Back Seat Diver

 “If you looked at what's on my Spotify, I'd call it jazzy lo-fi bedroom-pop. Recently there's been more of a rock influence as the live songs have gotten heavier. As time goes on, I feel less pressure to make the songs all sound super alike. I know that so long as I'm writing them, they'll sound like me.”

 

Up n’ Comin’ NI is thrilled to introduce another artist, 24-year-old Niall from Camlough. Niall, known as Back Seat Diver, has moved to Belfast to try and further his career in the music industry. 

 

Niall only began listening and participating in music around the age of 14. “I taught myself on an old, beat-up classical guitar that was in my house. Nobody at home played any instruments so it had just been lying there for years.” Then when he turned 16, he joined a band called Home Media. “I was the guitarist, then the bassist, then the drummer. It was with them that I learned how to play with other people, write songs, play gigs and record our own stuff.” 

 

Niall’s 3 EP’s were created as studio projects. He wrote them all by himself “(with friends' help here and there)”. These EP’s can be found on “every streaming service known to man, thanks to DistroKid. Spotify, Apple Music, iHeartRadio, you name it!” For this project, Niall not only wrote all of the music by himself, but also produced everything from a home studio. “I enjoy having complete control over the creative process. Sometimes the more people that are involved, the harder it is to get things done. On the other hand, I also find other people's perspectives invaluable to creation.”

 

Niall discussed the interesting mix between solo writing and collaborative writing when writing for a band. “A lot of the time, the parts I write for them will be an outline or general idea of what I want and they're free to suggest things. This is especially true with drums since I'm not the best drummer in the world.”

 

“At some point I took a notion that I wanted to perform the songs live.” Niall discussed his original plans of a one-man-band. He had imagined himself on a stage with his guitar and a laptop. Since then, he has come to prefer the traditional idea of a 4-piece band. 

 

The band consists of 4 people: Niall, Mark, Conor and Rahul. Guitarist and Drummer (Mark and Conor) have been friends with Niall for years. “We were all in different bands in the Newry music scene when we were teenagers.” Bassist, Rahul, was introduced to Niall by a friend. “It's been a fun challenge trying to translate the softer and more lo-fi sound of my recordings to a live setup. The result has been a more dynamic and often heavier sound. Whenever I write songs now, I have it more in mind that they'll be performed on two guitars, a bass and a drumkit.”

“I think what makes me different from other artists is that I'm me. I think every artist is different from another, unless maybe if they're in a cover band. Even then, everyone's interpretation of a song or a piece of art or how it affects them will be different.” 

While Niall wasn’t sure who his favourite artist was, he did say that “I definitely take the most inspiration from a guy called Puma Blue. I use a lot of similarly jazzy chords. I also love the way his songs can go from these soft, soulful ballads to super intense and passionate.”

 

Like many instrumentalists, Niall begins his writing process on the guitar. “I never sit down and choose to write a song; something usually appears to me while I'm noodling. Once I have some chords, I'll come up with a vocal melody to accompany it and then I'll either continue working on it, or it'll get put away for later. I often Frankenstein different ideas together to form a song.” Niall suggested that lyrics are the last part of his compositional process. “I'll record what I have on my computer, loop it, then write to that. I can't ever force myself to write something. I have to wait until I'm in the right space to allow something to pour out of me. If I like the song enough, I'll send the recording with all the parts to the band to learn.” 

"I often write lyrics as a form of catharsis. I think it helps me work through whatever it is I'm going through. Putting your thoughts in song form forces you to write them down, then understand them well enough to make them rhyme and fit into a certain amount of syllables. A lot of the time I've reached some sort of conclusion about whatever was on my mind by the end of the song." 

When I asked Niall if he gigged often he simply said, “I wish.” Niall has lived in Belfast for a while now but says he doesn’t know many people from the music scene in Belfast. If you are based in Belfast, why not get in touch? Niall tells me that he is eager to start gigging again soon as he has a lot of new songs that haven’t been played live yet. 

 

Niall’s first gig in Belfast was at the Ulster Sports Club. He describes it as “the more memorable one to me. It was great to see what a positive reception people had to the songs after years of not playing live. People had only heard my music on the internet, so I had no real idea of what they thought of it. I'd also forgotten just how much fun gigging is."

So what does Niall’s future look like?

“It's been a long time since I've put anything out and I'd like to change that at some point. I'm torn between continuing to produce everything myself and doing it in a studio with a professional. Maybe I'll find some middle ground between the two.” For Niall, the near future hopefully involves lots of gigs. With new music that he hasn’t performed live, he says, “I wouldn't expect anything on Spotify in the immediate future, but I'd love to get playing more gigs as soon as I can.”

Make sure you follow him and keep up to date with all his songs, events and gigs: 

Instagram: backseatdiver

Spotify: Back Seat Diver

Apple Music: Back Seat Diver

SoundCloud: Back Seat Diver

YouTube: Back Seat Diver