Over this past year, Irish duo kleio have established themselves as one of the more formidable indie-rock additions on the rise. And after a flurry of praise for their recent releases, they are back once again to unveil their lively new single ‘mercury’.
So we joined them to find out more about what they have been up to, as well as where they plan to take their journey next.
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Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in music?
I think the reason I started playing music is because my mother thought it would be cool if I played guitar. I would always hear bands like Oasis and U2 around the house and would give the Christmas sing along a good go but I don’t think I can claim to have ‘started’ music until I got the encouragement to pick up a guitar.
Who are your biggest musical influences and how have they shaped your sound?
I mentioned Oasis, they were the band that got me into music but since I started writing my own songs it’s always been Arctic Monkeys, Catfish and the Bottlemen, bands who that were the soundtrack of my teens.
Was there a specific moment or experience that made you decide to pursue music seriously?
I watch a lot of concerts on youtube and have done for years, so I don’t think there was an exact moment of ‘I want to do this’ but over time it just got ingrained in my head that music is what I want to do. Even with the band we’ve always had the ambition of becoming massive and we’re not certain when and where it came from.
Can you walk us through your typical songwriting process?
Writing is one of the things I cannot explain. Sometimes a song can be written with no thought and I just have it done in 10 minutes, and then more often than not it takes weeks. There’s never really a strict process we follow but normally I will write the songs on an acoustic guitar and take it to Alex, and from there we’ll arrange it.
How do you find inspiration for your music and lyrics?
I’ve actually learned recently that I really struggle to write lyrics while playing a guitar, because it’s so easy to get distracted. Mercury for example all of the lyrics were written on receipts while I was working in a shop. Other songs have been completely crafted on an evening walk with my dog. I think I need to be a bit bored to write well.
What themes or messages do you hope listeners take away from your music?
I think with our music, we don’t really explore serious topics. The stories we tell are always things we’ve experienced or felt while living in a small town, and with that I think comes a relatability. I’d love if people listened to us and thought “This is exactly how I feel at the moment”
What challenges have you faced as an emerging artist in the music industry?
Obviously the main ones of how do we get our music heard and how do we start selling out shows are always a struggle when first breaking into the music industry and to be honest I don’t think we’ll ever be satisfied. I look at where we were this time last year and we’re so much further along, but it;s a thing of we want to be the biggest band in the world and until we’re there we’ll be thinking how do we get more people to listen to us, how do we get more people at our shows.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of your musical journey so far?
Our first ever sell out show in Belfast was incredible. We were on a 10 city 10 gigs tour around Ireland. And us being from Waterford, Belfast was about as far away as we could be so to sell it out was unbelievable and the crowd that night was absolutely amazing as well.
How do you stay true to yourself and your artistry in a constantly evolving industry?
To be honest I don’t think anything with kleio will change, we just make our music and keep to ourselves. So an industry that’s evolving around us doesn’t really change anything for us. We’ll do our own thing and hope to god people like it so we can quit our jobs.
What can fans expect from you in the near future? Any upcoming projects or tours?
I am absolutely buzzing about our Whelans gig in October, It’s our biggest headline show yet, and we cannot wait to meet a few fans. I think it’ll be an amazing night. Apart from that we have one more song this year releasing in September and we’ve been in the studio recently recording some new stuff for 2025, so we’ll be busy.
Where do you see yourself and your music career in the next five years?
I don’t see why we can’t be an album in and playing sold out tours around the planet. We believe in the project, have a great group of fans that is only growing and in the last few months and are proud of the music. I think one thing me and Alex do is work hard and we understand the difficulty of what we’re trying to do, but we aren’t put off by it.
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Listen to kleio’s new single ‘mercury’ below.
