Cutting loose and maturing on record - Irish indie-rockers are back and ready for their big return
By Tom Adams January 2023
"It's still the same four guys but we've grown up as musicians and songwriters, and we're always trying to be true to ourselves"
Almost exactly five years on since their award-winning debut album Tales From The Backseat back in 2018, The Academic are back! The band's relentless work ethic saw them earn a number one in the official Irish album charts, as well as supporting the likes of Noel Gallagher and The Rolling Stones, in addition to playing to an energetic 50,000 or so at their Electric Picnic festival set last year in their native Ireland. But now, the indie-rock band are set to embark on their second chapter with the release of their second studio album Sitting Pretty set for release next month via Capitol Records.
As the band are now in their late twenties, they've come a long way since their debut record. For Craig Fitzgerald, Dean Gavin, Stephen and Matthew Murtagh, The Academic have grown up and Sitting Pretty reflects the emotional turbulence of facing the thrills and anxieties that life unforgivingly administers. But this time round the quartet have a more matured sound, still full of all the catchy indie hooks and assured lyricism that brought them the spotlight five years prior. There's no doubt this is a band ready for their eagerly anticipated return... Building up to the official release of Sitting Pretty, I caught up with lead singer Craig Fitzgerald and bassist Stephen Murtagh to gain a greater sense of what led the band to the point of awaiting the exciting release of their sophomore album.
When tracing back the origin of the band, it was surprising to learn the project began to take shape as far back as high school - something that always felt normal for Craig in particular. "We all went to the same school and got into music around the same time and liked the same bands: Oasis, Kings of Leon, The Killers, The Strokes. I definitely felt the stresses of school, socialising and going out but because we were such close friends around that time, it was our social outlet. We only became The Academic as teenagers, it was almost like music was our football practice in a way where we would always meet up after school and someone would have learnt a new chord or we wanted to do a new cover of something. It felt like a safe space for us. The process of making music now is pretty much spot on to what we were like as teenagers! It’s probably a bit more tech-savvy but the root of the band was always, I’d have an idea in my bedroom and I’d be able to just play it on a guitar and that’s still the stepping stones to how we work: the skeleton of the idea, some chords, melodies, and then we all jump in as a band and create this picture that we’ve all worked on as a creation of four."
It must feel quite surreal to reminisce where the band began to being on the verge of their second studio album years later but Craig and Stephen are clearly beaming with pride when they discuss what's to come from the new record. "I think it’s a natural progression as if it were a film to follow a film! It’s still the same four guys but we’ve grown up a lot as musicians and songwriters, and we’re always trying to be true to ourselves. There’s definitely a lot of familiarity for people when they’ll hear the album, but hopefully fans can see we’ve pushed our comfort zones whilst still trying to stay true to the live product that we are as this live, four piece rock band album. It’s been so long between both albums and also we made two EPs in that time which gave us a chance to experiment with producers, studios and more wackier ideas".
"I think it’s important to say those two EPs weren’t so cohesive because they’re a different artform to an album", added Stephen. "By the time we were in the studio for the new album, it really made us buckle down to make a coherent sound that felt like a proper album. But it was definitely the natural progression from the first to show how much we’ve changed as people, songwriters and musicians. Sitting Pretty has the energy that made people originally like our band, along with obviously Craig’s voice and hints of the sounds we liked from album one, but this time as a more matured version of that."
It's fair to say the indie-rocking boys could've played it safe both sonically and lyrically to remain the band they were in 2018 for Tales From The Backseat, yet Sitting Pretty represents exactly that period of growing up since then. When discussing the transition from each, Craig talks about how important they all felt it was to master the sonic core of the album first.
"Me and Stephen were very much in the process of just gathering songs before we even knew it was an album but we knew we had to be brave with the producer because we’d found a bit of success with Tales From The Backseat. It was this fast, upbeat, indie-centric record but when we sat down this time ready to make an album, everything we were drawing up wasn’t that kind of sound. We began looking into more classic sounds like 60s and 70s music as more pensive song writing with more thoughtful lyrics, structures and arrangements because we were more hook-based five or six years ago so now we’re letting the song be the most important thing. We needed the bravery to let a song breathe a bit more and let it play out because we were the kings of three minute songs!"
"I think it would have been really weird had we tried to recreate the first album in the sense of here are ten more indie bangers", agreed Stephen. "It was released five years ago but recorded six years ago so it would be bizarre if we hadn’t changed as writers, musicians or people in how we listened to music. We had to follow our intuition and be the more mature band we are now and begin looking at things from a different perspective."
When discussing the mood around the new album, Stephen wanted to raise the importance of not second guessing themselves in response to the expectations that often come with the pressures of making an album following such a successful first. "The music industry is obviously very different to what it was five years ago but you’d like to think people aren’t stuck in a traditionalist mindset where they think it’s basically this two year cycle of an album, then a tour to follow because that’s not normal but really there is no normal in this industry. Albums should always take as long as they need to be right and for the artist to be happy with it. I’d like to think we didn’t set an expectation and we hope our fans would think the amount of time it has taken has been worth it. Thankfully I can honestly say we didn’t let the expectation or weight of time lie too heavily on our shoulders, we were just really excited to be back making another album."
