Bressie on The Voice: 'It’s a fight you can’t win'

The Blizzards have reformed for one reason: to have fun. Not for them the “unfinished business” of stepping back into the ring for several more rounds with opponents that are younger, leaner and hungrier for success.

The reality, says Bressie, is that “no matter how well this goes this time around, it’s never going to be a career that we can all fall back on, unless something crazy happens. That’s a naive way to look at things. So let’s enjoy it, go back to the time when we started playing as a band in a gaff, with a drum kit on the bed. I’ve wasted too many years being concerned about what people think about me, or what I do.”

Bressie, aka Niall Breslin, is, of course, much better known these days than when he was at the helm of The Blizzards 10 years ago. Now, via his sensible presence on The Voice, he is a notable figure in what passes for Ireland's "celebrity" culture.

"Even though I'm a part of it to a degree," he says, "I don't like that world, I don't engage with it. It's part of my job, and that's how I approach it. A show like The Voice, or a show like X-Factor, isn't the music industry. I love the process, but I see it as the entertainment industry. What I wanted to show people who listened to heavily processed vocalists was that it isn't necessarily the way to go about it. I was trying to bring something of an education as to what defines a great singer.  I enjoyed The Voice, but it doesn't come close to performing. Nothing ever has."

Since departing the Voice, Bressie has, more importantly, become well-known as an astute and occasionally outspoken commentator on mental-health issues.

It's a long way from when The Blizzards first made a noise back in the mid-noughties. Two albums in 2006 and 2008, A Public Display of Affection and Domino Effect, brought the Mullingar five-piece homegrown success, but it was in a live setting that their potent mix of power pop and hints of ska veered skywards.

The band split up at the end of 2009, and while four members drifted into the background, Bressie upped sticks to London for a conflicting period of high-profile career adjustment. We’ll come to that shortly. But first: what caused The Blizzards to disband?

“The reality is that the hunger just wasn’t there any more,” admits Bressie. He and Blizzards bandmate Dec Murphy are in Dublin’s Camden Recording Studios, which Bressie co-runs with musician/producer Cian Boylan.

“When you’re in a band, you put a lot of pressure on yourselves to get somewhere, get on the radio, and so on, and you don’t control any of that. What happens is that a lot of people apply that pressure, and you stop enjoying what you’re doing. So that’s why.”

Never kicked in

“We were heavy on touring the UK,” adds Murphy, “and we put our heart and soul into that with the aim to achieve as much as we could. The idea was to get to the next step. We got involved with good people over in the UK – record company, PRs. And when the first single went to UK radio, Jonathan Ross played it. We thought, yes, that’s good – we’re laughing! But it never really kicked in. It lagged, and that took the soul out of it.”

Bressie highlights a marked lack of focus on The Blizzards from their major label (Island). “Everyone was talking about advances for us, but we were more interested in knowing what the marketing budget was. They said they didn’t have one, so fairly quickly we knew we were a sympathy signing.”

Within months, Bressie was in London, employed as a songwriter for hire in XIX, the music hit factory and artist management company owned by Simon Fuller. This is the man behind the creation of American Idol, responsible for (according to XIX's website) 500 No 1 singles and more than 240 No 1 albums worldwide.

While there, pitching songs to emerging and established pop stars, Bressie learned that, most of all, he loved working with vocalists. “I could sit in the studio for hours and hours, and work away with vocalists and vocals producers. I fell in love with the idea of vocals, what they’re about, how they deliver. But London . . . was not a city that suited me massively.”

Bressie worked at XIX for three years, gradually reaching the conclusion that the writing and pitching lark wasn’t for him. The reality (a telling phrase he uses more than several times) was that “some of the songs were shite, but some were strong and good to pitch”.

Not good enough

“You start to realise, though, that it was jobs for the lads. You get the artist’s album when it’s done, and you look at who got the cuts, the song credits, and you see that this one is best friends with the A&R guy, and that one is best friends with whoever.

“The reality is that – and this isn’t being defeatist – probably more than half of the songs I wrote weren’t good enough. But I just didn’t like the politics of it.”

Wavering between the need for rent money and doing what he felt was right for himself, what happened next wasn't planned: a solo career. One of the songs Bressie wrote to pitch was Can't Stay Young Forever, but he decided to keep it for himself. That song's parent album, Colourblind Stereo, was released in 2011, and a follow-up solo album, Rage and Romance, arrived two years later.

So Bressie the solo artist had landed, but Bressie the person wasn’t happy.

“I didn’t really enjoy it,” he says. “I didn’t enjoy getting on stage. You’re in the zone with The Blizzards, but I didn’t get that at all the solo shows. I constantly worried about what other people thought or saw.”

So it’s decisively back to where it all started – mates, meaningful songwriting, interpersonal chemistry/connection, and no burden of expectation.

“We’re finished with that,” says one of the most honest men (and likely the tallest) in the Irish music industry.

“Now it’s about having fun with the process.”

- The Blizzards play Whelan’s, Dublin, on July 1st, and Indiependence in Mitchelstown, Co Cork on July 30th. New single Drop Down the Anchor is released on June 30th