Dublin and Kilkenny hip-hop act Loud Motive have been around the Irish scene for quite sometime: you can go back four years and find beautiful tracks put together with now-superstar Loah, and also uncover an early guise of the band that had five members, instead of their current three, and sounded distinctly different.

In recent years, they’ve been at their most creative, however, working with Danny Sabre (U2, Madonna), on new singles ‘Astronaut’, and putting together a vast collection of tunes over the course of the covid lockdown. For all the behind the scenes work, they’ve become a huge live act, too, with a focus on producing hip-hop in a more live and diverse way.

I caught up with them for a quick Q+A around the new single, as they gear up for a big summer…

Congrats on Astronauts, can you tell me a bit about the story behind the track?

We made Astronauts last year at Crossroads studios in Kilkenny. Astronauts is one of many tracks in our catalogue that we wrote on the spot with nothing pre-written. It was very organic, we were messing around with sounds trying to construct something in the studio. Once we started making the beat, something was telling us that this one was going to be special, so Marv was writing lyrics as the beat was coming along. The main topic behind it was perseverance through tough times and not giving up.

How do you craft your lyrics, in terms of process?

Marvell: I often switch up the approach depending on the track, the moment or how I’m feeling if I’m to be honest. Sometimes a feeling takes over when making music where you hear the beat and you’re inspired to write based on what’s on your mind and heart at that moment in time, on the spot. I’ve also pre-written something before inspired by a certain topic or event and then its about acknowledging or making the right beat that the lyrics sit well with.

You’ve been around a few years now. How does the post-covid Loud Motive compare to the earlier guises

We believe say we are a lot more focused now, and we’ve been working a lot harder on the music just to make sure what we release is what we envisioned. Obviously, the big thing was we went from being a five-piece to a three-piece group, but we adapted to the workload well and very quickly, because us three grew up together and have played music together for so long that we all know our strengths and refused to give up on LM.

Another thing is the catalogue has expanded tremendously because we used the covid time as a period to create. We are a lot more driven right now to succeed, something just feels different, timing is everything and this just feels like the right time.