New Music from Gilroy + Interview
Singles Beach, the debut full-length from Gilroy, is out this weekend- just in time for longer days and warmer weather. The 10-track album is everything we didn’t know we needed to kick start our Summer of 2022. Its pop-heavy track list is flavored with slow tempo nostalgia, moments of self reflection and stories of friendship, love and growing up.
Scroll down to listen to Singles Beach in its entirety and to read our exclusive interview with Connor Gilroy, primary songwriter and namesake of the band.
Interview: Connor Gilroy
Jane
Hi, Gilroy. Welcome to the chat. Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? What is your villain origin story?
Connor
My name is Connor. I’ve gone by Gilroy when I’ve released music just because that’s what everybody has called me since like, high school at least. It’s just my last name. I’ve been a last-namer for most of my life, I guess it’s just snappy because a lot of people default to it after they get to know me.
I’m from Boston. I grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts since I was 3 and then went to school in Connecticut for four years. I ended up going back to Boston again in 2017 so that’s definitely where I call home, mostly, just Massachusetts in general.
Jane
Welcome to Brooklyn! You moved here in the middle of a pandemic. I guess it’s as good a time as any. What has that been like for you?
Connor
Thank you! Yeah, it’s been a little bit rough if I can be honest. I mean, a big part of my life in Boston was always going out and going to shows and trying to connect with people. By the time I left Boston, I had gotten to know so many people, and I’d gotten to play with a lot of really great bands. And when I moved here, not only did I not get to give those friends I’d made a proper goodbye, I kind of had to start from scratch with a lot of that stuff in a time when you can’t really do anything, because I got here in August of 2020.
It was still the middle of pandemic season. It was definitely kind of a bummer, but I tried to make the most of it. And a lot of what I ended up doing was just finishing up the record, which—it was nice to sort of be forced to focus on it and of course we eventually finished it. Thankfully I’ve gotten out and gotten to see a few shows, Especially ones that are like $10 at some bar somewhere, which was the vibe I kind of miss. The nice thing is that, as we’ve gotten further and further away from 2020, I’ve definitely been able to do some more things with my music.
Jane
It feels like things are definitely shifting. There’s a definite “vibe shift.”
Connor
Yeah, exactly. I think that the thing I’ve been doing, or at least trying to do, is just acknowledge how much I’ve still been able to do. Throughout a lot of what I’ve [done] with music, I think I’ve been really tough on myself and not really acknowledging the stuff I’ve been able to achieve, despite how far I still feel like I have to go. I mean, I moved here almost two years ago, so I’m definitely still, like, hungry to do more. I’ve already been able to play a couple shows which is great.
Jane
How long have you been playing/writing music under the name Gilroy?
Connor
So I had a bunch of bands I was in when I was in high school, but when I went off to college and started writing some of the material for my EP, I went by my full name. When we finished recording the stuff for Stop Growing, we had to pick a name to release it under and going with just my last name started to feel right, I mean it wasn’t a huge change but everything I write has felt really personal and so using a part of my name feels right, you know?
"...the picture is a split picture of me singing and Matt [Cruz] playing bass. Matt is the other person in this duo that made this record. They've been my best friend since before we even did anything musical together."
Jane
What do you want people to know about you?
Connor
Such a big question. I’m here and I’m queer? Hahaha I mean I have a lot of different tastes when it comes to music. I feel like I love so many different artists and genres and I am equally inspired by all of them so I am never sure of the kind of music I’m going to want to make. If you listen to the [Singles Beach], some of the sounds from track to track can be kind of different. So I guess I want people to know to expect something different from me even now that this record is out and my sound feels like it’s sort of approaching a definition.
Jane
As the primary songwriter for a project named after yourself, it makes sense to call this your solo project. But I think that can be a bit of a misnomer because it doesn’t leave room to talk about collaboration and contributions from others. Your Bandcamp describes you as a duo. Tell me about the other member of Gilroy.
Connor
Yeah it’s been kind of an interesting conversation we’ve had every once in a while. The duo I mention on Bandcamp and also- I don’t know if you noticed- the picture that we have up there is a split picture of me singing and Matt [Cruz] playing bass. So, Matt is the other person in this duo that made this record. They’ve been my best friend since before we even did anything musical together. And so it’s been really nice doing all of this stuff with somebody that I trust as much as I trust Matt. A long-ass time ago we were discussing what we wanted to name the music we put out. For a while, I was just playing stuff under my full name when I was in college and then, again, everyone has just (always) called me Gilroy. So when we started making everything we just used that name and it just kind of stuck. Sometimes I’m like “is this really a good name for a band?” and Matt always responds with an enthusiastic yes.
They’re super supportive and also, like, super “technically-minded.” I think Matt has always been this very, like, technologically savvy person. Behind the board, behind the computer I’ve just noticed that all of that stuff comes really easily to them. Like anything that we’ve done in production, especially stuff with engineering, what mic you should use for what instrument and the benefits of each choice, anything that gets done in Logic, which we used the most to record and mix- Matt is like a wiz at all that stuff.
Jane
Your first full length record, Singles Beach, is going to be available to stream and download this Friday, April 29th. Tell me the story of this record. Where were you when you were writing these songs? What were you thinking about? How long ago was it?
Connor
Some of these songs that are on here are pretty old. Like three of the songs from the EP I made with Matt, Stop Growing, are on the record, but we’ve like completely redone them.
Jane
Yeah, I noticed “Leo” wasn’t on there but the other three from “Stop Growing” were. What is it about Leo that didn’t make the cut?
