Ro Yourell: "Whatever brand of capitalism we're practicing needs to be closely examined, because it seems are values are being messed around"

After 15 years with critically-acclaimed cult heroes Delorentos, Ro Yourell is setting out on his own. It doesn’t take a francophone genius (or Duolingo) to see the Dubliner’s debut record Commencer is a potent opening statement to a fledgling solo career.

“I miss them every day,” the soft-spoken Yourell says . “But we realised while promoting our last record that we didn’t have time to give the band the attention it deserves. It feels very different. I wouldn’t say things are more ‘serene’. It’s certainly quieter. It was a massive learning curve. Having a blank canvas is amazing, but I found it stifling at first.

“I had an identity crisis of sorts, overthinking the crap out of everything. When I started working with Tommy [McLaughlin], I realised letting go and allowing other people to be invested took the songs to new heights. That’s where I think music is really beautiful, when it feels like discovery.”

Crafted in Donegal’s Attica Studios, the LP is a mellow, indie-folk retrospection on being a “forty-something shapeshifter”. Recording began in February 2020, before familial loss, COVID lockdown and the war in Ukraine shifted his perception on life.

On the positive flip, Yourell became a father during the pandemic too. As well as making him more time efficient in the studio, it caused him to cast a more watchful eye on the world around him.

“There’s such joy in the basic things and seeing their personality develop,” he says. “You become more aware of where we are going as a society. You want your kids to have a fulfilling life, and it’s a bit scary with where things are in the world right now.

“I do a lot of teaching and I see the stress that the internet puts on younger people, they’re being conditioned to sell themselves, they’re all marketing geniuses. Sometimes I wish I had that, my social media game needs a lot of work!”

Ro Yourell photographed by Ruth Medjber @ruthlessimagery

Commencer also sees Yourell dissect his own upbringing, with ‘Don’t Let Me’ and ‘Freedom’ setting their sights on the institutions which shaped the Irish society of his childhood.

“I’m a lapsed Catholic,” he reflects. “I struggle with the concept of organised religion. In particular, the controlling aspect of it – this idea that we’re conditioned to put up with suffering because there’s some great reward afterwards.”

That being said, he doesn’t feel that anything has sufficiently filled in for the community aspect of Mass, with much of Commencer touching on feelings of spiritual emptiness in modernity.

“I don’t know if there’s anything that’s replaced the good bits, that sense of belonging,” Yourell observes. “I worked in Londis as a teenager. Interacting with customers was great, particularly the older ones, it might have been the only chat they had all day. Now, it’s seen as wonderful to sail through a supermarket without encountering a single human being.

“When did that become a good thing? I don’t know where all this time that we’re theoretically saving is going, or what it’s being spent on, but I don’t see people being any happier.”

A socially conscious record through and through, climate change is another issue Ro tackles head on. ‘Incinerate’ in particular acts is an anger-fuelled call to agency.

“When you look at mass migration, it’s horrible how people in desperate need of somewhere safe are being treated, and the lack of understanding there,” he says.

“The fact they’re having to leave parts of the world as a result of developed countries wanting to meet manufacturing demands seems to be completely lost on us. Whatever brand of capitalism we’re practising needs to be very closely examined, because it seems our values are being messed around.”

• Commencer is out now. Ro Yourell plays Whelan's, Dublin on August 24.