Interview with Intervurt lead singer Paul O’Keeffe

Vocalist Paul O’Keeffe form the British Band Intervurt spoke with me recently about the band’s newest release, Union. They have what I would describe as a unique and fresh sound even though they have been compared to The Killers, Depeche Mode and even Good Charlotte. It does not matter how you categorize their music however, as Union is a solid, groove-laden affair that is an incredibly enjoyable listen. Here is what O’Keeffe had to say about the band and the disc.

Since this is your first interview for PureGrainAudio. Can you introduce the band and tell us how it all got started, that kind of thing?
Paul: Hi and thanks for having us. We’re a five piece rock band form London, England. We have Mark Alberici on guitar, his brother Oliver on keyboards. Scott Richman on drums, Lee Wilton on Bass, and myself Paul O’Keeffe on vocals. We’ve known each other for around ten years, playing together on previous projects, and decided to put a band together around six years ago. It started out with a far heavier dance influence, but once Scott joined on drums, musically we began to really lean towards the more rock alternative sound that it is today.

Your brand new CD, Union was released about a month ago. Now that you have had time to live with it how do you feel about it? Are you satisfied with the outcome?
Paul: Yeah the record has been actually finished for some time now, and it’s been a little frustrating having the release date put back a few times. But I understand it will be fully released on 28th of June. As a band you really want your work put out as quickly as possible as you want to move onto the next thing. In many ways we’ve been lucky though as it has given us time to actually start work on the follow up, which we already have the bulk of the songs written for. Also that gave us a break from Union which we were working on for a long time. And now coming back to it, I think it holds up really well. There’s a good selection of songs on the album and I remember when we were selecting songs for the record, it was important to us that it was varied, like records or the 60’s/70’s & 80’s and I think we really achieved it.

What was the writing process like for this CD? Did you guys all write together? How long did it take?
Paul: Generally someone will come into rehearsal with an idea, and by the time everyone has got a piece of it, it has been turned into a collective piece of music. I tend to do a lot of the melody at that time, though I like to sharpen the lyrics separately when I have some time on my own. Although we also write in different combinations which helps keep things fresh. The songs were written over the course of two years leading up to the recording, and it was really difficult choosing which ones made the cut. For instance we wrote a lot of new songs in the month leading up to the recording. We were rehearsing a lot at the time and just hit a rich vein of writing, but we had to be careful as although I think we wrote some of our best songs at that time, including them all would have meant we would have had to drop live favorites such as “Merla” and “Diesel” which would have been a mistake as those songs are so important to our sound. But this did mean we had a head start on the next record. We wrote a song called “MEDUSA” at that time but even though I think it’s probably the best thing we’ve written, it just didn’t fit this record, so in the end we agreed to save it!

What gives you inspiration when writing lyrics and is there a theme or themes behind the writing of this record?
Paul: Words are very important to me and I get really inspired by double meanings and words that I’ve sometimes misheard. I have many full notebooks that I have to carry around with me, stuffed with lines that mean nothing to anyone else. I’m not a big fan of obvious narrative, so I like to use my notebooks as starting points for ideas that trigger me into a full lyric for a song. I often have pages of song titles and I like to find a title that fits a piece of music and build a lyric around that. On this record there’s a real thread to the lyrics of the album, I don’t think it was intentional but looking back, all the songs have a sense of not giving up. We do get a lot of comments on the lyrical aspect of the songs and people seem to think they are dark, but even though there’s a lot of isolation in there, the also have a sense of optimism which I think people like, as well as a lot of themes relating to pulling together.

By gaining a major label deal at such an early point in your career it’s clear that record execs see a lot of potential in your abilities. How did you not let that sort of pressure get to you when you were writing material for the record?
Paul: I don’t think we felt the pressure. We had a lot of record company interest in us for a long time, all the majors were buzzing around with five or six execs at every gig. But we decided early on that we wouldn’t wait for a deal and we just kept writing material. By the time we signed we had a lot of songs to pull from, and our audiences let us know pretty quickly when we have a great song! As well as that our A&R is really into us for the long haul, they made it clear from the start that they are excited about the kind of albums we will be writing next.

Could you tell us where the name Intervurt comes from?
Paul: That’s an easy one; I was reading a book called “Vurt” by Jeff Noone at the time when we were looking for a name. It’s about a fictional hallucinogenic drug that’s taken on a feather. The “Inter” part comes from the Italian soccer team Inter Milan. We were pretty determined to have a name that didn’t mean anything and was original, and I think we achieved that.

You worked with Mark Plati, a very well known well respected producer. How did you get in touch with him and what was it like working with him?
Paul: Mark found us thankfully. He was working with another producer at the time, Tom McKay and Tom heard us playing at the UK’s “In the city” which is similar to SXSW. He took a CD from us and played it to Mark Plati. The next thing we know, we get a call from Mark in the States, saying he really wanted to work with us. We were really happy as we obviously knew his work from Bowie, The cure and Price, and he was someone we really wanted to work with.

How much roadwork do you expect to be doing in support of Union?
Paul: Playing live is what we enjoy the most, so fingers crossed we will be on the road for the next year to promote it.

Any plans to tour the United States at all?
Paul: I really really hope so, that’s the goal. We think that musically we would be a good fit in the USA, and touring for months on end is not something that would put us off, I know some bands are daunted by that, but we would really embrace a long tour of the states and put everything into it.

Any closing words?
Paul: Yes we’d like to thank everyone over here for the great support we’ve received so far, it feels like America has taken us to there hearts already and if we can get this record into a few top albums in peoples own lists, for us that will be a great achievement. After recording it New York City, there is a big “made in USA ” stamp on it, and as a band it feels more like home to us than anywhere else. We hope that once the tour is announced people will get the chance to see us live as that’s when we really come into our own.  [ END ]