Exclusive Interview: Picture This Discusses Tour, MDRN LV, & More

The four-piece band, Picture This, released their second album this past February 2019, which has been certified platinum in Ireland and made the Number One spot in the country. Following the release of their debut album, the band began a headlining tour around the UK and Ireland. Now they’re back on the road, setting foot in Canada, the U.S., and Germany. They’ll also be performing at Lollapalooza in Chicago this summer!

CelebMix had the opportunity to speak with Picture This once again to discuss their new album, current tour, and much more. Keep reading to check out our exclusive interview!

Thank you for speaking with us at CelebMix again! What’s been the most exciting and memorable moment so far in 2019?

Our favourite moment of 2019 was doing an unprecedented 5 night stand in the 3Arena, Dublin! Such an amazing week for us as a band and it’s something that takes a long time to come down from. We always aim to do things that other artists have never done before so we were so glad it was as successful as it was. It was just magic, almost feels like it didn’t really happen!

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On this date 3 years ago we played our first ever show in the Academy Dublin. This day last week we played the first of a record breaking 5 nights in the 3Arena. What a journey, and we’re only getting started ??

A post shared by Picture This (@bandpicturethis) on Apr 3, 2019 at 12:28pm PDT

Congratulations on the release of your newest album MDRN LV! You’ll be starting tour soon and visiting lots of places in the US and Canada. What are you most looking forward to?

We are most looking forward to seeing our fans and getting to really share that live connection with our US fans. We have played in the US and Canada a few times but we’ve never done a full-length proper tour so it’s really exciting to be spending a whole month playing places we’ve never been before and going back to places like Toronto, New York and LA where we have played before.

Please share with us how you all decided to name yourselves Picture This.

It was a name that we first picked because it kind of set a tone for how we wanted people to hear our music. Music that puts you there, music that you can picture in your head. The lyrics in each song are very direct and descriptive in a tangible way where you can almost picture yourself in the situation that we are singing about so Picture This just kind of summed it all up perfectly.

The music video for “Dance Away With You” is so unique! How did you decide to add snapshots of your special moments and time on the road to the video?

We always have great times on tour and we had the idea to take lots of photos of moments. Moments on tour are some of the fondest memories and we wanted to create a music video from those moments. It’s always cool to be able to show our fans what goes on behind the scenes as they are always really eager to see that and this video does that in the best possible way.

What do you hope fans take away from listening to MDRN LV?

We hope they take away a feeling of happiness and hopefulness towards the idea of love and how it is nowadays. We want it to be the soundtrack to their lives and relationships as they are happening right now. Love is imperfect and complicated and scary but this album sheds hope on all of those things and says it always works out in the end. The actual love always outweighs all of the bullshit.

Let’s talk about “Modern Love” a little bit. What was the recording of that song like? What was your process? How did the idea for the music video come up?

We had recorded that song one night in Jimmy’s studio, we were trying different ideas to really make it an upbeat song that we can dance to and almost have a euphoric feeling. We wanted to get across the feeling of togetherness within our generation that we are all modern lovers and I think we accomplished that. The music video was showing how modern love, when put in a minimal “old time” situation, can show how ridiculous it can be.

How has your music evolved since you first began playing music together?

Our music tastes have all expanded through sharing music with one another and I think that subconsciously then finds its way into the songs we create together. We don’t listen to one particular genre of music so we try not to just produce one particular type of music either and we find that very freeing.

What’s your favorite song to perform on stage? Why?

Modern Love! It’s our opening song at the moment and it really sets the tone for the night. It’s the one song we always sort of knew would be the one we’d love to perform live because it lends itself to the live setting with the production and drums etc and the crowd really get into it when we play it live.

Are there any specific hobbies or interests that you like to do outside of music that contributes to your musicality?

We like sport, especially football. So we try and play when we get a chance. It’s a good change of scenery sometimes. I (Ryan) have a massive interest in clothes so I spend all of my spare time looking for new clothes to buy. But besides that we pretty much only have internet in music, we eat, sleep and breathe it.

Do you have any memorable tour stories?

Our most memorable was in NYC when we were first playing there and Owen (guitarist) crashed our van into a truck. It was the most stressful day but turned out to be a great day and a great show.

Finally, what does the band hope to accomplish by the end of 2019?

We want to have as many people as possible listening to our music, and we want them to take that energy into 2020. It has always been our goal to reach the most amount of people as physically possible with our music and have them really invest in it and it feels like we’re on the right track to doing that!

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Our US/Canada Tour kicks off tonight with a sold out show in Toronto!! Can’t wait to get back on stage let’s gooooo ?? ??

A post shared by Picture This (@bandpicturethis) on Apr 22, 2019 at 12:38pm PDT