www.junofalls.net
Juno Falls began in 2003 when songwriter Myles O Reilly hooked up with producer
Herbie Macken (previous keys player for Niel Finn of Crowded House) and friends,
bass player Dara Diffily and drummer David Shakespeare. From that 2 week
recording session in a cottage near the remote fishing village of Schull, on the
south coast of Ireland, Starlight Drive Juno Falls debut album was born. After
much radio-play success, Myles O’Reilly attracted the attentions of major labels
and signed with Richard Branson's V2 music in 2006.
Packing his bags, Myles left behind his native Dublin and headed for the
tranquility of Dingle. “Don’t get me wrong”, says Myles, “I love Dublin. It has
a great energy and the music scene is very healthy there, but for me the
remoteness and honesty of somewhere like Dingle makes the creative process so
much more natural”.
While returning to Dingle from Dublin in the early hours of a winterly morning,
the grey silhouette of Mount Brandon loomed ahead, as the narrow country roads
snaked onwards. Nearly there. “Suddenly I’m fighting with the car, battling to
keep it on the road. Failing!”
“After the accident I became more engaged with my art than ever before. It was
imperative for me to immerse myself in music and lyrics and to draw from every
inspiration. The floodgates were open".
Returning to Dublin several months later, Myles began the process of “putting
meat on the bones of the songs” with the rest of the band. The result is a
collection of beautifully crafted songs, sometimes intimate, sometimes fragile,
always honest and unmistakably Juno Falls. "I've always loved pop songs because
(…) you're trying to be universal and appeal to a whole lot of people. But
there's a side of me that's always been attracted to the beauty and the sadness
of artists like Elbow or Rufus Wainwright”.
Road-tested on a month-long tour of the UK and Ireland with Travis, the new
songs have already found their live legs. "Fran [Healy, Travis singer] heard
'The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off' on my Myspace page and liked it so much, he asked
us to come on tour with them," explains the frontman.