Steve Garrigan insists the new Kodaline record isn’t being crafted in some cavernous Dublin studio with vintage Neves and a half-dozen engineers. It’s being made in a kitchen. “It’s basically just a kitchen,” he shrugs. “Not a studio called The Kitchen. A kitchen. Fridge, stove, sink, everything.” The kind of place you’d expect to find leftover curry, not an arena-sized anthem.
Kodaline, of course, are a band genetically engineered for the big sound. Their ballads don’t sidle into a room, they arrive on horseback with banners waving. So the idea of them bashing out choruses in the same space you’d make a grilled cheese feels almost satirical. Garrigan laughs at the contradiction: “It wasn’t planned. But the sound that comes out of us—it’s just that. We always kind of aim for big.”
This record is different in more ways than geography. After years of producers, co-writers, and the occasional major-label babysitter, Kodaline are producing themselves. “We just felt we were up for doing it entirely ourselves,” Garrigan says. “Of course you obsess over the tiniest detail. You can overthink everything. At some point you have to let it go and say, ‘That’s it, done.’ Otherwise you never stop tweaking snare sounds while the world passes you by.”
The first taste, “Wherever You Are,” started as a song for Garrigan’s girlfriend. “Being in a band, we’re always gone, and it’s hard on relationships,” he says. He played it for the others, they threw a band arrangement on top, and suddenly a private note became a public anthem. The lyrics—“Wherever you are, that’s where I’ll be”—are blunt enough to sound universal. The video, directed by Michael Riley, doubled down on the emotional pull. “It’s one of our favorite songs we’ve written in years,” Garrigan says. “Live, it already feels like it belongs.”
But not everything on the kitchen record is sweet sentiment. “Anxiety and mental health are a big part of this album,” Garrigan says. He’s dealt with both depression and anxiety for years. “I never spoke about it. Being from Ireland, there’s this thing of, ‘Ah, you’ll be fine. Be a man. Don’t cry.’ But music has always been my outlet. Songs like ‘High Hopes’ came from that place. This time I wanted to talk about it more openly.” He’s blunt about what helps: therapy if you can afford it, podcasts and breathing exercises if you can’t, but above all: talking. “Confide in friends, family, anyone. That’s the first step. For years I didn’t, and it just got worse. It only got better when I opened my mouth.” He’s also working with Walk In My Shoes, an Irish mental health charity founded by U2’s Adam Clayton. “If I can point someone in the right direction, then it’s worth it.”
And while the record is being born in a kitchen, the songs are road-tested everywhere else. “We’d tour, come home, record a few days, then back out again,” Garrigan says. That stop-start schedule had an upside: perspective. “You can record something, sit on it, and then listen on tour. Sometimes you come back and think, ‘That’s great.’ Sometimes you think, ‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.’ You need distance.”
That distance collapsed completely in India, where Kodaline’s touring life has taken on surreal proportions. “The first time we went, we thought, let’s just go. If anyone shows up, that’s a win. But when we landed, fans were waiting at the airport. The shows were incredible.” On a later tour, they found themselves part of a Bollywood fever dream. “We’d just landed in Mumbai, got in a car, driving down the motorway. Suddenly this guy on a scooter is chasing us, waving frantically. I thought he was telling the driver we were about to crash. But no, he was a fan. He’d literally been listening to us in his earbuds, saw me in the car, and jumped on his moped. We pulled over, took a picture. He was shaking.” Garrigan grins. “The universe lined it up perfectly for him. Terrifying for us, but great story.”
So that’s Kodaline: a band with international screaming fans, global tours, and arena-ready songs… making their record in the most unglamorous room of the house. “If you have a party, everyone ends up in the kitchen,” Garrigan says. “Maybe that’s why it works.”
Listen at the interview above and then check out the video below!
