In Conversation: The Coronas

“We sleep all day and we drink all night / we are not wasting our time” is a lyric that flowed through Irish radio stations and mp3 speakers back in 2007. The Coronas ‘San Diego Song’ is as inherent as Mundy’s ‘Galway Girl’ when it comes to late night singalongs in pubs across Ireland. 15 years on since their debut, The Coronas have had a steady bounty of number one albums and sold out shows. They’ve even survived the pandemic with only a few jokes here and there about their predictive band name. Now looking down the barrel album ‘7 Time Stopped’, lead singer Danny O’Reilly took some time to reflect on The Corona’s eventful career. 

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Meeting as school friends in Terenure College, O’Reilly, Graham Knox and Conor Egan joined what would later become The Coronas alongside Dave McPhillips. O’Reilly recounts the naivety and buzz that came from putting an album together: “We were only kids ourselves and we had a few songs. We hadn’t even toured outside Dublin nevermind outside of Ireland. We’d never been in the studio. We decided to do a record because we were making it up as we went along.”

“Fifteen years ago and that was it. It’s been a gradual process for us in that we always took baby steps forward. The next album solidified us in Ireland and we got lots of radio play again. We started playing bigger venues and grew slowly but surely until this unfortunately named pandemic hit. We’re blessed to still do it. We’re blessed to still sell tickets. I’m quite proud of our longevity.”

O’Reilly has their hunger for live performances to thank for their continuing success. “You need to have that passion. Crowds can see through it. You can’t fake it. If you’re not honestly enjoying the tour and to have that sort of contrived ‘we love what we’re doing’ unless you really are.” Those that have been seeing the band perform live haven’t given up the goat either with their five night stint in the Olympia in Dublin this December nearly sold out. 

“When we started out, it was all CDs and word of mouth and radio play. We’ve lived through all of that and our first album was still in the physical world which feels like a million years ago now. We were right on the tail end of it. Napster and downloads were the next thing and we went through all that as well.” Pushing through the changes of CDs to illegal downloads, streaming to TikTok, O’Reilly takes an adaptable view of the evolving music industry. “From our perspective, we were always in our own little bubble and did our own thing. We did sign to Island Records with ‘The Long Way’ album and we had all that experience with being with a major as well.”

The benefits of streaming have widened the band’s audience and has even made O’Reilly a recognisable face abroad, not just in the local parish. “I went over to Brussels recently. This Belgian guy stopped me on the train and said: ah, you’re from the Coronas. I love your music! It was so nice to get recognised over there and because he was from Belgium, I presumed he had some connection with Ireland. I asked,do you have Irish cousins or have you lived in Ireland? Is that how you found us? He said: I’ve never been to Ireland. I’ve never even seen you live. I just listened to you online. I found you on Spotify.” 

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So how have the Coronas survived in an industry that has gone through so many harsh changes? For them, the answer lay in setting up their own record label. So Far So Good Records was set up in 2017 and has seen their last two albums be released independently: “It made sense for us in Ireland to set up our own label and took it on ourselves. It’s something we’re really proud of. We hope that it might outlast the band. It’s been fun having our own label as well because then you see more of the business side of things. You do have to adjust as you go.”

“I also find that you have no one to blame but yourself if things aren’t going well. There’s always that thing with a major label that if something doesn’t go well, you’re saying ‘they didn’t push that single and why did they pick that song and not the other one?’ If you have your own label and you’re in control, it actually makes us work a lot harder.”

The Coronas were busy during the pandemic that took their namesake. Taking to Instagram, Danny chose a song every night to perform live. “It was a way to distract myself from the madness. Once the lockdown started to push on eight weeks. I started to get anxious about it and thinking ‘I need another song, what am I going to do?’ After saying I would do a song every night under the pandemic is over, I hung up the towel” *laughs*. In December 2020, they took over the Olympia Theatre and streamed a live gig. Viewers could pay as much or as little as they wanted to tune in but for a lucky few, they got to see them in person: “We did an ice cream truck tour of Ireland alongside the release. We went around to different cities in Ireland in the truck, played a few songs from the new album and said hello to people. We were busking pretty much.” It was no surprise that their album ‘True Love Waits’ took the top spot in the Irish charts (ice cream van music gave them a good run for their money).

‘Time Stopped’ took some inspiration from the lockdowns the band went through but so did the departure of Dave McPhillips from the band: “He was involved in some of the songs for ‘True Love Waits’ but this is the first one where he’s had no involvement in and I think it took me a while to get my head around that break-up. It’s longer than any relationship I’ve had in my life, he’s been our guitar player for 13/14 years and I love him so it was hard to… that was the starting point for me.”

15 years in the business is no mean feat and looking back over their time in music, what would Danny say to his younger and less experienced self: “Enjoy it. We did and we still are. I’m not an old man yet. Try not to overthink. I think I learned the most that time we moved to London and signed with Island. Things are going to be alright and don’t worry about it. Thankfully, it all works out.”

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‘Time Stopped’ is out now.

Words: Sophia McDonald