BIBLECODE SUNDAYS frontman Ronan MacManus is zeroing in on success with his new musical project.
Brand New Zeros is a four-piece featuring MacManus, guitarist and songwriter Luke Dolan, and fellow BibleCode Sundays members Enda Mulloy (bass) and Carlton Hunt (drums).
Chief songwriter for the popular London Irish band, MacManus shares the duties here with Dolan, focusing mainly on the lyrics and melody lines.
That diversity and a shared love of other musical genres makes for a different style than BibleCode fans will be used to, with influences ranging from grunge to blues, and without a distinct Irish sound and theme.
Recording the material proved to be a short but intensive labour of love, with the quartet working up to 20 hours a day for three days in the solitude of the Cronin Brothers’ Transmission Rooms in rural Co. Longford.
The immersive process was a different experience to the recording of the last BibleCode Sundays album, New Hazardous Design.
“New Hazardous Design took us about three years in all because life gets in the way. We tried a different process to record the Brand New Zeros material and took ourselves away for a week to immerse ourselves in the project. That's the lesson we learnt from New Hazardous Design.”
However BibleCode fans should fear not, as MacManus revealed a new album is in the pipeline, possibly in September. “We wrote and submitted four songs for the Johnny Depp film Black Mass about Irish-American mobster Whitey Bulger. They weren’t used in the final film as they decided to go with an orchestral soundtrack but they are some of the best songs we have written, particularly Clouds, for which Carlton wrote the lyrics.
“We also have three songs that didn’t make the final cut for New Hazardous Design, so if we record another three songs for the new album we’ve pretty much got a record that has fallen into our lap.”
Before that though, MacManus hopes to have the Brand New Zeros album released by the end of this month, kicking off six dates in support of his brother Elvis Costello, while a single has also been mooted.
“We’re looking at releasing a single onto radio this summer in Ireland,” he said. “It’s an easier place to release a single with our contacts and if we get a bit of interest from the Irish public, you never know.”
Brand New Zeros will be supporting Elvis Costello at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (May 31); Dome, Brighton, (June 2); New Theatre, Oxford (June 3); Cliffs Pavilion, Southend (June 4); Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow (June 11); and Sands Centre, Carlisle (June 13)
