THE Irish Post Awards return this week on Thursday, November 27. This year’s event will be anchored by Ryan Tubridy, formerly the host of The Late Late Show on RTÉ, and now with Virgin Radio. Top Irish band Picture This get the Outstanding Contribution to Live Music award. JASON O’TOOLE profiles the band
FEW Irish band deserve the Outstanding Contribution to Live Music Award at The Irish Post Awards more than Picture This at the star-studded event on November 27.
Arguably Ireland’s hottest musical exports in many years, Picture This cemented their reputation by becoming the first act to sell-out a staggering five consecutive nights at Dublin’s 3Arena in 2019.
They’ve also headlined at Electric Picnic and have amassed an approximate 650 million streams – and counting.
Funnily enough, they originated in a proverbial one-horse Irish town that can boast connections with several iconic bands.
The picturesque town of Athy can lay claim to direct paternal and grandparental links with The Smiths, The Buzzocks, The Stone Roses, Primal Scream, and was also the birthplace of Liam O’Flynn of Planxty fame.
But Picture This were the first major Irish pop band to come racing out not only of Athy, but really any Irish city on an international level, within the past decade.
Surprisingly for such a small town, with a population of less than 10,000, the band’s two founding members Jimmy Rainsfold and Ryan Hennessy “never knew each other” before they got their – you could say – act together.
“We were in the same school. Jimmy was two years ahead of me in school. But we never had any sort of interaction whatsoever. Just different ages, different group of friends,” Ryan told me during one of few chats down through the years when he was on the circuit promoting a new album.
“I knew who Jimmy was because he was known as this amazing drummer and musician in the school.”
It was no exaggeration either. Jimmy certainly put the hours in. “I played the drums exclusively for maybe 15 years,” he told me back in 2021,” that’s all I ever did from when I was six or seven until I was 24, probably, when I started the band.”
He said he was probably “mostly comfortable” playing the drums, but he’s also a formidable guitarist. “I come from a big family who all play music. I’m the youngest of nine. There was three that didn’t play but everyone else plays,” he pointed out.
Talk about a Crowded House! Laughing at this quip, Jimmy added: “There was a lot of music being played in the house. There was a piano in my house. I don’t know how it got there – I think a piano came with the house.
“I can’t even remember not playing music – that’s what you did in my house. I never took it seriously as a career until I was leaving school and I needed to do something.”
Jimmy and Ryan might’ve been from the same small town but it took the Internet to bring them together. It happened when Ryan posted a Talking Heads song on his Facebook page.
“Jimmy reached out and we started working together then. I think I was 20 at the time,” Ryan told me.
Jimmy messaged him with the words, “Come out to my studio and let’s record that song.”
It was a home studio in a converted barn in Jimmy’s parents’ house. “We had no intention of being a band really, we just wanted to make good music, and just because it was fun,” Jimmy told me.
It was a pinch-yourself moment when their first song amassed a phenomenal 4 million hits online.
No effort went into their cool name either. “We called ourselves Picture This because we needed a social media name on our page. And the next thing it’s getting lots of popularity...” Jimmy explained, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “It just happened to us – we didn’t plan for it. It was crazy.”
They decided to ask two other locals – Owen Cardiff and Cliff Deane – to join their band. “It wasn’t until we realised that the song was connecting that we asked our two friends to come with us, join a band and actually start playing live,” Jimmy recalled.
Their first gig sold-out in 30 minutes and basically within a year they had three packed nights at The Olympia! ““We never did the circuit of playing pubs or anything like that,” Jimmy said.
Reflecting on their style of music, Ryan said, “We’ve never been afraid to call ourselves pop – because that’s what we are. People are always asking us, ‘Are you a pop band? ‘Yeah, we are’. We’re a great band that plays pop music, which is what the greatest bands ever have done.”
Amazingly, the band’s singer confessed that he wasn’t – shock, horror – a big music fan in his youth. “I had no real interest in music growing up at all,” he laughed. “I grew up playing soccer, that’s all I was interested in: sport.
“Music was just kind of a background thing. But there was a couple of moments in my life – when I discovered The Dubliners, for example. I came across the ‘Best of Luke Kelly’ in XtraVision. And the image on the front cover just struck me of Luke with like his ginger afro. I saw this CD and I was like, ‘Whatever this is – I need it’.
“And that was my discovery of The Dubliners, just completely randomly. And it changed my life in many ways. It was one of the first few moments of my life when music became a ‘thing’ to me. But, other than that, I never really had any interest in music until I turned 18 and I started singing.”
Ryan, who even met Sir Alex Ferguson at age 10 in Manchester, turned to music after he stopped chasing his dream of playing for the Red Devils. He used to tog out for one of the best schoolboy teams in the country – St Kevin’s Boys FC, having to make the long trek out to North Dublin for training and games.
“All I ever wanted to do was to play for Man United and just be a professional soccer player until I realised at around 16/17 that football wasn’t going to be my path,” he explained.
At least Ryan eventually got to strut his stuff on the hallowed grounds of Croke Park stadium when the band performed their song “Things Are Different” on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2021.
“I was thinking, ‘Like, that was a great moment of having that empty stadium and the next time I come back I want it to be full – and full for us’,” Ryan said at the time. “And hopefully we can do that. I don’t know how soon with everything that’s going on in the world. But it feels like we’re getting back there.”
Another big dream, they told me, would be to headline at Slane Castle.
“We would love to get to that point where we can do one of those shows,” James concluded. “Who knows when that’s going to happen but we’re confident that we’ll get there.”
Their amazing achievements to date sum up why they are worthy recipients of The Irish Post’s Outstanding Contribution to Live Music Award.
The Irish Post Awards return on Thursday, November 27
Venue: The Great Room, JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London
See More: Irish Post Awards, Kildare, Music Award
