Interview | The Remedy Club

The Remedy Club are a Roots/Americana duo comprising Aileen Mythen and Kj McEvoy from Wexford. Off the back of their latest single “I Survived”, MNÁSOME Contributor Alison caught up with Aileen and discussed working with a five-time Grammy winner, how they made their latest music video, and getting back to touring.

You recently released your album “True Hand True Heart” on vinyl, which was recorded and produced by five-time Grammy winner, Ray Kennedy, in Nashville. What was it like working with someone of such critical acclaim, and do you think the trip to Nashville had any further impact on the album’s sound?
It was such a fulfilling experience working with Ray. We had been a fan of his work for a long time and had listened to many albums that he had mixed and produced on repeat. Personally, we really hit it off. He was incredibly kind to us, not only going way beyond the call of duty of producer in the studio but also picking us up from our digs every morning and making sure we had the best coffee in town before starting into a long (but very fun) day of recording. As regards the sound of the album I don’t think recording in Nashville had a particular impact as we knew the sound we wanted with arrangements and instrumentation etc. However, Ray’s approach to recording definitely influenced the overall sound as he likes things to sound as live and organic as possible.

I have seen you being referred to as Ireland’s Fleetwood Mac quite a few times. Would you say they heavily influenced your sound? Who else are you influenced by recently?
Although we love Fleetwood Mac and Rumours is one of my favourite albums, I wouldn’t have thought we were heavily influenced by them in particular. Between the two of us we listen to a wide eclectic range of styles. I grew up listening to Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris, The Beatles, Buddy Holly. Kj was always a huge Stones fan and would listen to everything from Hank Williams to Motorhead. We have always found it challenging to pick a genre and stick to it as our writing tends to have a bit of roots, blues, soul and sometimes rock in there.

True Hand True Heart was released at the very start of the pandemic, seeing the cancellation of your supporting tour, but the album was still extremely well-received. How did you find the release went yourselves?
It was a double edged sword as we couldn’t physically go out there and play the songs but everyone was spending more time online so we were still able to get the word out about the album and we were
blown away by the reviews. We also signed to Neil O ‘Brien Entertainment (booking agent) in London along with our manager Nick Stewart and after a year and a half and many zoom meetings later we have yet to meet them in person. We look forward to that day!

You just released a Chaplin-esque style video for Fire and Gasoline – that looks like it was a lot of fun to make! Can you tell us more about that?
The video was so much fun to make. We filmed it on my phone on our local beach in Ballymoney and our long-time friend and collaborator Steven Dempsey did an incredible job editing. The lyrics of the
song are quite serious and melancholic so we wanted to go in the complete opposite direction with the video to bring a bit of fun to the song. We really didn’t want to go all moody and take ourselves
too seriously and I think playing air guitar certainly made sure of that!

Have you any more exciting plans for 2021 that you would like to share with the MNÁSOME readers?
We are planning a UK tour in September and hopefully some Irish dates later in the year depending on how things go. We will be releasing a Thin Lizzy cover on August 20th (Phil’s birthday and co-
incidentally, my Mam’s) with a stunning video, directed again by Steven Dempsey. We do have another album written and ready to record but are in no rush to release that as we have plenty to be
getting on with. Our main priority is to play live gigs in front of real people.