Jimmy Pitts 
The year: 2007. The scene: the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. The festival lights have gone dark, casting the crowd – 250,000 strong – in pitch black anticipation of the headliner. It’s here that future Rowan multi-instrumentalist Fionn Hennessy-Hayes waits – a preteen surrounded by secondhand smoke and waving flags – for Arctic Monkeys to take the stage. The band finally arrives, awash in blue stage-lights, and kicks off their set with the appropriately titled, “When the Sun Goes Down.” With a quarter of a million fans belting each word, frontman Alex Turner steps away from the mic and strums his Fender guitar as the enthusiastic choir takes the song away. Taking in the scene, Hennessy-Hayes knew: he had to make music.
Cork, Ireland natives Rowan have taken all the electricity of that Glastonbury set and injected it into their newest single, “Youth and Youthhood” out now via Beverly Martel. From the dusky sustain of the electric guitar to the tight rhythmic pocket of the bouncing bass and restrained drumming, everything about “Youth and Youthhood” is ready for the festival stage. The song sounds like a night drive with the windows down, slowly heading towards something, though not knowing just what. Therein lies the strength of “Youth and Youthhood” – Rowan has managed to harness the heady enthusiasm of a teenaged night that has no idea where it’s going. Dylan Howe punctuates the sentiment as he sings, “I’m a little scared, to tell you how I feel.”
It’s no accident that the song sounds nostalgic. Rowan says it’s a tribute to, “the trials and tribulations of navigating life as a teenager,” making the fact that the band’s post-punk energy is tempered by ‘00s era rock – ala The Strokes and Kings of Leon – all the more inspired. Says the band, “The transition into adulthood can be a scary unknown territory, contrasted by the complex golden days of yore.” Thankfully, we’ll have songs like “Youth and Youthhood” to usher us along.
We recently put Rowan vocalist Dylan Howe under The Probe:
1) If a roach crashed into your rehearsal space, would you run or would you kill it?
If a roach came into our rehearsal space we would invite it in for a pint of plain and let it tell us of its hardships. I don’t think people should kill insects in general.
2) Does anyone in the band like to play practical jokes? If so, what’s one of the all-time best ones?
We thought our first record deal was a practical joke on us, thankfully it wasn’t! We actually don’t play jokes on each other a whole lot, I think we’ve got too much love and respect for each other……..with that said the lads would want to watch their backs.
3) What’s the last gift you received?
The last gift we received as a band was a sacred guitar stand from our friends the Frank & Walters.
4) If you could pick one thing about yourself that you’d like your fans to know, what would it be?
Well, Kev used to play GAA (Irish football) at an almost professional level, Fionn once had a load of phones belonging to Radiohead, and I love rollerblading.
5) What music are you listening to lately?
Lately, we’re obsessed with IDLES, The Cribs, Fontaines DC, Sam Fender, and fellow Corkonians The Altered Hours, their new album is a piece of art.
Connect with Rowan:
Comments