Interview with Adrian Crowley – Part 1
by Killian Laher

No More Workhorse spent some time with Adrian Crowley to catch up with him about what he’s working on. You can find out more about Adrian on his website here.

No More Workhorse: How are you?

Adrian Crowley: Not bad. Just been writing and working ridiculously hard and I’m looking forward to going down west for a while.

NMW: Is Galway where you’d call home?

AC: I grew up just outside Galway, so I suppose so. I’ve been living here (Dublin) longer than I’ve lived anywhere. But when I go away for long times, for long stretches of time, I suppose I miss Galway Bay.

NMW: Did you grow up near the sea?

AC: Yeah. I’m always thinking about how it changes every day and growing up right in front of it, every day it looked different. It’s almost like looking into your inner self when you’re looking at the sea. I really got into cinema and I always think of it (the sea) as like some kind of Andrei Tarkovsky image.

NMW: So is that where you started getting into music first?

AC: I suppose we all love music, I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t. But at that time, as a teenager, I hadn’t imagined that I would have thrown myself into it the way I have. I was consumed by it. In class, the career guidance teacher on Friday afternoon, when he asked, what do you think you’re going to be? I had no idea I was going to have a life in music, but I was still totally distracted by it.

NMW: Any particular artists hit you hard growing up?

AC: Right back then, it was definitely David Bowie. There were only two other guys in my class who listened to him and discovered that they liked him. It was like finding your little circle and that’s the way music resonates. You find this kinship through music with other people. It’s a really beautiful thing.

NMW: You’ve a long solo career, but were you in any bands before that, or was it all solo?

AC: When I moved to Dublin, I went to gigs all the time and loved it so much.  I met people in bands, friends were in bands. The bands lived their life and then they went their separate ways and other people would start up their solo music career after having lived through the experience of being in the band. But I didn’t come from there, I didn’t have a band as this sort of breeding ground. It wasn’t something that I could shoot off as a tributary from, it was always a solitary thing for me. I knew that that’s what I wanted to do but I wasn’t too sure if I was ready. But I went for it anyway. It was quite challenging. Right across the laneway, there was one of the first places I ever played for people. There used to be a club there called the DA Club and it was open late, I played there a few times.

NMW: Have you been collaborating more in recent years?

AC: There’s so much stuff that does happen like that. In 2015, I was invited to participate in a Yeats project to take some poetry of his and set it to music.  A few years before that, I would have ran away from the idea. But I had got to the stage where these kind of challenges felt, not only were they interesting sounding, it felt like something that could be an adventure and could discover something that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Also, other people are involved, and there’s nothing like a spark that happens when a couple of people get together and they don’t really know what they’re going to do, but something happens. I’ve really got into that sort of chemistry. It’s an elusive thing, and you’re guided by your instinct. But that was my first time.

That’s how I met Thomas Bartlett, he was leading that project. At the end of the week, he said, would you like to come to New York to make a record? It was a beautiful thing to realise that having an open spirit and approaching something in the right way and for the right reasons can lead to that. It’s a reward, I suppose. That is what it is. The work is its own reward. You hear that a lot. I agree. That is the first reward. But it’s beautiful when things grow out of an experience like that, so I value it. Then I always go back to my room alone and work on something new for myself and it’s informed by what I’ve just experienced.

Part 2 of the Interview will be published soon…