Mightily sad am I to bring two cessation notices in one day…Delorentos are soon to be no more:

We’ve got some sad news.

It’s with a very heavy heart that we have to let you know that Ronan has decided to leave the band. He feels it’s best for him to move on and do other things. The three of us will still be making music and will let you know what happens next.

As our songs always came from the four of us playing together we’ve also decided that it wouldn’t feel right to continue “delorentos” without him.

We’re all very proud of the songs we’ve written over the last year, we feel they’re some of the best we’ve ever done, and as a result we’re determined not to discard them or let them go.

Next month, the four of us are going to record this album together and plan on making it something we’ll all be proud of. It’ll be our last collection of songs as delorentos, and we hope you’ll like them.

We want to thank everyone that’s supported us since we started, we’d never have gotten this far without you. We hope to play a gig or two to say goodbye.

We’ll be in touch soon with more details.

Ross, Níal and Kieran and Ro

One of the best-loved bands of recent years, they were bright, cheery indieheads with great tunes, marauding guitars, immensely singable, bright and fresh. Without them, I would not be sitting here now…I was just saying to Ian Thrillpier the other week that Delorentos were the band who got me into the Irish scene proper – Hot Press were behind the lads from the outset. I met Kier at a Christmas interview in 2005 and a few months later, blagged my first photopass: their April 2006 gig in Whelans. Up til then I was loving Franz, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian…I had no idea there was better on my own doorstep. I’m not the only one who found them inspiring – The Kinetiks were incredibly impressed by their North Dublin neighbours and Jacqui Carroll attributes her discovery of Irish music to an early Delos~ show while UnaRocks, John Walshe of State, Jonnie Craig and countless others championed their sound.
The Leave It On EP sold-out in shops immediately on its release -  a comment I left on the Delorentos profile asking how to get a copy led to meeting two lovely friends, one of whom hunted down the elusive record as a gift. The title track remains a constant favourite to this day – if I close my eyes and listen, I go back to the heady start.
Time passed and new music kept coming: just like good NSMA winners, In Love With Detail was considered a worthy candidate for last year’s Choice Prize. Our paths crossed repeatedly, from tiny venues to the huge oul’ barn formerly known as The Point, at the biggest festivals Oxegen and Electric Picnic to the smallest and most independent. They worked their arses off, gigging the length and breadth of the country, playing shows in Italy, the UK and US and yet never looked or sounded tired, would always, always smile, wave and come say hello. Unlike BellX1, it was always enough to be loved by those at home.
When I last saw Ronan at HWCH in September, we had a great chat about the band’s new direction and he was full of praise for developing bands, especially The Parks. It’s good to know there’ll be one last dash of Delorentos flavour, a final parting shot of that north Dublin spirit which paved the way for guitar bands to reclaim Irish stages from singer-songwriters. Doing it for the kids til the end.

Bye Delorentos. Bye Ross, bye Ro, bye Nial, bye Kier. You’ll be missed.

Here are the first early live shots I ever took of the lads. Go easy…

Delorentos – Whelans – April 2006

www.delorentos.net

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Albums, Music, News, Photography, Unsigned Bands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.