The influential Dublin native on a life in music, his love of DJing, and his upcoming Casa Barcadí debut.
Brought to you by Bacardí
“When I think about what I do in terms of music and the work that I do, it’s just selecting music for people.”
After over 13 years as a one-man-show in the Irish music industry, Nialler9 has finally carved out a place that makes perfect sense to him.
His words above may sound like a fairly simple lightbulb going off, but it has taken a great deal of work to arrive at this point.
Since 2005, the man known to the taxman as Niall Byrne has devoted the vast majority of his time to music, primarily via his highly influential blog that continues to champion the best in homegrown and international sounds.
A natural offshoot of that is his love for DJing, a fairly impromptu hobby that has since evolved into something bigger.
Whether alongside his friends at purpose-built monthly club night Lumo or operating in larger arenas like his upcoming Casa Bacardí turn at this year’s Electric Picnic bash, Byrne enjoys the feeling of discovery and community found within those spaces.
“It’s very rewarding, very immediate, and sometimes very challenging,” he smiles.
This year’s extravaganza in Stradbally brings a new challenge as Byrne gets set to step up to the decks at the famed Casa Bacardí stage for the very first time.
Now in its 15th year, the raucous three-day marriage of Latin street culture and contemporary sounds has blossomed into its own vivid and unique world.
“It adds a different, exclusively DJ-focused stage to the Picnic that isn’t really represented elsewhere,” says Byrne.
“It’s always busy, always DJ-driven, always has great acts. I saw Todd Terje the year that ‘Inspector Norse’ came out. There’s always a good mix of international and Irish.
“You get a big production and a big space, and when an Irish DJ is given that, it says that they are important, that they matter, and are given good slots.”
He nods to the likes of Stevie G, Mother DJs and Kelly-Anne Byrne who drew huge crowds at the site last year as tough but welcome acts to follow. More to the point, it affords the opportunity to cut the bullshit and bring people together.
“There’s too much posturing, still, in dance music and in most music in general,” Byrne argues.
“We started Lumo to grow and be a place that wasn’t just the monochrome house and techno club. We were inspired by Despacio and the Optimo DJs in Scotland who would play Johnny Cash at the end of the night, or Madonna in the middle of a set.
“You should be able to play an ABBA song, a Fleetwood Mac song. You can play those, and you can play weird Italian disco records. We should be able to play Phil Collins next to Caribou. A party is too serious most of the time. DJs are so serious about what they do, and so po-faced.”
Like many a music journalist before him, Byrne freely admits to being the guy at the party who determinedly wrestled control of the audio lead.
“All the time!” he laughs. “That’s why I do it. That’s why I run the blog. I’m that guy. That’s done now, probably.
“I do music supervision, too, picking music for a particular audience, for a TV show or a movie. When I realised all of that a year and a half ago, it was like, oh, my career makes sense to me now.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkL8kPv2-A8
Clip via BacardiIreland
Despite that confidence of place and self, Byrne admits that he still finds himself trying to figure out the specifics every day.
With a constant barrage of music available, and fully aware that this may be the ultimate first-world problem; is there simply too much noise to get through?
“My relationship with music has changed because there’s so much of it now,” he nods.
“I try to be more discerning as time goes on. There have been times when I’ve featured a band and they’ve just disappeared. It’s not enough to just like a song. It used to be, but now it’s not.”
Speaking to JOE a few months ago, Mark McCabe detailed his five-second rule; if the song doesn’t grab you in that ultra-brief amount of time, then it’s on to the next one.
Byrne agrees that that’s a fairly ruthless method, but sees the logic. In the words of Pusha T; if you know, you know. You get an instinct for it, especially if you adopt a cataloging approach.
“It’s why I do round-ups and lists,” he offers. “It’s why I do the blog. If you ask me what I’m listening to at the moment, it’s invariably a playlist that I’ve made for myself.”
An independent ethos has always been at the heart of Byrne’s work – a background in web design came in handy when forming his website and signature logo – and he has had to adapt to an ever-changing landscape.
His blog wasn’t necessarily formed as a reaction to the Irish music scene at the time, but he recalls a strong resistance to what was being sold.
“It was nothing but singer-songwriters. There was nothing at all,” he laments.
“I hated Irish music when I started the site. It was just boring rock bands and boring singer-songwriters. Maybe I wasn’t diverse enough to see past that, but three or four years later you had bands like Adebisi Shank. It was varied. It wasn’t just like, ‘Oh we’ve got this rock scene now’, lots of different things were happening.
“I think somewhere like BIMM brings more ambition now,” he continues, referring to the Dublin branch of the Brighton Institute of Modern Music.
“Their students have gone to college to succeed in a career in music, so they’re driven to do it. They know the admin side of things, but they’re also better producers and better musicians and better songwriters. That can only be a good thing.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy9ticGdILI
Clip via Nialler9
He cites the likes of Jafaris, The Murder Capital, Pillow Queens, Kojaque and Kitt Philippa as five Irish acts to watch right now.
One act he might otherwise have named is Le Boom; an energetic Dublin pair who managed to convince Byrne to officially take them under his wing.
“I see a lot of potential in them,” he explains.
“I wasn’t interested in managing. I always hesitated because I felt like a journalist’s job is to be a journalist and not interfere with what’s going on on the other side.
“It came at the right time, but also they’re totally my buzz as well. There are characteristics here that apply to my favourite music – it has some element of originality, it’s doing something unique, and they can do it live, too. It made sense.”
In essence, another way of picking music for others to enjoy.
Speaking of, what should festival-goers expect to hear booming from the Casa Bacardí stage in September?
“A mix of electronic and disco and everything in between, and everything that isn’t in between,” says Byrne.
“The best DJs are ones that surprise you, and play stuff that’s completely off the wall. They’re proper journeys; mad experiences that you undertake. As a music fan, I discover more music through DJ sets than I do anywhere else, if it’s good.
“I have this element of discovery in my life every day that’s just new music, new music, new music, but DJing gives me that window into the past that’s not represented in my day job.”
Nialler9 plays the Casa Bacardí Stage at Electric Picnic on Saturday 1 September. For more, visit electricpicnic.ie/stage/casa-bacardi
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
