Music Editor Barry Fenton Sits Down with UCD's own: MT Heads
Ahead of headlining at Workman’s on September 11th, I sat down to interview MT Heads and was surprised by their very hands-on, DIY attitude to making it as a college band. Two close friends (Sam Connolly and John Daly) are fuelled by a love for music and a desire to make genuine art. They do a good job at conveying a very real sense of authenticity here. With MT Heads, what you see is what you get.
We started off our chat on the songwriting experience. The pair were strikingly honest about how 90% of ideas come to nothing. It’s the 10% that counts.
Sam: “I usually start off with recording a nice chord progression on the guitar and work from there. Building layers with drums, lead guitar and anything else that suits the track. I’ll usually come to John with a broken song and see what he can do. Whenever I’ve finished a track, I’ll sit down to listen to the initial voice memo. They’re like two different songs.”
Getting started as a musician can be daunting. The lads described how the journey of MT Heads began in the most unexpected of places - a shed during lockdown. Like many musicians, lead singer John found inspiration in the simplicity of other artists’ work.
John: “Listening to Dominik Fike’s debut album, I realised it’s just him, a bass guitar and a drum sample from Logic. During lockdown I started going between school work and recording in my shed off GarageBand. That’s how the band got going really. Now that MT Heads [has become] more of a five-piece, my writing style has changed.”
MT Heads are a musical duo turned five-piece band. John and Sam write the music and manage the band affairs, but they are also accompanied by three other session musicians for their live performances. This dynamic means that the band has remained the brainchild of the two long-time friends, and is still able to explore the heavy and pulsing sounds heard on tracks like ‘Dirty Emeralds’ and ‘Out Of My Head’. If they could, MT Heads would expand their size even more.
Sam: “We generally come up with the initial ideas and projects, but the session musicians usually write their own parts. It’s a collaborative process.”
John: “We love the band Hard Life (formerly Easy Life before a lawsuit). They tour with a full brass section and it’s really cool. Only issue is the size of most stages like Workman’s and Whelans only fit five.”
As our discussion turns to the art of collaboration, it is clear MT Heads know what they’re doing. Trusting another person enough to let them make critiques and edits on your personal writing isn’t something that happens easily, but MT Heads respect each other’s boundaries, and John explains where the line is.
John: “It would mostly be grammatical stuff. If I’ve written a lyric and Sam has a suggestion to improve the rhythm or structure I’m all ears. But we understand what parts of the song are most important and that we shouldn’t go changing them.”
MT Heads lyrics are poignant, catchy, and honest - something very rare nowadays. We discussed the meaning of their upcoming EP Windows Into Walls - a carefully chosen title.
The opening track of the EP is ‘Cranes’, which talks about growing up in Dublin. When you’re young, the world seems perfect. Nothing bothers you and everything could be an opportunity. As you get older, you start to see more problems everywhere.
Sam: “If you release a song and you’re really happy with it, you're thinking ‘this could be huge!’ But as time goes on and the streams don’t come in like you hoped they would, it feels like an opportunity’s been lost. You saw a window but the numbers plateaued, and it feels like you’ve run into a wall.”
John: “It’s a double entendre. The opening track of the EP is ‘Cranes’, which talks about growing up in Dublin. When you’re young, the world seems perfect. Nothing bothers you and everything could be an opportunity. As you get older, you start to see more problems everywhere. Things get complicated and you do too. I think that gets conveyed in the music video.”
MT Heads have no shortage of projects going on. On top of gigs to rehearse for, an EP to finish, and a single to promote, they’ve been working hard on a music video for ‘Cranes’ for most of the Summer. This is something you don’t see very often with indie college bands, usually very focused on creating music and gigging.
Sam: “The music video was a lot of fun. We recorded it at the start of the Summer in an abandoned Golf Club that got closed down in Covid, and then somebody burnt it down. We thought the burnt walls and dilapidated backdrop was perfect. The song is about introspection, so the themes are really reflected in the setting of the video. It’s a left turn from anything we’ve ever done. A bit of a slap in the face.”
Expanding on their upcoming EP, John explained how it explores the different relationships in their lives.
John: “Some of the songs are about relationships with significant others and some of them are about our own relationships with ourselves. I feel like Windows Into Walls works both ways for that. All relationships have ups and downs. It can be great at one point and it’s like you have a window into their soul. Then something changes and you see nothing.”
One thing that’s clear about the pair is they don’t wait around. They get things done. They recorded their demo ‘Valentine’ with voice memo and GarageBand, echoing the likes of Steve Lacy and Dominic Fike who didn’t let their lack of resources hold them back. Despite being a well-calculated band, MT Heads experienced first-hand the unanticipated difficulties of a self-funded EP.
John: “I hadn’t realised how expensive it would be, which makes sense as to why most artists hold out on doing an EP before they’re signed. A label would lift some of that cost off our backs. Recording and rehearsal time alone is in the hundreds. Then the music video, mastering each song… PR is another cost. There’s no point in putting effort into the production of an EP without a solid PR strategy. We’re trying to do most of that ourselves to save money. That’s why the main hope for this EP is to expand our reach.”
Sam: “It’s great seeing familiar faces at gigs, but you get a great buzz out of meeting people after gigs who just came because they liked the music.”
It was refreshing talking to John and Sam from MT. Heads, a band that clearly puts an emphasis on thought-provoking lyrics and musical flare. The year ahead looks promising; John is taking a gap year from a notoriously busy architecture degree, and Sam just finished his last year at BIMM, so there’s nothing holding the group back. They’ve taken a brave step. I’m excited to see what they do and where they’ll be this time next year.
Until then, I’ll be listening to their new single ‘Cranes’.