SWELL SEASON FACE THE PEOPLE THEY USED TO BE part two

Facing forward and looking back - Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard

EVERYONE LOOKED, or looked for it, when Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard emerged from the Irish film, Once, as an unlikely but irresistible musical force of intimate songs played as if wrung from each of them.

They looked for signs the on-screen romance existed in real life (it did), signs it was over (it was), and signs the mayhem of fame, awards, incessant demands and people looking for clues in everything was driving them spare, and eventually apart (it sure did after album two as The Swell Season).

Now, 16 years later, as they return today with a compact but emotionally dense new record called Forward, with families of their own and a musical partnership more equal but literally more distant (recorded at her Icelandic studio), we can all start looking for clues again. This time it could be in the already abundant film clips, constructed around footage Irglova shot in the studio, local gigs and at home during the writing and recording process, and in them the clear, joyous emphasis on family and friends, community and connection.

“It highlights the environment in which the music was born and recorded,” says Irglova. “The family of it and the community of it, and the love and closeness and familiarity is a huge part of the record on which all of the fruit grew. And I think you can feel it in the music and if it was lovely to be able to show that and share that.”

For her, a Czech native who moved to Ireland, the US and finally Iceland (a move she explains in part one of this interview), there has always been an emphasis on family and community, in active opposition to a more individualised contemporary world, and the inevitable disconnection that comes from that.

“To make the world a little bit smaller, even just for those days that we were recording and it was just us and we weren’t reading the news necessarily, just hanging out with our friends and family, it was a nice feeling that came out of that,” she says. “For me anyway.”

Not just for her, Hansard says, pointing out that “what’s lovely about the videos is they harken back to a moment in Once. In the film, one of the warmest moments of filming, was when we were in the studio – the couple, the guy and the girl – and she had her kid with her in the back and everyone’s eating sandwiches and telling jokes and recording.”

It got so during the recording that he didn’t even notice the camera. “Mar was just catching what was happening in the moment. I was blown away, absolutely knocked out, at how much footage was taken in the studio,” Hansard says.

“The upside is it really gives you a sense of the fun and ease when making music, and it should be a fun thing. Of course, when it was serious, when we were actually really working the camera’s not on because Marketa’s hands are on the piano and not on the camera.”

Looking for more clues? A number of the songs on Forward are about the more reasoned (maybe), more wizened (certainly) understanding of people with a fair bit more living behind them, whether it is post-relationship or post-youthful extravagance, deep into a long-term, complicated friendship or finally grasping self-awareness. One song explicitly is called People We Used To Be after all.

From this perspective then, how do they judge the people they used to be? Are they forgiving, judgemental, perplexed, understanding?

“If I can answer this Mar,” says Hansard, who is at home in Helsinki, to Irglova, at her place just outside Reykjavik. “I think in a way, the album title, Forward, and Marketa’s song, People We Used To Be, which is an incredibly powerful song – about me by the way, if I am allowed to say that Mar? – gives a kind of a context and gives a kind of a frame on which to look at things.

“Whereas if you look at the songs that I wrote for the record, one, Factory Street Bells, is about having a child; Great Weight Is Lifted, is kind of about the world at the moment; Little Sugar is much more about me and Mar’s kind of journey, if you like. And then the other song of mine, Stuck In Reverse, the kind of romantic, fun, me having a go at writing something Burt Bacharach-y or something.”

Hansard, who had the more substantial career when The Swell Season began, having started as a teen musician and actor, and leading the folk/rock force that was the band, The Frames, still today has the higher profile as a solo artist. But that’s not what The Swell Season is built on. And not just because Irglova’s career has given her the confidence to hold her ground (“Maybe now there are times,” she says. “When I would be like, when he suggests something, no, actually, I really think it should be the way it is.”).

As he explains, “I think in a lot of ways, not wanting to belittle my own work, but the lens on the Forward of it and the People We Used To Be of it is really in Mar’s writing.”

“The two central songs for me are I Leave Everything To You and People We Used To Be,” says Hansard. “Those are the two songs that for me will continue to keep on giving information and keep on asking. People We Used To Be definitely takes on a whole new context when me and Mar sing it on stage: there’s definitely an energy of, yes!

“So, do we judge the people we used to be? Yeah, sure we do. Do we forgive them? We try. Sure we try. But there are patterns that repeat and there are idiotic things that come back around and there are wisdoms. But definitely I feel like our dynamic has shifted and the weight we both carry on the stage and in the moment and in the song is much more 50/50 than it used to be.”

There is something inherent in the question of do you judge the people you used to be that could be the opposite of moving forward, this album’s central mantra. Instead of constantly questioning who you were and why you did things, maybe you decide where you want to be or who you want to be and go to that.

“Forgiveness is easy if you want to look at it as releasing yourself from things that are only holding you back,” Irglova says. “Once you look at it like that then it seems the most logical thing to do. Forgiveness feels good actually. It requires compassion and empathy really, because you are trying to have an understanding for why people are where they are, that they are on their own journey and you can’t make everything about yourself.

“It’s that kind of Christian thing where if you are willing and able to forgive, you are also going to be forgiven, and that’s a good thing because we all make mistakes. I hope that the people I have hurt along the way have the capacity to forgive me.”

Surprisingly, given not just this philosophy but their history, the questions that have arisen from this album, from the title onwards, turn out to be something of a shock for the pair who say they picked the name because it “felt nice”.

“I’m kind of amazed how much it sort of makes sense to everybody, even more than it made to us at the time,” says Irglova. “I’m glad we picked it because it does make sense and it is very descriptive of where we are. With Glen, for years we weren’t really in the resonance with each other: we were in different places in our lives and it was almost like we had to wait until our energies aligned again. All these years I thought maybe it will happen, maybe will never happen.

“From my perspective I certainly wish that it would but I wasn’t sure it would, then all of a sudden we tested the waters a little bit and I was like, wow, this feels really good, I want to do more of this. And I think it was the same for Glen, and that’s a great thing. I’m really grateful for it.”

READ MORE

Northern Exposure In The Swell Season – part one of this interview

The Courage To Drift, The Strength To Trust: The Glen Hansard Interview

The Swell Season’s Forward is out today.