"If It All Falls Apart, At Least We Enjoyed It": An Evening With Kingfishr in Berlin
Irish folk band Kingfishr visited Berlin last Wednesday as part of their first headline tour. Before taking the stage, the trio sat down with The Unseen Magazine to discuss new music, Ireland, and their hopes for the future.
Kira: For those of our readers who might not know you guys yet, could you maybe introduce yourself and your part in the group?
Eddie: I’m Eddie and I sing.
Fitz: I’m Fitz, I play the guitar.
McGoo: I’m McGoo and I play the banjo.
Kira: How would you describe your sound to potential listeners?
Eddie: I suppose it started off as a kind of Irish-y… traditional… Irish traditional pop folk. Is that crazy?
Fitz: It’s probably pretty close, I would say.
McGoo: Yeah.
Eddie: You know, we started playing music because the community- in Ireland, it’s a very community-based thing. Especially traditional Irish music: McGoo plays the Banjo, he grew up doing that his whole life, so we all kind of found each other in college and learned to play just, like, covers of bands we liked. At house parties and stuff, like before and after nights out, and then from there, we started writing our own stuff, so it was all kind of Mumford & Sons, Dermot Kennedy, that kind of thing. The Killers- that kind of stuff. And here we are!
Kira: Now, before we get into more questions, congratulations are in order! You guys just announced your debut album “Halcyon”
Eddie: Terrifying.
Kira: And the Halcyon tour! First off, I want to talk about that title a little bit. Halcyon isn’t really a word we use a lot anymore.
Eddie: I was just gonna say, it’s not really common.
Kira: How’d that kind of come about?
Eddie: I saw it in a book, and I was like, “don’t know what that means.” I’m a bit of a- I like funny words like that. Like I’m always interested in what they are, where they come from… Etymology or whatever it's called. So, I saw that in a book, and I had seen it but never really paid attention to it as a word and didn’t really know what it meant, so I googled it. It’s basically just… like you would say “the halcyon days”, as in-
Fitz: Days you look back on fondly.
Eddie: Yeah. The good old days, essentially. But there’s a secondary meaning: It’s a kind of kingfisher, an African kingfisher, and I was kind of like “alright, that’s the whole thing.”
Kira: So that genuinely just happened afterwards, that you found out it’s also a kingfisher?
Fitz: Oh yeah, yeah.
Kira: That sentiment you just talked about, of idyllic times in the past, how would you say that’s reflected in the songs you’ve ultimately chosen to be on the record?
Eddie: I think, a lot of the songs that we write, or say, the material that comes from me, are about, like, times I’ve fucked up and you look back on it and you’re like “how did you make such a mess of that situation?” and its reflective on that and I find that maybe tunes- I write songs a lot like entries in a diary, or something. You’re essentially talking to yourself when you're writing them. It’s like when you’re going to sleep at night, and the last thing just before you're falling asleep, your brain is like, “Oh, remember this really embarrassing thing that you did? Like, five years ago, ten years ago?”. It’s that kind of thing, and a lot of the music is about that: Times you’ve messed up and having to move on from that, so “halcyon” is kind of a play on that, I guess. That maybe times were better back then, and you made a mess, but it's over, you know.
Kira: To kind of go into that, obviously there’s a lot of things happening for you guys right now: first headline tour, both Europe and the US, releasing the album, and then going on tour again. Do you guys find that you have the time to really relish all that or is this one of those moments you might look back on in the future and go “maybe that was halcyon”?
Eddie: Yeah, maybe this is halcyon! I think we’re… we’re probably-
Fitz: I’m certainly enjoying myself! Definitely. Like we just finished the first-ever American tour...
McGoo: Last week.
Eddie: Was that last week?
Fitz: That was probably one of the greatest months I think I’ve ever had. Maybe in a couple months’ time we’ll actually let it sink in as to how great it was, but I’m certainly enjoying it in the moment as well. I don’t think you can fully appreciate how good it was until you get maybe some time to think about it, which we haven’t had yet but- we will.
Eddie: Yeah, I’m sure.
Fitz: And so far, we have done things that were absolutely incredible, and then you get a couple of weeks off, like on Christmas or just a random time when things quiet down for a little bit, and you do get to appreciate it, and I think we’ve had those moments along the way. Thank God.
