Hailing from irresistible Ireland, HAWKE are a fresh new music band formed in March 2019 comprises of Irish Duo- Richie Power and Eoghan MacMohan as the lead singers. HAWKE recently released their debut single titled “What About Love”, which is written and sang by the Irish duo and produced by Marco Rinaldi & Antonio Esposito. “What About Love” was also chosen as the winner by ASLAN over 500 acts in their competition. The song is basically talking and identifying the ‘love’ for things in life that we turn to when times are tough and endure them, whether that be music, a partner, family, favourite sport, etc, anything that makes us feel ‘alive’.
After embarking on prior music endeavours, Richie and Eoghan are here with their brand new music venture; HAWKE. The Irish duo offers a blistering, anthemic flavor of alternative-pop and rock, and have been working incredibly hard in the recent months on their latest music along with the official launch of the bank that took place in the month of March, this year under the shadows of the Guinness brewery in Dublin’s south inner city.
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Just within two months of their formation, HAWKE secured recording session at the famous Abbey Road & Metropolis Studios in London to record their first releases, which is extremely incredible for newcomers like them. The combination of their anthemic rock influences with contemporary electronic sounds is an enticing offering for their Irish & UK music fans. Dividing their time between both Dublin and the UK to work on their music, HAWKE inevitably marks an immensely exciting new chapter for both Richie and Eoghan.
At CelebMix, we had the opportunity to exclusively chat with HAWKE about their debut release, their upcoming music plans, inspiration, and much more! Make sure to read the full interview below to know the insights about HAWKE!
Welcome back to CelebMix lads! How have you been doing this week?
Thanks for having us. It’s always good chatting to yourselves!
So, you’ve recently released your debut single “What About Love” and it’s a stunning tune. I loved it. The lyrics, “What About Love, and all that it’s worth/ I hope I’ll see love again/ It gave me my voice, it gave me my strength.”, feel so relatable while you’re talking about how love makes a person feels alive and helps us to get through the toughest times. Shed some light on the inspiration behind the song.
Yeah, so basically we wanted to write about that acknowledgement of the things in life we turn to even without realising it when times get tough, so I suppose ‘love’ can be a metaphor for those things. So whether that’s actual love, friendship, music, religion, sport, or whatever it is where you find yourself turning to when you’re not having the best of time and need a little pick me up. We feel like whats often spoken about is the things that make life difficult but not enough light is shunned on those things that help us get through it and wanted to put that into a song and ‘What About Love’ was born! (laughs)
You’ve recorded the song in the infamous Abbey Road Studios in London. How did you get this opportunity? How were the processes of recording and production been?
The whole thing was nuts. We wrote the song in Richie’s bedroom in Dublin, and it was just by chance that we bumped into two producers who recorded in Abbey road when we were over in London. We took a chance and sent a demo of the song and they liked it. Within a couple of days, we were recording it in Abbey Road, thinking “can you believe this shit” to ourselves. Recording/production was really quick, the bulk of it was done in a day or two – thanks to the geniuses that are our producers; Marco & Antonio.
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That sounds fun. How did you embark together on this brand new music venture ‘HAWKE’? Can you recall us the moment when you decided to opt for music as a career?
We started Hawke in March 2019. We knew each other as friends much before that and had written a few bits and bobs before but that was when we actually started the band. And yeah, well it wasn’t a case of deciding to go for music, we just sort of fell into it. Richie was doing an arts degree in UCD Dublin and didn’t have an idea on what career he wanted, and I (Eoghan) was going into college to study Law & Business, but I screwed up my maths exam so I would have had to go back and repeat my leaving cert. So I said screw that and went off to try being a musician.
Woah! So if you didn’t become musicians, what else you think you would be doing?
Nothing useful that I can think of! (laughs)
Who are your favourite musicians of all time- dead or alive?
The Beatles, Coldplay, U2.
Launching a band and being able to produce your music, all sounds fun but can be nerve-wracking at times. Do you feel an element of pressure? How do you cope with that?
I feel like there is a bit of pressure but it mainly comes from myself. I can be a massive over thinker so that’s probably where that feeling comes from. It’s not too bad though, I mean at the end of the day we’re only a new band so hopefully, we haven’t become too wracked with worry yet!
Hailing from Ireland, in what ways has the music taste that you grew up on has inspired your music style and creativity?
Hard to say, I find a lot of times when we’re in the studio we’ll come up with a guitar or synth line and people will tell us “that sounds like U2” or something like that. And that was without us intending for it to sound like U2. So I guess all the Irish music we grew up with is embedded into our brain on some level.
Personally, I’m very fond of the vibrant beauty of Ireland. It gave some notable talent to the industry whether it’s Damien Rice, U2, Niall Horan, Hozier, The Script – Danny O’Donoghue, or Wild Youth, etc. If you get a chance to collaborate now, who will be your top three picks?
Good question. As you said yourself that Ireland has produced crazy talent so there is a lot to choose from but I suppose the three we feel we might connect with closest on a songwriting level would probably be Kodaline, U2 & The Script.
Do you think music has therapeutic benefits? What do you want people to take away from your music?
Definitely! I mean the thing we like about the music we’re influenced by and what we try to emulate in our music is that positive and anthemic uplifting emotion. Yeah, we’d like our music to be easy listen leaving the listener positive and refreshed after listening.
This is nice. So what can we expect from the sound of your music? Are you going to restrict to your comfort zone or going to explore different genres in upcoming projects?
We’ll most likely stick in our lane and keep going for our pop/rock sound, but in the future who knows? Bruno Mars & Ed Sheeran are doing rock-n-roll and Billy Rae Cyrus is doing country rap so anything’s possible.
Yeah, that’s true. So what’s next in the music bucket list of HAWKE? Are there any exciting projects lined up in the coming months?
Well, we just supported Aslan, who were an Irish band we looked up to growing up, so we’re just about down off that high. Next up we’ll be releasing a new single and playing our debut headline show. The details will be announced very shortly!
Finally, do you take some time away from work and music? What do you do to unwind yourself?
Yeah, we feel this is essential for inspiration and motivation, to be honest. I (Richie) try to travel as much as I can. I wouldn’t be turning down a few pints in the local with the boys either! (laughs loud)
Listen to “What About Love” here on Spotify!
Follow HAWKE right here and stay updated about their future announcements.
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