Being Nearly Cool Again: Amble Talks Music in Ireland, the Writing Process

Robbie Cunningham, Ross McNerney and Oisin McCaffrey had lives before being in the Irish folk band Amble, as teachers and a data scientist. But, as pub musicians the trio connected, which blossomed into the friendship and ambiance that is found in the heartfelt, plucky and nostalgic music. 

PHOTO BY ADAM HEFFERNAN

“When I was teaching, I was 25 and I kind of got to the stage where I presumed that [music] was never going to happen, because I was never in a band, I never sang on a microphone,” Cunningham said. “I did a couple of school musicals, but that was about the height of it. But I really, really wanted to get involved in music in some capacity. And for me, I thought the best way to do that would be to play in a pub.” 

McNerney said they were lucky to grow up in Ireland, where music plays a large part of people’s lives early on. As three individual musicians, he said when they met each other it felt like something they had to do. 

Two years after their debut single, Amble has released their first album Reverie and EP Hand Me Downs, and they have another single coming out in November. The trio also spent the past few months opening for fellow Irishman Hozier on tour. 

Being on a tour with both an Irish opener and main artist, in terms of talent, Amble acknowledges for a country of about four million people Ireland tends to “punch above [its] weight,” as McNerney puts it. With a slew of literature, movies, music, actors and athletes from Ireland coming into the limelight, McNerney said he’s proud to be associated with that rise of notoriety. 

“It's very lucky for Amble that we're coming at a time where the resurgence in Ireland is prominent at the minute,” Cunningham said, “It's definitely good timing that it seems to be nearly cool again to be Irish.”

Although McNerney concedes that they were influenced by Hozier long before they were a band, Amble makes the music they want to make. 

“[Being on tour] has broadened my sense of how far the music we can make can go, [and] in that sense, it has given us a confidence,” he said. 

Cunningham added that the longer the band spends together, the more the music evolves. He said a lot of the music on their debut album was written before the group ever met, but they are able to dip their toes into different waters as their relationship deepens. 

However, that doesn’t mean the writing process will include the three of them in the same room. Cunningham, McNerney and McCaffrey all write independently, or when something comes to them in passing. 

“It could be Ross jotting something down on a plane. I think we just kind of experienced life, and we take little moments from it,” McCaffrey said. “People keep telling us that the three of us live in the moment. We just make the music we want to make.”

McNerney added the day the three of them get in a room to write together would be the day it goes wrong, and their philosophy is “write when you want to write.” 

Contrary to the solo writing process, Amble performs in a community-centric way. McNerney said the group plays for each other, and McCaffrey said he plays for the person he can see in the crowd who’s singing along to every word. 

“I'm not even looking at the 1,000 people,” McCaffrey said. “I see someone who's in every word with me, and I'm like, this is the gig, just me and that person.”