Kira: We talked about your sound a little earlier on: Are there any artists or people that you’d say have influenced you most along the way? Not just lyrically but also production-wise?
Eddie: Dermot, definitely. Dermot Kennedy., for a lot of the earlier stuff. I’ve always heard that a lot of artists when they come up, they will just copy the people they like and will, like, just shadow those people until they find something they can do that’s kind of unique. Like, A$AP Rocky just came up as a Kanye clone; The Kid LAROI was just a Justin Bieber clone, and they end up in a place where they branch out from that and do different things. So I definitely think that when we started, we kind of did that.
Fitz: Yeah, Dermot, and Mumford & Sons were probably two big ones.
Eddie: Definitely two big ones.
Fitz: I think U2 came into the mix as well.
McGoo: Yeah.
Fitz: Especially if you look at the songs, like, if you look at flowers-fire it starts quite small and it builds into this really big-
Eddie: It’s a whole thing…
Fitz: Kind of like those, yeah. So that’s probably where we started.
Eddie: But then it changes!
Fitz: Absolutely, and it has! I think we’ve started to figure out what maybe we want to be more so than what they were, I guess.
Eddie: Maybe, yeah. You play around! Like, right now, it’s very in vogue to be Irish. You’ve got like Fontaines and Paul Mescal, and Berry Keoghan- I guess we’ve been really lucky in that… that has kind of come on since we started. So, to be proud of being Irish or to be like seen as that thing and for it to be okay and for you to celebrate your identity, culturally. We’re very privileged to be able to do that. Imagine we were English and going around and being like “We’re English!”. Everyone would hate us! So it’s pretty fortunate we’re Irish and get to be happy about it, so that as well.
Kira: You said it yourself: Obviously, Ireland is a place where identity, song, and storytelling are very intertwined. Do you ever feel a sense of pressure to live up to that? To represent that in a way?
McGoo: I don’t think so. I think the Irishness in our music is quite organic. Songwriting is a very natural process, you know? I don’t think we try to be any more than what we are. It’s a huge privilege to be included as an Irish band, as an Irish artist, and that people can hear that in our music, but I wouldn’t say there’s ever any pressure, no.
Eddie: Probably not.
Fitz: Yeah, maybe not for that! There’s definitely pressure in different places, but I’ve never thought about it in that light anyway.
Eddie: Maybe there’s a bit of pressure to be the other thing.
Fitz: Yeah, to not be Irish.
Eddie: There’s a lot of like artist/bands who encapsulate a certain part of the culture in such a way that they are “just an Irish band” and they have amazing success at home and in certain places, but I suppose there’s a little bit of it. There’s a little bit of a pitfall for a lot of Irish bands, where, you know, you’re just seen as “The Irish Band”, the kind of token Irish band, so… But I don’t know, I feel like it’s hard, once you start thinking about those things too much-
Fitz: You’ll overanalyze it, and then it’s not organic, and if it’s not organic, then it doesn’t work.
Kira: Going into that, obviously, a lot of your songs are about belonging, whether that’s emotional or physical belonging. With your audience growing internationally, do you have to navigate that in a way? Music is there to be shared, and I think most of the time, a lot of artists write in the hopes that people can relate.
Eddie: 100% yeah, it’s a good question, I guess we already went into that a little.
Fitz: You answered it in Killeagh, when we’re explaining [the song], ‘cause Killeagh is written about an Irish sport that nobody outside Ireland knows: it’s hurling. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but it’s a mixture of Hockey and Lacrosse, or like Ice Hockey? It’s crazy. It’s great! It’s unbelievable. I could talk about it all day, but nobody knows what it is, so why does that song make any sense to people? I think it’s like the community element, and it’s like the community element of Irish music as a whole. Like, Irish music is just sitting around in a pub playing tunes, telling stories. That’s the whole thing. Maybe it’s just that. Bringing that community to a place and seeing people connect with that community.
Kira: Is there musically anything you want to try out? Is there maybe even something on the new album that fans might not expect?
Eddie: Loads. Loads of stuff.
McGoo: Thinking of going into our… our drill music era.
Eddie: Banjo-Drill, yeah, that could be cool.