"There was always this ‘second album syndrome’ thing in music where you’d look at an artist’s second album and think yep they’re fucked so there is that pressure probably more on younger musicians but thankfully that didn’t enter any of our brains at all really", Craig said notably as assured as ever.
One of the major differences this time round however was the band's decision to join forces with producer Nick Hodgson (formerly of the Kaiser Chiefs) to record Sitting Pretty from a recording studio in London, rather than jet out to Los Angeles like they did for album one, and it's clear it's a decision Craig loved!
"It was amazing! We go way back with Nick! The band has always been family-based and Nick was one of those guys we came across in a writing session and we just got along really well. The difference with LA was it felt like a very structured process of meeting a producer and just making an album which we really enjoyed, but with Nick, he genuinely felt like the fifth band member because he cares so much for it. We’d done the Acting My Age EP with him back in 2020 which actually could have been an album but it got cut short with COVID being around. That period gave us a lot of clarity that we knew we wanted to make an album with Nick in London because we knew that just works for us."
"It couldn’t have been more different to the first album! The whole travelling to LA and meeting the producer banging out the album after around two months was completely different to how we did things with Nick and having known him for five or six years, it was almost manifesting itself so it felt like the most natural thing in the world to go to a great place like London to make new music with a friend that we really trusted in Nick", Stephen added.
One of the songs off the album produced by Nick is 'My Very Best' and has since become the latest single released from the record. It has the feel of a title track, yet looking back through The Academic's discography, it became evident the fourpiece never include a title track song in each of their albums so far.
"I actually think we overthink it for the sake of not putting too much pressure on one song where people will think it’s the epicentre of the record and sometimes that isn’t true", claimed Stephen. "I do find the ordering of songs for an album a really enjoyable process though because it’s like you’ve done the writing and recording and now it’s time to present your songs! I find thinking about why the ends of songs run into the next one so perfectly a really exciting process. We probably had a whiteboard full of around twenty-five or thirty songs that we knew we had to narrow down, which Nick gave us great freedom to do but we had to just follow our gut."
For Craig, it seemed like another pressure bullet dodged. "I think naming it was my least favourite process of this album. It’s a bit of a learning curve because we knew what the first album was going to be called and this one we kept thinking that’s a good song name… could it be the album title? Everyday Stephen would write a new album name on a whiteboard and sometimes it was helpful but other times the vibe wasn’t right, but I agree there’s too much pressure on a title track because people think it’s the centre of it and I don’t think that’s the case with this album at all."
Another major piece to the album in the record's beautifully coloured, psychedelic-like artwork illustrated by Texas artist, Kate Dehler. Stephen explained how the band wanted to go a different direction when it came to the album cover for Sitting Pretty. "Because we'd used a photo for our first album cover, we didn’t want it to look like we were attempting the same thing again. We got really interested in illustrator styles and we found Kate’s work and basically gave her the album title, some key imagery and the opportunity to listen to it to try and give her the freedom to interpret the whole thing in her way. She came back with something where as soon as we saw it, it looked like Sitting Pretty to us. We loved details like the four doors representing the four of us in the band as the different paths your life can take you down in your twenties, and then we added in a couple pieces of imagery that represents the band’s journey."
The Academic have, themselves, always had a creative style when it came down to the band's aesthetic. From the impressively, first of a kind looped music video to 'Bear Claws' from five years ago, to asking fans to help them finish song writing some tracks live on Twitch, to offering the chance to perform in one lucky fan's living room... it's clear the band really do value fan transparency.
"We’re just fans of sharing!" laughed Craig, "there’s obviously the more traditional way of doing it but, not to blow smoke up our own holes, we like listening to people’s ideas outside of the band and noticing a good one when we hear it. The live looper video for ‘Bear Claws’ was a confusing experience for everybody but we have enough shameless confidence to pull these things off. I see them as the little perks of the job which spreads joy! Playing in someone's living room is just the sort of thing we enjoy and we don’t wanna hide away from doing that."
"It’s an important thing we’ve always had in whatever we do!" agreed Stephen. "It’s the band’s ethos to be open minded and we have a great working relationship with the two directors that work on our music videos, we’re always sharing ideas with them. When things like the looper video come about, we’re always seeing ideas like that like a glass half full and thinking just what if whatever we’re doing turned out brilliant!"
Before finishing up, I couldn't not mention the upcoming Europe and North American tour being readied for the official release date of Sitting Pretty on February 10th. And unexpectedly both Craig and Stephen cannot wait to get started.
"Honestly, more than anything!" admitted Stephen. "Live music has always been the bread and butter to The Academic! We started as a live band, our favourite memories are live moments so I don’t think there’s a scenario where we’re more comfortable than just living out of a suitcase, going on a bus and being in the middle of a big tour - it’s where the band thrives! There are some incredible venues we’ll be playing as well like the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow or the Shepherd’s Bush in London, and then places like New York because we haven’t been to America since around 2016 so I literally couldn’t be more excited for all of it!"
"We did a UK tour last year but we were also racing to get the album done in time so it was amazing but felt a bit like a halfway house tour", added Craig. "We love having new music to play so now that we will actually have something new out, it will be like a new chapter for us. This time round we’ll actually be playing the new album and the thought of it being out and fans having the opportunity to listen to it before coming to the shows is so exciting for everybody!"
The second studio album Sitting Pretty by The Academic is out 10th February.
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