West coast modern folk band Amble, a memorably atmospheric and personal act that have risen to both a million plus streams, and playing major venues incredibly quickly, are, in practice, the sum of years of experience, despite only being a little over a year old. Each of the three members landed together, as musicians before they were friends, complete with their own set of songs ready to go. The fit, from there, was a natural one.
“We played a little gig in September last year, and that was the start of Amble,” Ross McNerney tells us. “I sent a little voice note to the others after the gig and said the music needed to be recorded. That’s how the band started, social media, really.”
“It works because we all love the same music. We’ve never even had a conversation about the type of music Amble make. It’s just naturally what the three of us want to do. We were musicians and then we became friends.”
“We’re blown away with it so far,” McNerney continues. “There’s no way we expected the response we’re getting. We’ve sold out several shows that are five months away, so the response has taken us aback. We only have five songs out, and we’re only really happy with ‘Lonely Island’ and ‘Mariner Boy’. We record live, and the best take gets it, that’s the way we like to record. So there’s no editing on any of the tracks. You get the exact same sound live as you do on Spotify.”
“The day will come where we might get a drummer and a bass and go mad in a studio, but for now we just want it to be real, raw, music. If people like it, great, and if they don’t, well at least we’ve made music that we like.”
There’s plenty more on the horizon. “We’ve recorded an album now, which includes four of the songs that are already out, re-recorded,” McNerney says. “There are some songs on it that are written by the three of us, as well as individual ones that brought us together. It’s eleven tracks, all recorded live in Windmill Lane, and it is what we are, no add ins.”
“Our individual work has come to the fore with Amble because of the band, and that’s allowed us to make an eleven track album within a year of meeting each other. After the March tour, it’ll be about giving our music the best chance possible. The album will be out as early as we can have it next year, and then we’ll be looking to get on a few festival rosters in Ireland and in the UK, and then adding more music and more shows in the autumn.”
“We’re fully invested in Amble, we believe in it, and we think the music has longevity in it. That type of music, it’s kind of timeless. This sound, not in terms of our music, but in terms of the genre, will always be there. We definitely have a two or three year plan in our heads about where we’d like to see it.”
“I feel like a lot of our songs are based on the ocean, the sea and so on. It seems to come into our music a lot. It’s a style that comes from storytelling, that makes more sense coming from Limerick or Longford than Dublin. It draws on our upbringing, on farms and oceans.”