Fitz: But really there’s loads. I mean you’re (Eddie)- you’re a massive man for harmony, so we started digging into that a bit but there’s also like breakbeats and stuff appearing, and drum machines, which are weird as hell but also quite cool and then that area could be cool, but then there’s other areas that are also really- who knows!
McGoo: We won’t close the door on anything.
Eddie: I suppose that’s- you’re only limited by your perception of who you are. Like I’d hate to think… like we’ve had a couple songs come out where it’s like “Ooh that’s a bit left field” for certain things. Or people have been “Oh. That’s a bit different.” I suppose maybe in the grand scheme it is different, but at the time, it was just a thing we liked that we thought was good and was worth sharing with people, so I guess we’re inspired by obviously other musicians and stuff and like the people around us and that kind of thing, but equally just by, like, taking the piss out of things. Most of the good songs we’ve ever done have all come because it started as kind of a joke or that we weren’t trying too hard, it was kind of just like, “I like this sound, or the noise, or the thing.”
Fitz: Yeah.
Eddie: So yeah, I’m sure we’ll try disco, and opera, and rap before we’re finished doing this.
Fitz: As long as when we do disco, we can all go on stage in rollerblades.
Eddie: Oh, of course!
Fitz: (to Eddie) You’d be good at that.
Eddie: Yeah, right, I have the worst balance. I almost fell over twice last night, actually.
Kira: Were you at least on rollerblades?
Eddie: No, no, no. Just my legs. I got on stage and then I was like “Jesus, I’m gonna fall over”
Kira: You released Diamonds & Roses along with the Album announcement, do you wanna talk about that a little?
Eddie: I mean, I never do want to talk about what the songs mean, to be honest, but I always end up answering the question. Because apparently, I try to be dark and mysterious, but I can’t shut up… I suppose the song started out as, like, the death of celebrity, in, like, recent years. Like, I think that… Lewis Capaldi, for me, people will look back on that in say twenty, thirty years and be like “he was such a different character in terms of what was popular”. He, entirely, for me, shattered the mold on what it meant to be a celebrity or who you could be and still try and be a public figure. He has absolutely no right to be the biggest pop star in the world, like, he’s a slop, self-admitted, he just wants to sit around and eat chocolate and drink and-
Fitz: Take the piss out of himself.
Eddie: Yeah, it’s self-deprecating, that kind of thing! So the whole thing about, like, the song started out as a nod to the likes of Michael Jackson or Prince or something. For me, they couldn’t really exist today, in so many ways, because they’re almost a caricature of themselves, you know? They’d take themselves so seriously. I think in modern music it’s like, you can’t do that. People aren’t stupid, they know that you’re-
Fitz: With the rise of, like, TikTok and stuff-
Eddie: Yeah! It’s all there!
Fitz: It’s so close, like, you feel like you know the people almost. If you were now, for the lack of a better word, a dickhead, people are gonna know it.
McGoo: 100%
Eddie: Well, it started there, and then there was a person I met who, kind of, yeah… was not that thing. I don’t know, it's just- they did take themselves very seriously. And they were a great person in so many ways, but I’m also like… “you’re such an igit”. Do you have that word here? “An igit?” Kind of like an idiot, I guess. But in a more playful way. Sorry, kind of a long-winded answer.
Kira: That’s alright! Do you guys have a favorite song from the album that maybe isn’t released yet?
Fitz: Mine’s “21”
Eddie: We might play that tonight actually.
Fitz: Yeah, we might play that tonight.
McGoo: "Schooldays" is pretty great.
Fitz: Oh yeah, yeah. Now I regret my answer.
McGoo: We’re just super excited for all of them, you know, to get more music out. It’s gonna be good.
Eddie: I’m terrified, to be honest. Prospect of the first album.
Fitz: Yeah, well, it is… It’s a scary and exciting thing, I guess. It’s like the first body of work where you, like, show people who you are. That kind of thing. So many people still don’t know who we are. Like, we’re on our first headline tour in Europe, we’re in our first headline tour in America, 99.9% of people have no idea who we are, so this is the first thing they’ll see of ours, and it’s like you’re kind of showing everyone who you are so it’s a terrifying, very exciting prospect.
