Kodaline have been one of the success stories in Irish music in 2013. Their debut record In A Perfect World catapulted the Dublin-based fourpiece straight to the summit of the charts, with further success following in the UK and even further afield. As the band prepared for a three-night stand in Dublin's Olympia Theatre, entertainment.ie music editor John Balfe caught up guitarist Mark Prendergast for a chat about the year that's been.

It became apparent that Kodaline were going to be a success when you were nominated last year for the BBCs Sound of 2013 award, as well as MTVs equivalent of the same honour. What was it like to finally feel like you're making an imprint in the music business after so many years of trying?

We're just really happy that people are interested in us. Those lists gave us a good push at the start of our career and got the name of the band out. The most rewarding thing is that people are coming to the shows.

What were your highlights of 2013 so far? Presumably you have a rather large list to select from..?

It's quite tricky to pick one highlight but we've had some amazing moments at festivals over the summer. Electric Picnic was insane, the crowd were amazing and sang every word. Glastonbury was pretty special, and we did Summer Sonic in Japan,we got an amazing reaction over there. That was very weird

Tell us about the North American tour, any interesting stories from the road? How have audiences over there been reacting? That part of the world is a notoriously difficult nut to crack.

We love touring the US, those long drives through middle America were good craic. The shows were great but what we enjoyed most of all was mixing with the locals in the deep south. You meet some interesting fish down there but we loved it. We left Vinny at a truck stop in Arkansas, we found it hilarious, him not so much.

How does a Kodaline song typically take shape? Your approach is usually very multi-layered vocally, which strikes me as being a more challenging style of songwriting.

Most songs are written stripped down on either an Acoustic Guitar or a piano. It changes from song to song, sometimes lyrics first, sometimes melody. Sometimes a simple drum beat an kick start an entire song.

Have you already begun planning for album number two? I heard a tale that a lot of bands' second albums are, in some way, about the pressures of touring. Do you reckon you can pen a couple of tunes about that topic?

Yes we started album two as soon as we finished album one. We've a ton of ideas floating about and were going to spend most of January writing and recording. People keep talking about the pressures of album two, but when we sit down to write a song we forget all that stuff and let the song take over. Pressure can be a good thing in our opinion.

What are your plans for 2014? I know you have shows booked but do you intend to take a little bit of time off to recharge the batteries at some point, or do you plan on staying busy and maintaining momentum?

We kinda get bored when we have time off. We're touring up until May and then we have some big stuff planned for the summer. We'll be back on the festival circuit along with some other cool stuff. We'll be writing and recording the album between all that. We've got 2 weeks off at Christmas, that'll be loads of time off to recharge and hang out with friends and family.

 

Kodaline were the most popular Irish act on Spotify in Ireland this year, are back in Dublin to kick off their sell out gigs at the Olympia this weekend. The lads started their celebrations at the launch Vodafone’s exclusive Christmas offer of giving three month’s Spotify Premium for free with every new smartphone purchased between now and Christmas.