzz around the four-piece from Dublin with revered industry figures like Fearne Cotton and Alex James saying they were one to watch. Soon their tracks were picked up by shows and films like Greyâs Anatomy and The Fault in our Stars.
Their sophomore album Coming Up for Air, featuring tracks like Honest and Ready, would further cement their position while their last album Politics of Living, which had Brother, a powerful ballad accompanied by a heartbreaking video, was released in 2018. All three albums have topped the Irish chart and done well around the world.
We caught up with lead singer Steve Garrigan just as the band have released their latest single Wherever You Are and are preparing to release their fourth album.
Steve told The Irish World: âThe reaction has been pretty awesome. To be honest any time we release something weâre always pretty nervous because you canât impress everybody and you never really know how people are going to react but for the most part, everybodyâs been very positive and itâs been awesome.â
Wherever You Are has struck a chord with its message about missing loved ones: âI tend to write songs and we tend to write songs from personal places. There are a lot of messages on line that we see from fans saying, âThank you. This song means a lot to me, Iâm in a long distance relationshipâ.
âThat keeps coming up and funnily enough I actually wrote it about the difficulties of never seeing my girlfriend. We do tour non-stop.â
By producing it themselves, something they have never done before, the band have taken on extra responsibility and a greater challenge for their forthcoming album: âAt the moment the album feels about finished. We have a collection of songs that weâre really, really proud of and that we can stand behind and be confident about so weâre very excited to just release this. Weâre nervous and excited about its release, more excited I would say.â
Steve has opened up about his battle with anxiety and panic attacks and reveals that, despite its uplifting chorus, the song High Hopes came from a hopeless place: âIâve spoken openly about anxiety and depression. Ever since I was a teenager Iâve always had pretty bad anxiety and there was a stage where I had really bad depression as well. With cognitive behavioural therapy and talking about it with friends and family, I learned to get a handle on it but back when I was a teenager, nobody talked about it so I kept it quiet. Because I kept quiet about it I went through years of being miserable to be honest but that was just the way it was back then especially in Ireland, the kind of âsuck it up and everything will be grandâ type of attitude.
âBut itâs great to see that the whole attitude around mental health has come full circle, everybody seems to be open about it and a lot more can be done but weâll take any opportunity as a band to help out with mental health charities.â
You might not expect to hear a lead singer of a successful band speaking about mental health issues but this shows anybody can be affected: âIt doesnât discriminate. It can happen to anybody at any time. One in four people will have a mental health issue at some point in their lives and thatâs a known statistic so thatâs a big, big, big percentage of people. It doesnât really matter who you are. I think itâs pretty important to talk about it and be aware of how youâre feeling, how youâre dealing with stress and stuff like that.â
The Irish World remarks that lately even tough guys like Tyson Fury and Kilkenny hurler Eoin Larkin have been unafraid to open up about mental health: âPeople coming out and talking about it who are kind of in the limelight one way or another can only have a positive impact on younger people who are feeling lost and alone and have nowhere to turn seeing sports people and people in the limelight talking about it is a really, really positive thing. It can only have a positive impact.
âSome of our songs have come from places of anxiety and depression. The biggest one was one of our early songs High Hopes. I had had my first panic attack and I didnât know what it was and I kind of sat down to try and make sense in my own head what I was going through when I wrote that song. Thatâs kind of the power of music. That came from a struggle I was going through with anxiety at the time.â
At last yearâs Electric Picnic, Kodaline were joined onstage by The Cranberries guitarist Noel for a poignant performance of Zombie dedicated to the Cranberries singer Dolores OâRiordan who passed away in London just over two years ago. Steve explains that the band feel very thankful to The Cranberries as the Limerick band gave Kodaline their first stadium gigs as their support band back in 2012.
âIt was pretty crazy. I mean I remember feeling like a teenager again,â Steve says of that Electric Picnic performance.
âWeâre very grateful to Noel, Dolores and the rest of The Cranberries for giving us the opportunity to support them. That was the first big kind of tour that we ever did. We went from rehearsing in a little prefab that we had to playing these arenas around France absolutely shitting ourselves. It was a real sink or swim moment but we got through it and it was a big moment for us as a live band so weâre very grateful to the Cranberries and to be able to invite Noel onstage and dedicate a performance to Dolores, itâs very hard to put into words.
âYou know in Zombie when it kicks in with the heavy guitar? When that kicked in onstage, I remember just getting shivers and then just zoning out for a bit and forgetting where I was and feeling like I was 15 years old again in a jam room with the guys trying to make noise and then seeing this massive crowd in front of us and singing along.
âIt was definitely a highlight for us and the fact that we were able to do that and have Noel with us and dedicate it to Dolores is awesome. Iâm a little bit lost for words. I canât describe it. It was awesome. Itâs one of those âpinch meâ moments.
âIf it wasnât for the Cranberries giving us that show, I donât know if we would be where we are today. It was a lovely way to remember Dolores.
