Interview with Lore: ‘Now felt like the perfect time to drop ‘The Anthem’, we’re ready, with umbrellas and wellies at the ready!’

Derry-based indie folk band, Lore, released their latest single, ‘The Anthem’, last week, a gloriously infectious song that captures the exuberance of music festivals and long summer nights.

The band is fronted by singer/songwriter Carolann Carlile. Born in Belfast, she was raised in the musical heart of Derry. Guitarist and composer Luke McCloskey, from Dungiven Co.Derry, is the founding member and original driving force behind the three piece band, which includes Rebecca Hall on the violin and fiddle. Carlile and McCloskey met when he performed in a cover band at her mother’s birthday five years ago and they met Hall through other musician friends.

‘The Anthem’ is one of those tracks that immediately lifts your mood and takes you back to a time when you could dance the night away at a festival. ‘We were playing at the Stendhal festival in 2019 (in Limavady in Ireland), it’s beautiful there,’ Carlile said. ‘We wanted to write something to encapsulate that feeling. We wrote it there that weekend after a few drinks and performed it there as well! We’ve played that festival a few times, it’s class. I love the energy and seeing the other musicians. Now felt like the perfect time to drop ‘The Anthem’, we’re ready, with umbrellas and wellies at the ready!’

I tell her that ‘The Anthem’ would work well both to open and to close a set and she agrees: ‘Luke is the brains, he’s the organised one, he’d do the set list, he can figure out where to put it!’

‘When we’re playing live, we try to create a very dynamic show, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster’

We chat wistfully for a while about live music and how much we miss it. ‘When we’re playing live, we try to create a very dynamic show, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster,’ she laughed. ‘We want to sing songs about real stuff, to encapsulate the energy of festivals and inject it into our gigs.’

Carlile often draws on her own experiences in her lyrics, notably in songs such as ‘Homecoming’ and ‘Falling’. ‘Homecoming’ turns out to be about her grandmother: ‘She was a really inspirational lady,’ she said. ‘She was the first lady in her village to wear a pair of trousers. She lived to her 90s and didn’t mince her words. She was class. Everyone has a role model like that if they’re blessed. She was badass, she was the original gangsta granny!’

Carlile has often been compared to Melissa Etheridge, Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan and the band has also drawn comparisons to Fleetwood Mac. They also remind me of 10,000 Maniacs. However, the best description came courtesy of DJ Eileen Walsh, who said they wrote ‘dragon taming music’. Carlile is delighted by the description: ‘I’ve tamed a few dragons in my time,’ she laughed.

Since lockdown, they have been writing a lot over WhatsApp: ‘Luke will come to me with half a dozen bits of songs. I write the majority of the lyrics but we collaborate to bring a song together, it’s very equal. We’ve got hundreds of songs that we haven’t finished, though. We’ve got two more singles, all recorded, ready to release, but I’ll keep them under my hat for now!’

Their sound has evolved over the past five years: ‘We did sound more folky initially,’ Carlile said. ‘We wanted to write songs about what we know and ‘lore’ means to tell stories.’

‘When you’re doing a cover, you’re having someone else’s baby, you have to add a bit of yourself!’

In 2016, they released a fantastic cover of ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones, which came about very serendipitously after they got chatting to Mickey Bradley, bassist for The Undertones. ‘Luke didn’t know who he was!,’ she laughed. ‘They were chatting and Luke asked him if he played a bit and he said he did.’ I say that it’s much easier to recognise songs than musicians and she agrees. ‘It just happened that we were looking for something to cover and we asked him if we could do it a different way and he told us to go for it. (Lore’s version is much slower, more of a ballad and benefits from having Hall on the violin.) When you’re doing a cover, you’re having someone else’s baby, you have to add a bit of yourself!’

‘Falling’, from their self-titled debut album in 2015 is one of their most raw tracks: ‘I don’t leave a lot behind, it’s all out really in the open,’ she admitted. ‘Heartbreak is what it is, you have to give enough of yourself so that it resonates with people. It’s cathartic to write.’ I ask if the person it’s about knows it’s about them and she laughs. ‘No, I don’t think so. I haven’t kissed a lot of frogs but they probably all think it’s about them!’

A song that she really wishes she’d written is ‘Palace’ by Sam Smith, which has been beautifully covered by Cam. ‘It’s about a break-up, it comes from something real,’ she said.

If she could tour with anyone, she picks U2: ‘The budget they have for their gigs! Although, I might prefer an intimate gig, I really like those, so maybe Raining Jane (an LA-based indie pop band) with Jason Mraz, they have beautiful harmonies.’

Her acting background (she studied it) also feeds into her songwriting: ‘For me, if you’re living/breathing something, I personally do it ‘cos I love the experience. It’s like reading a good book or watching a movie, you can’t lie to an audience, they know if it’s real or not. There will always be a bit of recognition in a song, a nugget of truth in it.’