Eddie: Yeah… “21”, “Schooldays”, those are probably two-
Fitz: Two of the favorites, yeah. I love “Someday”, too.
Eddie: We’re very excited about all of the songs we haven’t released… we’re happy boys.
Kira: Is there overall a message you’d like people to take away from the album?
Eddie: Things aren’t as bad as you think they are. You know? Like, I think we’re spoon-fed so often that like, “Oh my God, we’re killing the planet, it’s all our fault… also everyone’s dying, we’re all gonna die and it’s all pointless”, it’s like a constant stream of that.
Fitz: The news!
Eddie: The news! It’s very painful, all very depressing. But then, you find, I suppose, like, in the real world, when you’re actually out and you meet people and you have these experiences, and you do whatever, and you meet people, and you make friends, and you go to college and you come out of college, and you move to Berlin and you go to all these mad clubs, you do all this mad shit and you realize that maybe there’s… maybe putting yourself out there and doing something different- like we’re engineers, we have no right really being musicians- maybe trying things and putting yourself forward and making things you love with people you love makes it worth it.
Fitz: I like that answer, it’s a good answer.
Kira: You guys have been making music together for some time now. Has your process changed since you’ve started releasing that music to the public? Is it... harder?
Fitz: It’s definitely harder to find time, now that we’re so busy driving around the world… which is also class, but it’s just harder to find time, I guess. It’s like, booking off blocks of time to try and do it, but definitely it has changed. Yeah. Less time, more just like “right, we’ve got three or four days here”. You put yourself under major pressure over those days to get it done in three or four days. It’s finding time, for me anyway, personally.
McGoo: Yeah.
Eddie: I’m- It is hard to find time, but I do think that I’m getting better at it, or something. And I didn’t know that- like, people said that before that “Oh,” you know, “you write music and then you end up writing better songs” and I didn’t really know- I don’t know, I suppose it’s not something I consider as a skill, more so kind of like a… I don’t know, just a bit of a laugh. But then, I suppose, after having looked at it now, we are getting better at it. In our own heads, we’re definitely getting better at it. So, it has changed, it’s streamlined-
McGoo: It’s certainly streamlined.
Eddie: Yeah, we’re certainly getting more into the flow of things. Which is nice. But I don’t know what that means for Album #2, or Album #3, or Album #8.
Fitz: I’m excited for Album #17.
Eddie: We’ll see how we land.
Fitz: Year 2089!
Eddie: 2089.
Kira: Outside of music, is there anything you guys do to keep the bond strong?
Eddie: No...
Kira: No?!
Fitz: No, I don’t think so… literally all we do is music.
McGoo: Yeah, it’s music.
Fitz: Like, I’m sure in time there will be! But, at the moment, it's definitely, you know, with the album coming out, it is everything. I’m not gonna say I’m sick of it yet, thank God, it’s been great. I mean, I think it is important to learn to have downtime and take a break for a day or two, when you need it, but… I’m very happy right now, it’s all good, and I don’t need to figure out how not to do it yet.
Eddie: Well, we met… We became friends essentially because… well, we were in a course together, but it wasn’t, kind of, a musical thing in so many ways. So like, I guess, the fact that a significant portion of the friendship is built on that… hard to separate the friendship from the music, then.
Fitz: …Pints, maybe?
Eddie: Pints!
Fitz: That’s probably not the best thing.
Eddie: No, definitely not… fun though.
Kira: You guys have been on some pretty impressive stages throughout your career. Do you have a favorite one, and/or is there a dream venue you want to play on someday? Not to jinx it, of course.
McGoo: I would really love to play the Sphere in Vegas
Eddie: Oh! That would be so sick! Support the TV.
Fitz: Support the TV!
Eddie: That would be sick! Why have we never given that answer?
McGoo: Thank you.
Fitz: I would’ve said Red Rocks in Denver.
Eddie: I suppose that’s the thing, yeah.
Fitz: She’s pretty.