âThe Cranberries were and are still iconic. Their songs are timeless and theyâll stand the test of time. Even Zombie, that song was released in the 90s, there were 16 year olds up on peopleâs shoulders and every single person there was singing that song. Young and old, and it was mainly a young crowd, but they were all singing and that song was released in the 90s. That just proves how brilliant their songs are, theyâre amazing.â
The band were affected by their own tragedy when in 2016, a 17-year-old fan Ciara Lawlor from Kilkenny, collapsed and later died from an undiagnosed heart condition when the band played Marley Park. Steve remembers coming off stage on a high only to be brought crashing down to earth by the devastating news that a young girl had lost her life by coming to see them play.
âThat was our biggest headline show that we ever played and we were all just kind of on cloud nine and full of energy. After the show we came offstage and we were just high fiving each other and whatever and then a short while later our tour manager came in and said, âI wasnât going to tell you but I kind of feel itâs the right thing to do…â
âHe told us that a girl in the crowd passed away. We found out her name was Ciara, she was from Kilkenny. We kind of just stopped. It knocked us sideways. We didnât know what to do. There wasnât much that we could do.â
The track Angel, which is on the Politics of Living album, would become the bandâs tribute to Ciara: âA few days later we got into the studio, we wrote a song and sent it to the family to say, âOur hearts go out to them, that if thereâs anything we can do, there isnât much we can do but just weâre hereâ.
âBut the best thing we could have done really was write a song. They were blown away by the song and we werenât going to put it out or release it or anything.
âWe didnât want to talk about the whole thing for a good while. Anybody who asked us questions about it, we would avoid it but her mam and her family really wanted the song on the album. They wanted us to remember her and keep the memory of her alive in some way so we put the song on the album.
âLast year actually at a Dublin show we played that song and we had her picture up on the screen, a montage of her life and stuff, and it was dedicated to her family who were in the audience.
âItâs really, really sad and things like that kind of just happen and itâs really shit but her family are amazing, very strong and weâve kept very close with them.
âTheyâre always welcome at any show and all that. Itâs just a very sad thing to happen. She was there to have a good time and sing along with her friends and stuff and just out of the blue something like that happens. It puts a lot of things in perspective.â
Kodaline have come a long way since they were on Youâre A Star in 2006 under the moniker, 21 Demands. Last year the band did a huge tour of Asia when just how popular they were out there took the band by surprise: âIt really was surreal. Honestly before we went over, we didnât really know what to expect. We were like, âWill people even turn up? Do they know who we are?â And every show was sold out, one sold out in 30 seconds or something crazy like that. There were fans waiting at the airport. It was mad, it really caught us off guard.â
When the band were taking off, Steve told the audience at a packed London show how good it was to play to such a crowd, saying that they had done gigs with four people in the audience, anecdotally adding that two of them were from the support band.
âTo be honest I still have to pinch myself sometimes. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do what Iâm doing, to be a musician and songwriter and to just do that for a living. We all are, in the band, very, very grateful because it is difficult. Itâs not an easy industry to get into and for whatever reason we stuck at it and we were always extremely passionate about music and writing songs. We worked very hard but I think we also had that bit of luck that everybody needs.
âI mean to hear people singing back our songs is a feeling that I still canât put into words. Itâs an amazing feeling to know that weâve written songs that people listen to all the time and people love. Some are happy songs, some are sad songs but our biggest song All I Want has helped a lot of people in different ways. We get a lot of stories from our fans and to know that is amazing and just encourages us to keep writing and keep touring.â
Wherever the band goes in the world, they run into the Irish abroad: âThereâs something amazing about being Irish. Even outside the band if Iâm just travelling around or on a holiday or something and I run into somebody whoâs Irish and they know nothing about the band, you kind of have that instant connection whereas in other cultures, theyâre quite closed off. If they meet somebody whoâs from the same country, they wonât care but when an Irish person meets another Irish person on the other side of the world, itâs like, âOh my Gosh, youâre from Ireland. Wow, Jesus, thatâs amazingâ. And youâre best buds all of a sudden but itâs great.
âYou can spot an Irish person a million miles away. We get a lot of Irish people coming up to us around the world and we have a lot of cousins of cousins of cousins coming out of the woodwork and being like, âIâm your cousin, your grandma had a dog who once was adopted by somebody elseâ and all that stuff.
âEspecially from my generation, a lot of Irish people left to get jobs, a lot of friends we had back in school have moved abroad but weâre lucky because we tour so much we get to see them in different countries and catch up with them and all that which is really great that weâre able to do that. Thereâs Irish everywhere.â
Does Steve think he or his bandmates may have also had to leave recession time Ireland if they did not have the band? âWell, funnily we did leave. We went to Birmingham and then we lived in Brighton but itâs not far. I think weâre all home birds. If we didnât have the band, maybe because I remember there was a time when it was very difficult to get jobs and thatâs why a lot of friends moved abroad, particularly to Australia.
âI donât know. Maybe if we didnât have the band….â
Wherever You Are by Kodaline is out now and a new album is coming soon. kodaline.com/
