Cork Songwriter Mike Roche is delighted to announce the release of his latest single ‘Me And You’, which is released today, January 29th.
‘Me And You’, in Roche’s own words, is the perfect follow-up to his previous single ‘Confess’. “I sent a bunch of songs to Dave [Skelton, producer] and we went with this one next for that reason,” Roche explained of the track’s selection.
The track is dichotomous in nature, with the deep, heartfelt lyrics striking in contrast to the more upbeat and joyous melodical and instrumental choices. “I like creating that conflict between lyrics and music,” Roche adds of the decision, “I like to tell a narrative over the course of my songs and ‘Me And You’ is very much in line with that.”
The song was written over a year ago and was originally written as a piano ballad. “I had no real upbeat song at that stage so I decided to make it more pop-rock by adding in a baseline electric guitar and synth,” Roche adds of the song’s development.
The track forms the second part of a trilogy, the first of which came from his debut release ‘Confess’. “I like to tell a story over the course of my songs and I have about 3 different story arcs going at the moment,” Roche explains of the concept, “I left ‘Confess’ a bit ambiguous for that reason because I bet a lot of people took the lyrics to that song in the wrong way. So if you place ‘Me And You’ before it actually you’ll get another piece of the puzzle.”
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 began writing music almost instantaneously. He saw songwriting as the opportunity to make his family proud, and used his newfound musical talents to pen a song in honour of his Grandmother, who also passed away in 2016. The track is now one of a number of tracks being considered for his debut EP, which Roche hopes to release in the opening months of 2021.
‘Me And You’ is Mike Roche’s latest addition to a thriving Irish music landscape. With an EP set for release in the coming months, and aspirations for future releases beyond that, 2021 already looks set to be the busiest year for Mike Roche to date.