Connor
You know, that’s a good question. To speak about it briefly, I think there are songs for an artist that get carried from earlier projects or demo recordings, which is what Stop Growing felt like when I made it, like it was sort of my demo. “Leo” was a song I wrote about a friend of mine and a romantic experience she had that resonated with me too. But I think once we recorded it, it sort of felt like it was “exorcized” and I felt like…like that was sort of the end of that story. The other three I’ve played a lot since that EP came out at shows and when I practice, so they felt like they were more a part of the story of making my first record.
Watch the official video for “Norway”, credit: Ellen Voorheis
Jane
And it’s finally here! What took you so long?
Connor
Hahaha, I know, we worked on this for so long. I think me and Matt being in different cities had a lot to do with it. It was also a long process to conceive, I guess as far as the story for the record goes, it was basically like, I think we started thinking about it when it was like 2018 because we put out, you know, we put out the EP in 2017. And we were like, “Okay, that’s done. Now what?” We just of course felt like the logical next step was to make an LP. When I started thinking about it for the first time…I think why it ended up being “Singles Beach” and why there ended up being this loose beach theme for the record was that I started thinking about making it while I was on a vacation. And I was by the beach, it was down in Delaware which is kind of random. I had all this time to think and I brought my guitar with me, and of course when you don’t have work or obligations for a while you can think about doing creative stuff a lot more. So I started writing. I revamped some of the material from my EP that I wanted to give more full arrangements to. I got back to Boston and worked on the rest of the record in my apartment with a loop pedal and some recordings I made in GarageBand. I was thinking a lot about my romantic life and getting comfortable in my queerness since at that point it had only been a couple of years since I came out. This record deals a lot with that anxiety and with the heartbreak you feel before and after you accept that part of yourself.
Jane
What music were you listening to/inspired by?
Connor
So, a lot of what has influenced my songwriting when I was like, you know, a tween, I got really into Bright Eyes and more specifically Conor Oberst. The way that he writes songs is just like…at the risk of being cliché, it’s like very raw. The way his voice always seems on the brink of falling apart and how he writes about everything in such a devastating way that still manages to be catchy and relatable.
Around the time I was working on this too, like Clean by Soccer Mommy had just come out and I listened to that a lot. Love that record. I think Lush by Snail Mail came out not long after that too, and I was just like, obsessed with that record, in the sense that I was just like, “Fuck, I wish I’d written this.” Like this simultaneously old and new emo sound that felt like what I wanted to try and go for and lyrics about being adolescent and lovestruck. As someone who came out in my 20s it felt like things I was still experiencing in my relationships.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve also grown to love hip hop and R&B, like I was listening to a lot of SZA and old Drake and Rihanna and newer artists like Amber Mark and Bryson Tiller. Some of the songs on here feel like attempts to integrate that vibe and style that R&B has because it’s probably one of my favorite genres to sing along to. Like “Breakfast” is definitely an example of that.
"I got back to Boston and worked on the rest of the record in my apartment with a loop pedal and some recordings I made in GarageBand. I was thinking a lot about my romantic life and getting comfortable in my queerness..."
Jane
We talked a lot about this off the record but, for the record, why is it important for you to release this particular record?
Connor
I think this sort of goes back to what I want people to know about me. I’ve been such a big fan of so many bands and so many different kinds of music that, for better or worse, felt really heterocentric? I don’t know if that’s even a word, but a lot of what I listened to and loved when I was a teenager didn’t feel relatable to me but I loved how everything sounded. This record for me was an attempt to add a queer perspective to the, like, indie emo surf rock amalgamation of music I loved when I was younger. So I was hoping to provide at least a slice of that for other people like me.
Jane
What are your fav songs on the record? And, why?
Connor
I think “Tens” is one of the songs I’m really proud of. It’s one of the more fun songs I’ve made and is really tongue-in-cheek lyrically which I haven’t done before; my songs tend to be really honest and straightforward. It’s kind of like an ironic sort of flip of, you know, like, what I want out of a relationship, or just like–all of the songs I’ve often made are basically just like, “I want a relationship, I want a boyfriend, this is why I can’t have one” or like, “this is why he doesn’t love me.” But that song is basically like, “I want a guy who doesn’t give a fuck about me.” Which is the opposite thing I often write. It was sort of a writing exercise of like, what if I wrote a song that’s basically like, I got it. I have a boyfriend, but he sucks. And like, that’s all I want is a guy who just is terrible. And so I had a lot of fun with that and I’m proud of how it turned out.
I’m also really proud of Breakfast which is just this insane song I built off of GarageBand trying to make an R&B song that I could really sing to. Matt added some crazy like, laser beam sounds and we added acoustic guitar to this really electronic composition I had made and it was just the craziest process of any of the other songs on there and I think it turned out really well. I’m happy with how it ends the record.
Jane
Where did you record and who else played, or otherwise contributed, to the record?
Connor
We recorded this in a bunch of different places. I demoed the entire record in my bedroom in Boston and then traveled to Matt’s studio in his apartment to record most of the guitars and vocals. We recorded all of the vocals for Norway in this cabin by a lake in Upstate New York because we wanted to finish it but were headed out to this trip with some friends from college. That was a really crazy set up. Our friend Mike Haldeman who is in this amazing band altopalo helped us record and mix all of the live drums at this great little room in South Slope called “The Chamber of Commerce” which is sadly gone now. All the vocals are me, plus all of the guitars. Matt plays all of the bass and the synths on this record and they mixed everything themselves. Bartees Strange ended up doing our masters which was really cool and I’m very grateful for.
Jane
What’s next for Gilroy? What are you working on now?
Connor
I’m working on some new songs now actually! I’m really excited to finally record this song I wrote that I have played in shows since maybe winter of 2020 called “Useless.” Probably one of the new songs I’m the most excited about, and we have a few more. We just built a new studio space in Park Slope, it’s bright orange, and tiny, and I love it so much. I’m really excited to shorten that gap between things and I’m making sure it won’t be another 5 years until the next Gilroy release for sure.