WORDS Liam Maher
Soul is not normally a term one would associate with the Irish music scene. But then again, Danny Groenland and his band, the Major 7ths, don’t work in a way that is comparable to other bands. All the material for their debut album, due to be released this year, was recorded after having only performed one gig. As Groenland himself elaborated, “we work the opposite way to most bands in that we did one live gig and started recording immediately. My idea was to assemble a crack team of musicians and get them in a studio as soon as I could and record because they’re all so busy with different projects.” The album was recorded by his father Jack Groenland, and “has a very family feel to it”.
The interaction between the members’ various side projects and what they bring to the Major 7ths is an essential part of what forms their distinctive blend of soul, funk, jazz, hip hop and African music. For Groenland himself, joining a Gospel choir two years ago has influenced his “harmonies, harmony blending and voice leading, even if it’s a subconscious thing”. Having grown up listening to artists like The Beatles and Crosby, Still and Nash — bands whose material often has three and four part vocal harmonies — he moved on to the Motown sound, which had “a groove behind that base”, and quickly a whole new obsession began. Groenland’s main influences are “Marvin Gaye, Motown and more recently D’Angelo and other current soul singers”. Drummer Dennis Cassidy comes from the hip hop school of thought while Groenland’s brother Paddy is a jazz guitarist. The pianist Johnny Taylor also shares a jazz background and “has a real feel for accompaniment”, while bassist Graham Heaney is a funk musician through and through, having played in groups such as The Candidates.
When it comes to writing material for the group, ideas generally come to Groenland as he walks about Dublin: “I don’t have an MP3 player and I walk everywhere so I’m usually singing something, either hooks or new ideas. Then I record them on my phone and if any of them are any good I’ll record them with a guitar on to GarageBand along with some harmonies when I get home.” After this initial burst of inspiration, the next step is bringing in his brother Paddy and his “encyclopaedic knowledge of chords, harmonies and jazz theory”. At the base of things however, Groenland’s material tends to retain a pop structure. With this base in place, the material is brought to the band who add their own take to it, bar vocal harmonies which Groenland laughingly admits to being “a bit of a control freak” about. Luckily all the vocalists in the group are professional singers in their own right, so this rarely causes much difficulty.
One of the things that you notice when listening to the band’s material is the strong hip hop and neo-soul feel that dominates a lot of their material. This distinctive quality has mostly to do with “the production and the layered beats”, something that lends these more recent soul recordings “a more hip hop feel”. Drummer Dennis Cassidy was one of the first members that Groenland hunted down for his project as having played in various bands around Dublin for years, he began to realise that “the most important person in the band is the drummer, keeping everything glued and in check”.
Choosing an album for a first release is a risky move in today’s musical climate, something that Groenland was advised against by various people who suggested releasing an EP in order to build a market for the album — advice he chose to ignore. The record has “a real narrative to it” and Groenland is keen to “release it in as many forms as possible”. After hearing some of the material from it I can confidently assert that this is the case, and would highly recommend readers checking it out — along with the band members’ various side projects such as Mixtapes From The Underground, The Animators, Zaska, Creamy Goodness, Butter and singers Miss Kate and Deady.
