After releasing their debut album earlier this year, Irish five-piece Little Green Cars have been taking the world by storm. The debut is a collection of songs the group has been working on since their high-school years and in a bizarre way, captures the innocence of their youth while simultaneously exploring the brooding side of ‘growing up’. The captivating music Little Green Cars are responsible for is a perfect mix of both folk and rock, whilst lyrically delving into the world of love, loss and life as the 20-year-old Irish folk they are. 

For the first time in history, the band recently visited our shores to play at the one and only Splendour in the Grass Festival. During their visit we’re told they played an impressive run of shows alongside Daughter, with word on the street saying they were nothing short of spectacular. We spent a little time with Stevie and Faye from the band and despite a battling whole lotta’ jetlag, it was a nice time. Read on.

S // Stevie
F // Fay

SW // How does it feel to be so far away from home playing music to countless adoring fans?

S // It’s kind of scary, kind of exciting. It feels weird to think about being this far from home. Because in a weird way there’s no turning back now! You know how when someone goes into a major operation where they don’t know if they’re going to survive or not and then the gas goes on and they’ve got 5 seconds left of memory before they drift off… It kind of feels like that!

SW // Your debut release, Absolute Zero, was released earlier this year and I understand it was quite a while in the making. Can you tell me a bit about the story behind it?

S // It was recorded in about a month but we were writing it for three or four years. We had four weeks to record so just made a point of condensing all the material into that time.

F // We’d been writing music since we were teeny-weeny – or trying too – so there comes a point every now and then that someone will bring something to the table that lifts things up a few notches where you’re like, “that’s fucking good.” Because of that process it bumps the standard up and because we’ve been doing this for a while it meant that the stuff that didn’t meet the higher standards were eliminated for us automatically, it was completely natural.

S // When we first started being a band we never really played any shows, just wrote and demoed our music. That was for about 3 years before we played a bunch of shows. I guess in that period we just never really felt like it was ready, always like there was a little bit extra for us to go. So when it came time to start recording, there were only about 2 tracks on there that were on the original album sheet. It changed so many times. And because of how long it took, the songs matured as we matured. But now that its done I think in a way its nice to put all those thoughts to bed. 

SW // How does a song generally come to be?

S // Me and Faye will usually write the song on the acoustic guitar or just write down the idea together and bring it to everyone else. We’ve always thought that the songs are quite emotional and emotions can be ugly, ugly things. So the struggle is to try and dial them up to the right place. We came into the studio with these ugly ‘monsters’ and had to put them through a make-over process so that they’d be accessible to the rest of the world! 

SW // Over your time together as a band, has their been a highlight moment?

 F // They just keep coming! One thing will happen then before you know it another will come along and surpass it. And each time that happens its hard to remember what the last awesome thing was! 

S // When we were in the studio there was a man-made lake with a tiny little boat on it. We decided to all go out on the boat for a sail, but managed to sink it in the middle of the lake. That’s probably the funniest thing I’ve ever experienced.

F // It was just one of those really gratifying moments, you know?

SW // How about a ‘wildest tour moment’?

S // There was one time Faye brought a completely mad woman back stage. I’d fallen lifting an amp earlier and really hurt my back in the process.

F // She was a chiropractor. 

S // Apparently… 

F // It made perfect sense to me at the time! 

S // She ‘adjusted’ me.

F // Pretty roughly, and I have a great video of it.

SW // What music are you guys listening to at the moment? Do you think that influences what you create?

F // I’ve never really found that. Its one thing that just doesn’t happen for me. I’ve never consciously tried to emulate something else I’ve heard. I mean, I wish I could. Imagine listening to something you love and being able to make something just like it. Creating music for us is almost therapeutic, so it just comes out. Maybe that’s lazy, riding off our emotions but I mean between the five of us we listen to such a wide range of music.

S // I grew up with a strange mix of music but have always really loved folk. My dad was a classical pianist, my brother was really into punk music and I was into folk. You’d go from one room to the other in my house and all of a sudden be listening to Slayer, listening to Chopin then to Woody Guthrie and back to Rachmaninoff then into The Misfits… So I had this weird three-headed-beast of music surrounding me! 

F // And I guess I was a massive Queen fan from too young of an age, although not sure you can ever be too young for Queen. But its all the kind of stuff that you’re parents listen too and you can’t really escape it! I remember some of the first things I ever played on guitar were Queens of the Stone Age riff’s.