Music maestro: An interview with Tadhg Kelleher

After completing his music degree in Dublin, Tadhg Kelleher decided it was time for something completely different. 

The Athlone native has played in several local rock bands, dating back to the 1990s, but he decided he was now going to move to the countryside, grow potatoes, and form a pop band.

“I started getting some concerned calls from people. My friends were genuinely beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind,” he laughs.

The fruits of this new direction were unveiled to an enthusiastic response in Athlone last November. Tadhg’s band, Kiosoma, played their debut gig in front of a packed and appreciative audience in The Malt House on Church Street.

Previously he played in groups such as My Fallen Empire, Skinsize Kings, and TV After Midnight. Each band had its own distinctive approach but Kiosoma represents perhaps his most radical stylistic change to date.

“The releases we’ve had have a kind of disco-rock vibe,” explains Tadhg. “We’re definitely a pop act. We aspire to the pop of the late-80s when a lot of musicianship went into it, because we are all musicians.

“We’re taking this simple style of pop music and trying to do something slightly different with it. We’re now moving into a kind of jazzy, r’n’b (direction) with elements of reggae and things like that.

“Nothing is off the cards. There’s no shooting down of ideas. I know 'pop' has been a dirty word in music, but it also means that you are open to everything.”

Kiosoma's lead singer, Orla McBarron, is a Cavan native who met Tadhg while they were both studying music in UCD. The group also includes Athlone musicians Colm Noonan and Paul Shanagher, while Daniel Noonan from Delvin is on drums.

Tadhg is originally from Sli an Aifrinn and currently lives near Glasson. In 2005, he founded the Athlone School of Music in Monksland. During its busiest year 300 students were enrolled in the school, but it was hit hard by the economic downturn and was forced to close in 2010.

He subsequently moved to Dublin to study for his degree, during which time he became actively involved in performing Indonesian music, called Gamelan. He also taught music in a secondary school for a time but realised this was wasn't for him.

“Secondary school teaching is more about discipline and learning to control a crowd rather than actually teaching music. I prefer one-on-one teaching,” he says. 

Discussing his musical tastes, Tadhg says he never settled on one particular genre.

“I like a bit of jazz, a bit of country, a bit of death metal. I think when you get into the creative zone it’s important not to pigeonhole yourself. I’m more about causing trouble. You have to kind of stir things.

“When I was doing the Indonesian music in Dublin there were some big gigs, but I was into this avant-garde composing circle. It was great fun but you found that, the further you were going into it, the smaller the circles were getting. It was getting a bit pretentious.

“When I came back (to Athlone), I thought: what can I do that’s the complete opposite of this? Write a pop album!”

A feature of Kiosoma's songs to date has been distinctive hooks and melodies which linger in your head. It's not difficult to envision some of the songs receiving airplay on mainstream radio.

“It would be nice to get a hit,” says Tadhg. “I think if you get a hit you can have a lot more freedom to make a longer career out of it.

“There’s a whole world of obscure, avant-garde, rock-pop music, and you will get a lifespan of about a year out of that. If you were able to get one or two songs that went mainstream, you’d get ten years out of it.”

The music industry has changed completely since Tadhg first started playing in bands. Back then, impressing a top record industry executive was seen as the most likely way to become famous and successful.

“I’m a bit older now so I’m not thinking about trying to impress this person at the top of the music industry.

“At the same time there is still that creative energy. There’s a bit of an innocence about us but we are more in control of it.”

When Kiosoma began to take shape, a decision was taken to start recording early on and put out the songs out on YouTube and social media. 

The online reaction was positive but Tadhg says there was uncertainty about whether or not this would translate into a crowd at the opening gig in November.

“Everything was virtual up to that point. You can have 1,000 people ‘liking’ your video but that doesn’t mean those people will make the effort to go to your gig! But we arrived on the night and everyone was there. Some people came down from Cavan. It was a nice buzz. A really good, positive energy about it.”

He says the band will play another gig in Athlone at some stage over the coming months but he wants to be “a bit more selective” about gigs than he has been with some groups in the past.

“I’m not in the mood to go begging for gigs. The circumstances have to be right and it has to be an enjoyable experience for everyone. Everyone has to come out of it right – the band, the venue, the promoter, or whoever else.”

The main focus for the band at the moment is to further expand its live set with a view to hitting the festival circuit this summer.

Tadhg is also still teaching music and gives instruction in drums, guitar, and piano. He can be contacted at: tadhgkelleher@gmail.com

His openness to new ideas led to him taking part in a remarkable experiment in London last month.

Tadhg and a painter from Dublin, who goes by the name of Tag Beckett, set out to see what would happen if they got to do their favourite thing for 24 hours.

In a studio in London, Tadhg played piano for 24 hours while Tag painted for 24 hours alongside him. It was streamed online in its entirety and at one point was being shown live in a pub in Berlin.

Tadhg says neither he nor the painter wanted to be the first to quit and it was only this sense of bravado that pushed them to complete the whole 24 hours.

“The idea was to go as far into the creative process as we could,” he says.

“I always find when you sit down writing or practising you get into it for a while but at some point your brain goes, ‘ah, I’ll come back to this later on, I’ll switch off for now’.

“This was to force ourselves to go into that place where you can’t switch off, you just have to go through it. It was totally insane, but it was a nice insanity.”