You’ll recognise Cormac Neeson as the frontman of Northern Irish bluesy hard rockers The Answer. Now his new band, California Irish, sees him donning hippie threads as he turns to the music he grew up on for inspiration.
“I remember listening to a cassette in our kitchen that was Joni Mitchell on one side, Cat Stevens on the other,” says Neeson, explaining how he became obsessed with the sounds of 1960s Laurel Canyon from his parents’ music collection. “That music ignited my imagination. Also watching documentaries about Woodstock, movies like Easy Rider; I loved the sense of freedom, love and beautiful energy that emanates from that music.”
California Irish’s debut album The Mountains Are My Friends is a rich, multi-layered, dreamy concoction of folk, bluesy rock, and Americana, with Hammond organ, multi-part harmonies á la CSNY, lap string guitars and even some psychedelic cowbell. Though it echoes the sounds of sixties Laurel Canyon, it has a soul that’s all its own, cascading through a range of emotions from jaunty summery beats to passages of deep reflection.
For Neeson, writing this music gave him the chance to stretch a different musical muscle than he does in The Answer, and to make the album that he always wanted to.
“On this album are the feelings I don’t get to express when I’m writing a rock’n’roll record,” says Neeson. “It feels like I’m living out the voices that have been in my head since I first listened to that cassette in our kitchen.”
When Neeson started writing the music for what would become The Mountains Are My Friends, he thought it might become his second solo record – a follow-up to 2019’s White Feather. But fate intervened, and found him the perfect musicians when he performed in a Neil Young-inspired theatre show.
“It was called ‘Re-Harvest’, with about 12 of us on stage doing Harvest Moon and Harvest,” says Neeson. While performing with these musicians, he knew there was something special about them. “I asked them to come to Middle Farm Studios to record the album.”
While recording Mountains… (as a full band in analogue, naturally) Neeson realised California Irish should be a fully-fledged, touring band.
“The dynamic in the room was beautiful,” he says. “I knew it had to be. I want people who come to see us to get the full band experience.”
Mountains even feature on the album’s cover, with Neeson sitting atop the Morne Mountains in County Down, watching the sunset. It’s a tranquil, calming image, one that perfectly encapsulates the band’s mantra of peace and love. Or, as Neeson says, “Siocháin agus grá!”
The Mountains Are My Friends is out now.
