Irish alt-rockers, Rowan, share title track, "Does It Make You Happy?" featuring Ariel Posen, from upcoming debut album - @rowantheband

 

Irish alt-rockers, Rowan, share title track, "Does It Make You Happy?" featuring Ariel Posen, from upcoming debut album

IRISH ALT-ROCK TRIO 

SHARE TITLE TRACK FROM UPCOMING DEBUT ALBUM

"DOES IT MAKE YOU HAPPY?"

STREAM THE NEW SINGLE HERE | WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

NEW LP

DOES IT MAKE YOU HAPPY?

DUE OUT MAY 6, 2022

PRE-SAVE / PRE-ORDER THE LP HERE

Artwork credit: Stewart Armstrong

Emerging Irish trio Rowan release the downtempo, sincere title track of their long-awaited debut album, Does It Make You Happy?, alongside an accompanying video, ahead of its May 6th release via Beverly Martel. The 11-track LP is available for pre-order now.

The album’s title track, featuring Canadian multi-instrumentalist Ariel Posen, came to the band quickly and naturally as it vulnerably explores abusive behaviors within relationships and wanting more for oneself. Dylan Howe (vocalist) explains, “It was like a surge of energy just shot through me and it was finished. It’s the song I resonate with heaviest on this album, it deals with abusive behaviors in a relationship and, in retrospect, how I should’ve demanded better for myself.”

The video, directed by Chris Buckley, depicts shots of the band melancholically performing the song as Howe gazes into the camera. Between shots of the band performing, a couple is shown holding each other and gracefully slow dancing as if to be the only two in the world.

Watch "Does It Make You Happy?'

The title track follows previous singles, including the garage-rock groove "Honesty," which Atwood Magazine calls, "Warm, tender, and filled with heartfelt sentiments...a song that evokes solace through lush familiarity and its own sonic sincerity." Prior to the "Honesty" release, Rowan shared the visceral "Irish To My Bones" and the endearing "Youth & Youthhood" which have received support from the likes of Steve Lamacq & Lauren Laverne at 6 Music.

Born out of the early pandemic last year, when the three accomplished musicians were forced into a hiatus from session work, Rowan are fast becoming one of the most exciting new Irish acts around. 

With a wealth of material written over the years, the first group of songs Rowan released were delicate, longing and beautiful – culminating in their independently released, debut EP No One Is Safe Here. Full of longing, escapism and a desire to be somewhere else, the songs were inspired by Howes’ “various struggles with mental health” as he used art to “try and get the bad stuff out. It’s like therapy,” he explains.

 

Rowan then signed to Beverly Martel with last year’s EP, Everybody Talks, their first imprint with the LA label. Instant earworms with cinematic videos such as "Nothing’s Gonna Change" & "One Of These Days" put the band on the map in Ireland and beyond.

 

Fast forward to 2022, the stage is set for Rowan, who teamed up with producer Tim Palmer (U2, Pearl Jam, James) for their superb debut album Does It Make You Happy?. The long-awaited LP, explains the band, is "the amalgamation of joy, sadness, pain, relief and everything in between. The explosive artwork married with the album represents all these parts of life. We worked on the songs in 2020 when the first lockdown hit. We set a songwriting challenge for ourselves where we each had to send in a completed song by midnight every day. After a month we had a plethora of songs and Dylan started demoing them."

The band continues, "After we had worked on "Apollo," we had decided from day one that it was literally going to launch the album, with a sample from Charles Duke, the space capsule communicator on NASA’s Apollo 10 mission to orbit the moon. We recorded the vocals for this one in a car that we parked outside the studio, to get the tight space that would mirror that of being in a space capsule. This set the tone for the rest of the album. We wanted to create an arc of joy and sadness, with the album starting up high, going through various emotions and then finally ending with a profound cathartic question of "Does It Make You Happy?" Now, Rowan are ready for take off.

On their debut album, Rowan explore the full spectrum of human emotion as they ponder what truly fulfills them. Does It Make You Happy? is available for pre-order now. Listen to the title track featuring Ariel Posen, out now, and connect with Rowan on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more from the rising alt-rock trio.

WATCH THE VIDEOS FOR THE PREVIOUS SINGLES

"Honesty" "Youth And Youthhood" | "Nothing’s Gonna Change" | "One Of These Day

Courtesy of Rowan

ABOUT ROWAN

“Nobody sits in their bedroom with a guitar and thinks, ‘how am I going to change somebody's life today?’ starts Fionn Hennessy-Hayes. “You just try to change your own.”

 

Like so many people, the pandemic gifted Irish indie-rock band Rowan a chance to reflect on what they actually wanted to be doing. The trio had been playing together in various groups over the years (aged twelve, guitarist Kevin Herron and Fionn started a covers band) and had settled into comfortable work as session musicians that took up most of their time. Touring the world, playing sold-out shows and getting creative in the studio, it was almost a dream come true. It’s just a shame it wasn’t their own music. “We spent most of the time pushing other people's careers, not so much our own,” grins Fionn. “Rowan never got its full attention from anyone.”

