Here Comes The Strum
Cult favourites for years, Beirut look set to truly hit the big time in 2011 (they’ve just graced the Hot Press Electric Picnic chat room, for lawd’s sake!). But the road to indie-stardom was far from straightforward for singer Zach Condon, as he explains in a revealing interview.
Ed Power, 14 Oct 2011
Zach Condon, Beirut’s ukulele-strumming wunderkind frontman, has the strangest laugh. Somewhere between a high-pitched giggle and a kitten hacking a fur-ball, the first time you hear it you wonder if he’s been chuggling helium on the sly.
Sitting in his hotel room in Manchester, Condon has plenty to chuckle about. He’s fresh from a triumphant turn at the biggest, most prestigious venue at Electric Picnic (and if you missed him at the Hot Press Chatroom you may have caught his equally impressive Main Stage performance a little earlier). Meanwhile, Beirut’s new album, The Rip Tide, is basking in unanimously lavish reviews (as it should – it is easily one of the year’s outstanding releases). Arcade Fire are such fans they invited him to hang out at the ultimate inner sanctum – their backstage ping-pong table – after he supported them in London’s Hyde Park recently and The National reckon he will shortly be playing arenas. Last year Sean Penn took time out from schleeping around Dublin dressed as a middle aged goth – for a film role, he assures us – to check out Beirut’s show at Tripod (a sell-out, as if you need to ask).
The funny thing is, Condon doesn’t break out The Laugh when contemplating all the good things that have befallen him. More tic than articulation of happiness, it manifests when conversation strays to the darker side of life as a 20-something indie over-achiever. Which, alas, is something he can claim to know a few things about. Before he was Zach Condon, curly-haired alterno-god in waiting, he was Zach Condon, the naive kid who drank too much and slowly fell apart on stage. One incident from a 2007 Dublin concert is especially infamous. Worse for wear after half a bottle of whiskey, he inflicted slow, grievous bodily harm on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, a song that should never be broached four sheets to the wind. Those who were there still can’t quite get it out of their minds.
“The rock lifestyle isn’t something I can do indefinitely,” he reflects. “It was very exciting and I had a great time. I had my limitations. I certainly couldn’t keep on at it.”
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