Kampala - Irish Artist Of The Week

0:00Rob and Bars from Camp Halleise was first off, let the listeners know a little bit about you. Myself and Bars were both from from Nays in Calaire. We've known each other for a very long time, but we only started playing together in a band kind of mid-22. We had known each other for a long time, but kind of I started a new band after the demise of my previous band, neither the bass player, I've known Bars for a long time and hit them up. And so yeah, that's that's the two of us. And then there is Dan, who's our recent additionally guitar player, he's from Tondorf, he can't get out, and Justin, who was our drummer, who's from Dublin. So we put our first single out in 2022, and since then, we've played a lot of shows where in Dublin, we've recorded 10 songs, actually, which are all up on Spotify now. We've played a lot here and a bit in Germany as well. So we are like an alternative rock band, I guess you can call us, and I think our biggest influences from the 90s and 90s, so like the cure, the patch modes, then the whole orange thing. So we kind of try to marry a little bit of US influences with some UK influences,

1:02and that's how we arrived at my rear. How did you get into music growing up? Was there someone that inspired you? The first introduction to music was an older cousin, and I was looking enough that he was into good music, because it could have been also different, I suppose, how I'd been led up the wrong path. Now, he was into the cure and joy division, and that kind of thing, and Pixies, which is a good place to start, anyone's music of life. And around that time, after I discovered that music, I picked up an instrument, picked up a guitar, picked up a bass, I'll never look back. For me, it's actually quite interesting. One year on the lads in school, in third year, it got a drum kit for Christmas, and we had a small kind of the unpopular crowd in school who we sent, as well as they sent a text message, but this was long before the age of mobile phones, so there was a phone call to everyone's house, and did anybody have an instrument and did they want to go to his attic? And my brother being very of an 80s persuasion had a, Yama had synthesiser, and I'd never played, but I said, hey, and I went and gave it a go. And I must admit, from the first jam that night, I was absolutely

2:05hoped, and I mean, we were terrible. But, we stayed terrible for a long time, but the idea of making music with a group of other people has always been something that has stayed with me ever since, it's kind of like my happy place. What was the inspiration for making a band in the first place? There's a sense of camaraderie with people that you make music with, that is different to any sort of camaraderie you will have in any other sort of relationship, and I do think, especially with a band that lasts a long time, it is a relationship, and there is a lot of kind of inter-dynamic relationship stuff that goes on, and you have to be considerate of other people's needs and stuff, but I think that was the thing that I got hooked on was the idea of being around straightforwardly people, by the same objective as a very, it's something that brings you together that, and communally making art, I think, is a lot more satisfying than making it by yourself. There's different kinds of music, I listen to music, I listen to, for moods and music for to work, or to get stuff done, but then there's music that just stops you in your tracks, and music that just makes me want to make music. Not all music makes you want to do that, but the music that

3:08does, it has a really powerful effect, and it really compels you to create and to seek other people who are like-minded, and the half the bottle is to find those other people, and when you do, to recognise that you have found them, and that you got to keep it, and you got to let it go, and you've got to hone as a nurturer and work, work it for what it is. And I know you guys mentioned a couple of people that you look up to, but is there someone in specific that you guys look up to when you're rising your music? I would be the principal songwriter in the band in terms of like the inception of songs, right? And ever since I was kind of about 20, maybe more 23 or 24 something like that, when I kind of understood what good songwriting was, I've always taught Martin Gore from Depeche Mode is kind of like the best songwriting on the planet personally, and the way that Martin Gore is able to talk about what goes on in the world, and then frame it in mood, and emotional driving sound, it's something that I've always said massively inspiration,

4:14so it's a songwriter. Martin Gore and probably Eddie Werner will be the two that would stick out to me the most has been the biggest inspiration in terms of songwriters. And how about yourself, Buzz? I know that you're one of the performers in the band, but who do you look up to if you're if you're getting into the writing of the music? The people I've always sort of sought to imitate be the likes of Robert Smith and the cure, Trent Rezner, bassists like Simon Gallup, basically, you know, post-punk players, Peter Hoke, that type of thing. I have my influences, but I tried to do it my way as well, you know. Your track, it's not me, it's you, is the reason we're chatting. I suppose tell us a little bit of Irish, and is there a story behind it for Woody? It's not me, it's you, is I've had a situation recently, a relationship with a situation which was not actually a romantic relationship, but like a professional relationship where my situation changed, and I think in a lot of times when unfavorable things happen to you, you can look at yourself as calm, kind of what to write you wrong, which is the whole kind of when you break up with someone

