Interview – Of All Living Things
by Killian Laher

No More Workhorse recently interviewed the Dublin band of all living things.  The band consists of CamTeehan (drums), Cian McDaid (guitar, backing vocals), Danilo Ward (bass, backing vocals), and Eunice Saraiva (guitar, vocals). You can read the results below…

Can you tell me a bit about how you guys got together?

Cam Teehan (CT): Yeah, well, we’ve all met in college, BIMM Dublin, about four years ago, and we’ve pretty much been going since then. We kind of took it slow at the start. I think taking our time at the start kind of paid off. The last two years or so have been a lot busier for us. Between all being in college all at the same time and kind of networking through there, all of our shows came from there and all of our rehearsals took place there. We spent a lot of time together in the early days and that’s paid off today. That’s why we’re in the position that we are today, just based on all the time that we spent together early on in college.

Was the band always called of all living things?

CT: No, that name came about pretty much with our first EP, really. We kind of took it as like a rebrand almost. Before that, we were called nicetry, and we were called nicetry for three years, I guess. When we were recording that, it was brought to our attention there was another Nice Try in the US. During the recording process of the EP, we were brainstorming the whole time as well. We took it as an opportunity when we released that EP to showcase something brand new. The name of the EP is called it’s On Familiar Ground. We’ve been going as of all living things since October last year.

Eunice Saraiva (ES): More than a year. It feels strange because we’ve been together for a while, but that version of the band has only been around for a year or so.

Can you tell me about your musical influences?

ES: We listen to a lot of 90s alternative rock, Yo la Tengo is a band that we like a lot. It’s hard with influences because it’s not like we talk about it too much. It’s not like we’re trying to mimic any band, but we do listen.

Cian McDaid (CMcD): Me and Cam are also big into hip hop and stuff, which doesn’t probably come out in the music.  A few of us also like ambient music.  Bands in the 90s are definitely an influence.

ES: We all had our own personal kind of paths until we met. We’re all songwriters in our own way, so we all experience music differently. When we come together, we bring so many different things to create the music that sounds like us. It’s not like we all come from the same background, so there’s not an obvious sound.  It’s just the combination of all of our sounds and the way we interpret music, which is pretty cool.

CMcD: The process has kind of changed over the years. It was initially Eunice’s project, and she would bring in the songs and we would just arrange them together. We would add our own parts and maybe change them a little bit. But now we have a new approach in the past year – just starting from scratch or sometimes just jamming out ideas or maybe Danilo will bring a bassline or whatever.

It must have been difficult the last couple of years to have a band in any way, because doing shows was tricky, if not impossible.

ES: We actually got quite lucky because before COVID we started renting a rehearsal space, so then we would just go to rehearsal places and rent them for the hours we were there. But for more than a year now, we have this room that is ours, that we pay every month, during lockdown, for three years. We can come here whenever and kind of enables us to write a lot and rehearse a lot, which is great.

Have you done many gigs (apart from the bdrmm tour)?

CT: This year was definitely our busiest year. We went on a five-day tour around Ireland and we’ve had a couple of support slots and we played Electric Picnic this year as well. We kind of rode the wave of EP for a while with a tour and a couple of support slots. Definitely over the last year was the most we played.  In the early days, we could go probably four or five months without playing a show because we were so focused on writing new music. We kind of pick and choose the shows, the ones that we want to do and the ones that we think will kind of benefit us. But I think in terms of headlines, we’ve done probably only two and only one under this new name as well.

What are your future plans?

ES: I think we’re all big album heads. We love albums, we love listening from start to finish. It’s a dream of ours to make a really good record, so now that’s what we want to do. We’ve just been writing as much as we can and once we have a good amount of songs we’re proud of, then we can think about recording. We have the team that we’ve worked with so far, so it’s just a matter of getting the songs.

CMcD: We’re in a writing period at the moment. We were in it before, but then we got the bdrmm gigs, so we’re coming into the room a few days a week and just getting songs written. That’s kind of the plan.

ES: At the end of the day, the four of us are the team. And we have so many friends and people that are great at their jobs that we love working with. But we’re together. We make the decision when it comes to that, but we’re happy to do what we can the four of us. And we love being an independent band.

When do you think an album might come out?

ES: We definitely want to record early next year, so by end of summer, autumn hopefully, that would be the goal. But also we’re very precious on how we do things and if it needs to take two years to have the album that we like, it will take two years.

Do you think music is in a healthy state these days?

ES: From my experience, yeah. Like, even in the summer, we’re playing in Limerick in this festival called Féile na Gréine.  They do it all themselves and they find funding from the government and they have volunteers. And I think there are a lot of communities and people ready to put in the hours and the love into the industry. A lot of great people.

Danilo Ward: We were also doing Ireland Music Week. It’s 50 of the hottest bands in Ireland. It’s just really nice to be at an event like that and see all the other great bands around, and everyone’s lovely!

CMcD: I don’t know what communities are like in other cities, but I do like the vibe in Dublin. I think there’s a nice scene here and I think as well, it still just seems like everybody wants to go to things. So the live music industry is pretty good right now.

ES: We love playing with bands and we love meeting bands, and the bdrmm show was a good way to do that.  Just get to know a band that comes from a different background and see how they work. And obviously, they’ve been around longer than us so we can learn from them. We’re writing the album, but we’re always aware of bands that are coming into town, so if we see a band that we like their music and we want to get to know them, we’re always pitching ourselves for that stuff. Just trying to pick cool shows, meet nice people, get inspired and write music is pretty much our goal for the year.

You can find of all living things here.