Crosby, Stills, Nash… and CORMAC NEESON: The Answer frontman launches new project, CALIFORNIA IRISH

WITH their heart in Ireland and soul in the Santa Monica Mountains, CALIFORNIA IRISH today showcase debut single, ‘Big Questions,’ a wonderful doff of the summer cap to the free spirits of ‘60s USA.

“It’s quite fitting that ‘Big Questions’ is our first single, because it was really this song that sparked the whole notion of writing and recording a Laurel Canyon inspired record, right down to using the same analogue process that all those great bands of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s would have used,” said frontman, Cormac Neeson.

“I wrote this particular song in Belfast with a good songwriter friend of mine called Rory Nellis, and I remember right after we finished it I commented that it would fit quite nicely on a Crosby, Stills, and Nash record, at which point I realised I had a whole collection of songs that would fit quite nicely into that theme. 

“From there we put together a band called California Irish. We started jamming those songs, and we got into a studio and here we are, a year and half later, about to embark upon this amazing journey together. So ‘Big Questions’ really was the starting point for us to try and refine our psychedelic folk-rock sound and show our love and appreciation for some of the magic music that came out of Laurel Canyon all those years ago.”

And that Laurel Canyon influence extends to the band’s recording technique, adhering rigidly to the late ‘60s analogue 16 track recording method, recording live direct to tape at Middle Farm Studios with producer Pete Miles, that creative process eventually leading to the completion of forthcoming album, ‘The Mountains Are My Friends.’

“The album is the opposite of boring AI generated no soul perfection,” adds Neeson. “We recorded this album in a room together over four days allowing the music to breathe when it needed to, looking at each other for our cues and feeding off each other’s energy. It felt like a dream, but it’s the most real thing I’ve ever done in music.”

Completing the California Irish lineup are Susy Coyle (vocs/percussion), Donal Scullion (acoustic/electric guitar, vocs), Chris Kelly (lap steel, mandolin, acoustic/electric guitar, vocs), James Doone (bass), Simon Templeton (piano, hammond, Wurlitzer), and Conor McCauley (drums).

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