Eileen Gogan joins me to chat about her debut album The Spirit of Oberlin, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Eileen was in The Would Be’s, The Revenants, The Drays and joined Microdisney for their reformation gigs. We talk about all of that and more including her second album, Under Moving Skies and her collaborations with Cathal Coughlan, Sean O’Hagan, Damian O’Neill, and the Bring Your Own Hammer history project. Not for nothing did Eileen once joke that she was: “Queen of the obscure Indie Irish bands”.

In Episode 53 I chatted to Paul Finnegan, Aidine O’Reilly and Julie McDonnell from The Would Be’s. The Episode focused on Silly Songs for Cynical People a compilation album of the first three Would Be’s singles.

Early in The Would Be’s story Julie McDonnell decided to go back to school and Eileen Gogan was drafted in to replace her.

Eileen sang vocals of two (Silly Songs for Cynical People EP and The Wonderful EP) of the three early EPs that made up the Silly Songs for Cynical People compilation.

It seemed like the perfect time to get Eileen on the podcast.

After The Would Be’s disbanded Eileen sang with The Revenants, Stephan Ryan’s post Stars of Heaven band. We told The Stars of Heaven’s story on Episode 7 of this podcast. Eileen also joined Stephan in his band The Drays.

She was also recruited by Cathal Coughlan to sing with Microdisney for their reformation gigs back in 2018 and 2019.

And those gigs led to further collaborations with both Coughlan and Sean O’Hagan.

Eileen sang on Coughlan’s Song of Co-Aklan album (Episode 50 of the podcast focused on that album) and in 2020 she released Another Golden Day (Dimple Discs, 2020) an EP of four songs arranged and produced by O’Hagan.

Eileen is also part of the Bring Your Own Hammer collective and has contributed a number of songs to that history project (Bonus Episode 6 of the podcast focused on the BYOH project).

So, The Would Be’s, The Revenants, The Drays, and Microdisney - not for nothing did Eileen once joke that she was, “Queen of the obscure Indie Irish bands.”

We talk about all of this and much, much more on this Episode.

We also talk about the two albums Eileen has released under her own name, with a particular focus on her debut album, The Spirit of Oberlin. An album the Irish Times said, “exudes Byrds/Americana-influenced pop music smarts”.

That great record was released in November 2015, so it’s coming up on its 10th anniversary.

Five years later Eileen followed The Spirit of Oberlin with her second album Under Moving Skies in 2020. It’s another beautiful record that Eileen also mixed and produced. It features contributions from the aforementioned Coughlan and O’Hagan but also Damian O’Neill from The Undertones and That Petrol Emotion.

In its review of Under Moving Skies, Mojo magazine wrote that, “Gogan has built on the promise of Oberlin to craft something really special”.

For Further Listening:

The Spirit of Oberlin, Under Morning Skies and Another Golden Day EP are available from Bandcamp:

In this Episode Eileen mentions an interview she did with Seán Rocks on RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena around the time of the release of her second album, Under Moving Skies. That interview can be heard below:

For Further Reading:

Below: various Eileen Gogan reviews (click on each image to enlarge).