THURSDAY, JULY 16TH
Director return with their second album I’ll Wait For Sound on 8 May 2009, preceded by the single “Sing It Without A Tune” on 1 May.
Since their irresistible bid for notice on the Dublin rock circuit in 2005, Director’s crafted, intelligent guitar music has stood them apart from the usual suspects.
The band’s genesis saw three Malahide college entrants, guitarist Aherne, bassist Averill and frontman Moloney, playing together, sharing an aesthetic and with a few songs already starting to form. They began to take the operation seriously, assuming roles and casting around for a drummer to complete the outfit. Moloney, while studying for his degree in music, made the acquaintance of just such a drummer, classmate Lawlor, whose interests were in harmony with those of the group. Director were complete. A year later, after an arresting sequence of live shows, amid growing popularity, Director recorded their debut record, We Thrive On Big Cities, for Atlantic Records.
It seems like the typical back-story for a rock quartet but Director are far from that. In everything they have done, the band have demonstrated an atypical and business-like directness. The de rigeur posturing of the typical indie-group is absent. The goal was always to write accessible, immediate, enjoyable pieces of music. Director constructed their songs with an auteur-ish pop sensibility, compromising neither on artistry nor mass-appeal. Their first volley of live shows couldn’t fail to win converts. The sheer speed with which they commanded major-label attention was no fluke. They meant business from the very beginning.
Since then, their story has been anything but ordinary. We Thrive On Big Cities which included the hit "reconnect" brought Director widespread success in Ireland (well over platinum status sales and a chart presence for 28 weeks after debuting at number 2 in the album charts). Director played to packed-out venues across Ireland, and commanded large crowds at their Oxegen festival appearances.
Accolades were forthcoming as they won Best New Act at the Meteor Awards 2007 while We Thrive On Big Cities picked up a nomination for the Choice Music Prize Album of the Year.
Meanwhile Director began to pick up a following across the Irish Sea, where a series of support slots for successful British acts like Hard-Fi, Razorlight and The Fratellis along with numerous festival appearances won them an appreciative audience.
In late 2007 work began on an entirely new set of songs guided by the same exacting standards that had informed their debut. A space was rented over a Dublin pub, and the band threw themselves into a four month-long intensive writing period. Adopting a disciplined song-writing regime, the group often concentrated on a single song for days, moving on only after they were happy that some significant progress had been accomplished.
The method bore fruit, and Director began to find themselves with material for what they felt could be a fitting follow-up to their debut. Four months of rehearsal in the darkness of a windowless room, however, took its toll on the band, and it was felt that a relocation was in order, both for the health of the record and of its authors.