A name hot on the lips of many across the country due to their growing popularity, Trinity Ball 2017 headliners The Riptide Movement are a band you’ll have heard talk of. The Lucan four piece are determined to impress, polishing up set-lists and bringing their latest album release, Ghosts, to the ears of many. Just home from a headline performance at Emerald Sounds in London, The Riptide Movement’s JP Dalton spoke to The University Times ahead of a number of Irish gigs.
Dalton quickly reflects on the band’s hectic schedule, stating that the band is “pretty busy at the moment”, having just returned from London, where “for a first-time festival, it was pretty good, went really smoothly”. Dalton then moves to discuss the band’s current focus: “We’re actually just finished shooting a video for our song “Changeling”, and that should be out on Friday, actually. It’s a really good video I think, so I’m excited for that.”
Having self-produced much of their music thus far from home, The Riptide Movement’s 12-track October 2016 release Ghosts took shape in El Paso, Texas, under Grammy-Award-winning producer Ted Hutt. Dalton shares the experience: “We did some writing around the country, in Kerry and down in Wicklow. We had around 40 songs, and then Ted [Hutt] wanted to do the recording over at Sonic Ranch in America. Sonic Ranch is kind of the Willa Wonka’s of music, about 70 or 80 vintage guitars, pianos, drums, you name it, it’s got it. It’s just on the border of Mexico, really in the middle of nowhere, which is great. You can go outside and scream or do whatever and no one will hear you. It really makes you focus.”
Dalton describes working with Hutt as “amazing”: “He’s tough and it can be frustrating at times, but it works, he got the 40 songs down to around eight and we wrote some more when we were there. We’re really happy with it.” Speaking further, Dalton notes: “You know, a lot of artists get into the studio every weekend but for us, we only get in a couple of times a year. So for us, we learned so much from Ted [Hutt]. Working with him was brilliant.”
Through the years, The Riptide Movement held a close relationship with alternative Irish radio station TXFM, which unfortunately went off-air in October 2016, just as The Riptide Movement released their last album. Known for showcasing some of the best in Irish music, TXFM were frequently gave airtime to The Riptide Movement. Dalton talks about what the loss of the station meant to them: “First, I wanna just say that when TXFM shut down I was so shocked. They were fantastic. I couldn’t believe it. The DJs actually played music because they thought it was good, not because it would get them listeners or whatever, which unfortunately is hard to find these days in Irish radio. They had their finger on the pulse, it was about the music and the passion. They know so much about music, they love it. I was so sad to see them go.”
While noting that the band is “grateful” for the support and airplay that the station gave the band, he states that they’re “not too worried”. “We’re getting better and we also have a lot of good friends in other radio stations, it’s not much of an issue”, he says. “The album was well received across loads of radio stations so it’s all good.”
Speaking about upcoming gigs in Dublin, Dalton notes the “real energetic free-for-all” that their shows so often are: “We always like to change things up, we’ve road-tested them now, so have got songs from Ghosts fitting really well into our set, so we will be showcasing a good few new songs. We try and keep it interesting.”
Dalton also expressed the band’s excitement for playing the Trinity Ball Stage. “Trinity Ball also we’re looking forward to. We decided to do it because it’s something really different, we don’t really know what to expect. I don’t want to give too much away about what to expect from us, but we bring the noise. I’m an ex-Trinity student myself so it’ll be cool to be back.”
