Following the release of their debut album back in 2018, Irish quartet
The Academic have spent pretty much every waking minute on the road. They’ve played a lot of gigs. A lot. Now though, as they prepare for an autumn headline run which may or may not happen (keep your fingers crossed, etc. etc.) they’re sharing their new EP, ‘
Acting My Age’. Frontman Craig Fitzgerald tells us more.
Hi Craig, how's it going? Are you having a fun day?
It's going good, thanks. It's been a pretty relaxing day so far, am enjoying the good weather but suffering from hay-fever!
It's a bit of weird time, isn't it, are you coping okay with everything?
It a weird time is, but we are all managing okay thanks, yeah. I can't remember the last time we had so much time at home. We've been out on the road so much for the last couple of years. It's not a bad thing, though. It really gives us a time to pause, reflect and reset a bit, and good to reconnect with family.
It must be difficult trying to get on with band business at the mo, have you had to cancel or postpone much?
As far as touring goes, it's been a complete write-off. We were just back from a show in Dubai and about to head out on a big UK and European headline tour, and it's just got completely wiped out. We've been able to reschedule our dates for the autumn, so hopefully, that will still go ahead, and we can get back to doing what we all love.
How sensitive are you lot to current events, does the news get you down? Is it tough to be creative when the world's in chaos?
There is a real existential fear about the state of the world right now, so I think it is pretty difficult not to be affected by what is going on.
From a creative standpoint, in one way nothing has really changed too much as far as we can still get a lot of stuff done, but in another way, the whole context of it has changed. I think it is okay to let your creativity go if you need to focus on the world around you.
You shot a video during lockdown, right? How was that?
We had planned out a really great video for '
Anything Could Happen' and the night before we were due to fly to London to make it, everything got shut down, so it never happened. The news just seemed to be a never-ending barrage of negativity, so we decided to create something that was a bit more uplifting and positive. We had a chat with the directors and came up with the idea to crowdsource people in lockdown all over the world who were making the most of being together in such a difficult time. It worked really nicely.