 

Debut album Does It Make You Happy? is certainly going to change that.

 

At the start of 2020, the trio already had plans in place to start taking Rowan more seriously. “We loved our jobs but we knew this band was what we really wanted to be doing. COVID was a convenient way we could make that happen,” says Fionn.

 

First came debut EP No One Is Safe Here in November 2020. It was a wistful collection of indie-folk tracks that saw vocalist Dylan Howe adding every trick he’d learnt at music college. Driven by a desire to be anywhere else, the songs were inspired by his “various struggles with mental health” as he used art to “try and get the bad stuff out. It’s like therapy,” he explains.

 

People connected to that pained escapism, which seemed to speak to the current moment in time perfectly. They didn’t have expectations to suddenly become the biggest band in the world, “we just wanted to connect to people.”. Job done.

 

The band followed it up with 2021’s Everybody Talks EP. A bolshie collection of indie-rock anthems that traded delicate piano for fuzzy guitar amps without losing Rowan’s emotional heft. It was “a more coherent collection of work”. It ended up providing the perfect stepping stone to debut album Does It Make You Happy?, which is out in May and sees the band really come into their own.

 

The vibe is very much “three lads in a room making loud noises. It’s excitement and euphoria,” as the trio take influence from the post-punk energy of Fontaines D.C. and Idles as well as their long-standing love of Kings of Leon, The Strokes, Bombay Bicycle Club and Arctic Monkeys (whose headline performance at Glastonbury 2007 inspired Fionn to start making music).

  

Does It Make You Happy? is a record about how you affect the world, and how the world affects you. With the trio writing 50 songs in the first six months of lockdown, the twelve-tracks of their album are bonded by a shared anger, a universal frustration and an unwavering desire for change. “It’s just been a very heavy time for everybody. I saw anger everywhere I looked,” explains Dylan who channelled that into tracks like "Apollo" or "One Of These Days" which saw him playing the guitar so ferociously, he had no strings left by the end of recording.

 

“There’s never been another time where everyone is going through the same thing. Hopefully this record can offer some hope and some solace,” adds Fionn.

 

‘A FIRE!’ takes influence from Radiohead and Sam Fender, all dystopian nightmares and rebellious murmurings, while the jangly indie of ‘Honesty’ is a song about lies. The driving ‘Read It In The News’ is about struggling to let go and move on while "Nothing's Gonna Change" talks about “coming out of your shell, gaining your self-confidence and coming into yourself.” It mirrors the same self-growth the band have gone through in recent years. “I've always been really quiet and shy,” admits Dylan. “But I’ve learned to speak up a little more now and that song definitely came from a place of quiet confidence.”

 

That hard-earnt assurance can be felt throughout Does It Make You Happy? as the band waste no time in getting straight to the point, either musically or lyrically. The chaotic punk thrash of "Irish To My Bones" talks about generational trauma, alcoholism and outdated ideas about masculinity. “It’s about being suppressed and depressed,” explains Dylan.

 

And if to prove just how powerful their music can be, "I Don’t Want To Talk" was started by Fionn as a way to offer Dylan support who “was going through a messy breakup around the same time he lost his mother. Unbeknownst to him, myself and Kev made a conscious effort to write lyrics that we thought would resonate with him. My logic was that if I was going through everything he was, I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone.” He wrote one line “I don’t want to talk” and sent it to Dylan. Within an hour, he came back with a finished song.

 

According to Dylan, writing that song “felt like a rush of cathartic emotion.” He still finds it hard to perform but is hoping any discomfort he feels will be countered by the positive impact it can offer others.

 

“I want people to know it’s ok to feel angry, sad, depressed or whatever. But don’t wallow in those emotions. You have to deal with your problems.” It’s why Rowan make the music they do. “It’s about confronting the pain, looking it in the eye and acknowledging it. Yes, it’s tough and it’ll always be tough, but it’s important to express yourself. Hopefully this band will inspire other people to do the same.”

 

“I remember being at a Big Thief concert and they played "Terminal Paradise". Even though it’s about something completely different, the lyrics spoke to what I was going through when my mother was quite sick,” offers Dylan. “I connected to it in such a way that I was bawling for the rest of the show. I hope people can feel the emotion behind our songs in a similar way. If someone can relate to our music and realise they’re not isolated or crazy, that’s our job done.”

 

That’s the thing about trying to change your own life, isn’t it? It can always inspire others to do something similar.

Courtesy of Rowan

Tracklisting: Does It Make You Happy? (LP) 1. Apollo 2. Honesty 3. Read It In The News 4. Nothing's Gonna Change 5. Far From The Truth 6. I Don't Wanna Talk 7. Leave Now Go 8. Youth and Youthhood 9. Everybody Talks 10. Irish To My Bones 11. Does It Make You Happy?

For more information on Rowan, please visit:

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