Mike Roche today releases his debut EP ‘Anomaly’.
Growing up, Roche came from a very musical family. His late Grandad Charlie O’Keeney was heavily involved in music from playing fiddle and keys with his band The Silver Wings. Having never taken music lessons as a child, he began to teach himself the piano following his grandfather’s death in 2016. His interest in music grew from there, and he slowly taught himself the guitar, mandolin and the bass guitar in a busy three year period.
Roche titled this debut EP ‘Anomaly’ because, ”Each song on it deals with something that can change your life and at the time of their occurrence seems wrong and out of place. Or in other words an anomaly. 1. ‘Confess’ – two people being together that aren’t made for each other / contrast between different relationships. 2. ‘Me And You’ – classic break-up from someone you loved. 3. ‘Rewind Time’ – Death of someone that was very close to you. 4. ‘Lost’ – Having your daily life ripped away from you (Pandemic).”
Lost is track number 4 on ‘Anomaly’. This song examines the mental impact caused by COVID-19. ”I think it has given everyone too much time on their hands to think and while this can be a good thing, like anything too much can be bad for you. Pair that then with lockdowns and no social interactions and all the anger and frustration that comes with it. It can be too much to handle.” Roche explains.
”We are all yearning for a sense of normality at this stage, but obviously public health and safety has to come first and the bridge in this song is the glimmer of hope we all have. We are all in this together and we will come out the other side of this a better world and more appreciative of what we have.”
This is Mike’s forth time working with Galway based producer Dave Skelton (Rofi James, Faraway Martin). Mike and Dave combined their efforts to bring ‘Lost’ to life filling the production with a heavy Alt/Rock sound. ”The music was very important to me in this song in the sense of I really needed the production to replicate the emotion behind every lyric in this. The song builds throughout adding more instruments from piano, guitars, drums and eventually a full orchestra. I wanted a big finish to this EP and this was the perfect song for it.”