Eddie: I don’t know, well, we’ve done a lot. A lot where, when I was growing up, like, there’s a venue in Dublin. In Ireland, obviously, it’s a small population, so the amount of venues and the amount of places to play are quite limited, I’d say. There are probably two places, two major places, that people play gigs in Ireland. There’s one called the Olympia, which is in the middle of Dublin, and it’s kind of like an opera theatre, so it’s got maybe four or five layers to it, like tiers. I suppose, like, from an Irish person’s perspective, if you play the Olympia, you’re a real band. Like that’s the threshold. Before that, it’s like “Oh nice, okay, yeah fine,” but like, to play the Olympia is like “wow, you’ve actually- that’s an achievement.” And the other one is the 3Arena, which used to be the point, I suppose. We’ve got two 3Arena gigs in December and last year we played two dates in the Olympia, so…. To be honest, we’ve blown past everything I’ve ever thought we’d do. So, anything from now on is just bonus.
Fitz: Yeah, bonus. Bonus points!
Eddie: But Red Rocks and the Sphere, those are pretty good answers.
Kira: Okay, last but not least, would you guys be able to recommend maybe a song each to our readers that we’ll be able to put into our Artists' Faves Playlist?
Eddie: What’s in the playlist? I need to know the vibe…
Kira: That’s not really the point, though! You can just tell us what you like to listen to these days.
McGoo: Stephen Wilson Jr does a really good cover of Stand by Me.
Eddie: Unbelievable. Unbelievable shout.
Fitz: Stephen Wilson Jr…
Eddie: Yeah, he’s a great lad… I’m gonna say: Peter Gabriel does a version of The Book of Love that I think is absolutely unbelievable.
Fitz: I’ll say Master Crowley’s by Lankum
Eddie: Those are good answers! Well done, boys! No one said Pitbull!
Listen to the songs Kingfishr recommended here:
Later that day, we were able to return to Frannz Club in Berlin to experience Kingfishr live.
The night’s pre-act was Dermot Henry. Though he currently only has one song released on Spotify, he did a fantastic job getting the crowd in the right mood for the evening with his acoustic set.
When Kingfishr entered the stage, the audience’s excitement knew no bounds. From I Cried, I Wept to Caroline, the entire audience was buzzing.
Though the band had a multitude of technical issues to navigate that night, they did an absolutely amazing job throughout the whole show.
The trio played their song Shot in the Dark acoustically while standing on top of the bar, getting everyone to shout the lyrics with them. That moment in particular made a great show of the kind of community Kingfishr has been able to build over the past few years. Lead singer Eddie kept the audience engaged even between songs through some entertaining stories, and monologuing, telling anecdotes of the guys’ pasts when the guitars needed some extra tuning.
They also decided to play their unreleased song "21" for the second time ever that night, just as they had teased in our interview just a few hours earlier. Judging by the audience's reaction alone, there's no need to think too much about the "terrifying prospect" of releasing their debut album, the audience loved the surprise performance, after all.
A clear highlight of the night was the band’s performance of Killeagh, the song the fans joined in with the loudest by far. Eddie made a small speech before this one as well, talking about how the song is about community and about how being a part of something more than yourself is so important. The sentiment wonderfully transferred to the performance of the song and the way the audience reacted to it.
Overall, Kingfishr displayed an amicable amount of professionalism and artistry throughout their Berlin show, and if you have the opportunity to see them live on their Halcyon Tour later this year, I strongly recommend you do so; it’ll be a night to remember for you as much as this one was for me!
Find more photos of Kingfishr in the Album below!
WRITTEN BY
Kira
As a little girl, my biggest dream was to stand on a stage and share my songs with people who can relate. It turns out that that’s a lot harder than it seemed. Still, there is a similarly electric feeling in the crowd, spending the better half of the evening with like-minded people. People who you might not know or ever see again, that don’t seem so much like strangers for those few hours you spend with an artist, their fans, and the music. To me, the capacity of music to make fans connect despite who they are is the most intriguing and inspiring phenomenon of all, and my hope is to share it with people as best I can.
PHOTOS BY
Pauline
I’ve loved photography since I was a kid and (live) music has always been such an important part of my life, getting to combine both of those things is a dream come true. I also love urban and street photography, especially while traveling. Any of my friends can tell tales about having to wait for me while i take pictures wherever we go haha. So: if you’re ever looking for me, chances are you’ll find me and my camera at a concert or out somewhere traveling (or at a concert while traveling).
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