5:14and they say to you, listen, it's not you, it's me, it's the traditional saying that people kind of, you know, dissolved themselves in the responsibility of, or to solve you with responsibility, I should say, of the heartache or whatever, and this was a situation where my life changed in a way where it was an unfavorable change, and it was nothing to do with me, and I thought it would be an interesting juxtaposition to kind of give myself the past of going, you know what, it's actually not me, it's all you, and that's what the song's about, it's about realizing that stuff can happen that's negative in your life, and you have to know when it's your fault and when it's not, and in that situation it wasn't my fault, and that's why it's called, it's not me, it's you. Your debut album is officially out, tell us a little bit about the album, and why was now the best time to release your debut album? The subject matter, as the songwriter in the band, the subject matter of the album is so largely about the state of the world now, and the complete turn into just the way we kind of see it is, the animals are running the zoo, like the way that the the kind of hierarchy and the management of the world has fallen apart by politicians at the top,

6:18level, and I think social media has had a major hand in that, and the way that people have sort of turned to social media, almost like it's replacing religion, and I think that the way the world has devolved in the last, I'd be saying for five years, has been present as our band has formed and grown, and I think in the world we live in, it's kind of hard to not take that into account in terms of what inspires you to write lyrics, because we mean you write lyrics to make your life experiences, right? And the lyrics that I've written to these songs have all been inspired by the really strange situation that the world is in, and that's the reason for the name of the album, might be in my terminology as a matter of modernity. Modern times are pretty mad, so that's that's what the, I think that's why the album happened as it did, because there was a lot of source inspiration material happening in the world, to be honest. Looking back of your career so far, what has been a highlight for Boltevi? We had, we got to Germany every year, and this will be our fourth year going over, we go over, we go over, we play some shows around Dusseldorf, and there's a studio that we stay in, where we go, you know, it's almost like a musical retreat, we go

7:21four days, we stay in the studio, like the four of us stay in one tiny room in this studio, which is great, and the room is like where we sleep, but also where we rehearse, we go, we record it there the first time, and we go over there and write there. The first time we ever went over, we played a show, and this really mad venue, and this really like remote part of that particular party Germany, and it was our first time interacting with German audiences, and they've never heard our music before, and the reception we got in this tiny little room from probably about, I know, somewhere 80 to 100 people or something like that, was unbelievable, and I think that, that night, the gig in the first place, in a place called Linnik in Germany, in a venue called MacMulers, was the best experience I've had with Kampala since we started. The Germany aspect of Kampala is always great, you got to go travel internationally and play your music to a receptive audience, and who enjoy what you do, it's great, it's a great part of us, long made that continue. What does 2026 look like for you guys? Are there some things planned

8:23that you can tell us about? We made an EP, and we made a few singles in between the EP and this, and we have had more and more people at our shows, we play both here and abroad, and I think the time at conference to kind of put something more kind of significant together, so we've written or recorded our albums throughout 2025, and now to beginning in 2026, we're, we're putting it out. So we have a gig in Wienens in April, a gig in Fred Zeppelin's in April, we're looking into some more dates around Ireland in the moment, we have a possible festival slot coming up that we're not allowed to talk about just yet, and then we have two shows so far with maybe a third one in May in Germany, almost certainly a festival slot in Germany in August as well. Believe it or not, even though the albums finished, I've actually kind of started writing the songs for what our next kind of, I think our next eventual be an EP, because an album takes a long time, and we recorded our albums ourselves in our rehearsal room, we didn't win to a studio, and one of my closest friends,

9:25other type of music we had grown up, who was one of the guys actually that was in that adict that day back in 1994, and he became our producer. We have done really, really wonderful look through being able to record ourselves, so we're going to make another EP maybe towards the end of this year, and that's kind of our plan, right? Let's get through this year, promote the album, hopefully it kind of connects with people, and we're going to move some really nice shells lined up to play, and I'm really excited about 2026, it's going to be great. And I suppose finally, where can people find you guys on social media if they're looking to stay up to date with absolutely everything? We're on Instagram, we're on TikTok, we're on Facebook as well. I think the best thing to do is go to compileaband.com because all of our tour dates are there, and all of our social links are there, and what we're up to currently is generally kind of front and center on compileaband.com.