BIRCHES

 We try to promote messages of self-care, emotional wellbeing and reflections on teenage/younger life in our music as we very passionately feel that it's a huge, huge area that needs to be recognised more.

Up n’ Comin NI are thrilled to present this week’s artists BIRCHES, a 4-piece Indie/Emo band from Armagh/Dungannon/Tyrone. The band consists of Liam Mcalinden (Vocals/Guitar), Jordi Kelly (Bass/Vocals), Frankie McIlvanna (Lead Guitar) and Delaney "Dee" O'Neill (Drums/Percussion).

 

Like many talented musicians, they all began playing instruments at young ages, “shaping our social lives and career paths towards music. We all really do eat, sleep and breathe music full time!”

 

A lot of the band’s inspiration comes from other emo bands such as ‘American football,’ ‘Paramore’ and ‘Promise ring.’ As well as this, they also draw inspiration from some modern indie artists like ‘The Wombats’, ‘The 1975’, ‘Orla Gartland’, ‘Phoebe Bridgers’ “and countless others!”

 

The band describes themselves as “Indie/Emo” but take that further saying “genre has become more fluid than ever. Although this might be accurate, we definitely have elements of other genres like punk, folk and many more.”

 

BIRCHES write all of their own music. “The process varies but usually one of us will write a verse or a chorus, video it, send it to the others, then refine and repeat until it's ready!! Some songs take longer than others and we have had to restart and rewrite lots of songs and ideas from scratch to get it right!” 

 

The band used the example of their song ‘Being Younger’ when talking about lyrics and meaning. “It was written at a very transitional period of our lives, lots of self-reflection to work out who we wanna be, and we think it comes across in the lyrics on that one.”

 

One of the bands proudest achievements to date was getting over 12,000 streams on our track ‘See Yourself Tomorrow" on Spotify. “It was amazing!”

 

Anything worth doing is difficult, so do what you love and never give up on it, and it will never give up on you.

 

The band tries to gig as often as they can! They are, however, now spread out across the UK and Ireland between Belfast, London and Clonoe. While this means that the band has to write and record via the Internet, it also means that they are able to perform live in cities all across the UK. The band says that “the distance between us makes it a bit more special when we do play together.” BIRCHES next performance will take place in Glasgow on April 7th 2023.

 

While they might play all over the UK, they did tell me that one of their favourite gigs of all time took place in the Ulster Sports Club in Belfast. “It had a great atmosphere; the crowd really brought it that night!” They took that a step further saying, “Honestly just meeting and talking to all the wonderful people who come to our shows is definitely number one on our list.”

 

BIRCHES also wanted to mention the great work of their huge team of people who help create their music. “This includes recording engineers, artists, merch printing services, PR team, finance, we also just started working with a keytar player to help elevate our bigger shows! Teamwork really does make the dream work, and we are extremely lucky to work with such incredibly talented people!”

 

So, what is next for BIRCHES?

“BIRCHES have a busy year! New music very, very soon. We are in Glasgow on the 7th of April for a headline show at The Flying Duck! Summer dates also coming very, very soon!!”

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

Spotify: Birches

Instagram: birchesband

Facebook: BirchesUK

TikTok: birchesband

YouTube: Birches