Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy discuss the ‘joy’ of grassroots music and new album, Cast Me Down

Stephen Price

Celebrated Newport act Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy have released their highly anticipated, and expertly accomplished new album, ‘Cast Me Down’.

When writing the bio for the “difficult second album” you are supposed to repeat the trope about having a lifetime to compose your debut LP and a few months to pen the follow-up.

Yet while the vinyl release of Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy’s acclaimed debut album World On Fire was less than a year ago, much of the record that follows quickly in its wake is the product of the same prodigious gestation period.

Written and recorded in parallel to World On Fire, Cast Me Down is the other side of the coin.

A non-identical and more unruly twin, it takes some of the experimental instincts hinted at on album one and doesn’t so much as throw everything but the kitchen sink at the songs as rip the kitchen sink clean off the wall, jump inside it and take flight.

Unsettling Americana

It’s a heady ride and although Cast Me Down opens with a welcome reprise of the indie Americana sound that characterised World On Fire, an unsettling loop of backwards guitar heralds the arrival of a sequence of songs that channels sixties psych-pop, the Arctic Monkeys at Rancho De La Luna, late-night West Coast soul, Unkle, The Raconteurs, Father John Misty, and side two of Abbey Road. And that’s just for starters.

Backed once again by The Royal Pharmacy and produced and mixed by Jon Greening, Joe Kelly is also joined on Cast Me Down by special guest appearances from the golden larynx of Miss Erin McNamara and Scott McKeon from Welsh folk-rock heroes Rusty Shackle, who brings his formidable violin skills to the psychedelic denouement of Living Daylights.

And if you’re wondering what Joe Kelly did next, he has already demoed more than 30 songs for album three… and to top that, Joe sat down with Nation.Cymru for a chinwag ahead of the album’s release.

With Newport in the middle of an uprising / insurgence of new independent music, why do you think it’s so important to have strong scenes within different districts?

For a long time, there was an attempt to eradicate Welsh identity, the language, the history. I think that’s when music became our voice. It’s an act of rebellion and it’s imperative that we continue to pass this on.

I grew up during the last big boom in Newport and was taken under the wing of a giant from Newport’s heyday, the late, great and sorely missed Carl Bevan.

It’s people like that who make the music scene in Newport so special. We’ve got musical ancestry with each generation impacting the next. Bands like Burning Ferns and Disco (featuring Sam Dabb who now runs Le Pub) have passed their musical genes down and so it shall go. It’s literally in our veins.

The imagery is really striking in promo shots and the videos released so far, can you tell us more about the ideas behind it all?

We’ve been working with a production company called Gold Tops Studios and we all share a love of 70s folk-horror so we decided to pay homage to that.

We’re so lucky to live in south Wales with such amazing locations right on our doorstep. Coed Hills and Dunraven Bay for Cast Me Down was the perfect setting for this sort of, idyllic commune where everything isn’t quite as it seems, and a fantastic venue in Newport called the Phyllis Maud Performance Space became the haunted site of an exorcism-gone-wrong in Little Fears.

We wanted the visual element to tell its own story and Gold Tops did a fantastic job. There’s a director’s cut in the works which focuses much more on the narrative. I actually haven’t seen it yet but the guys are really excited about it, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Who did you work with on the album?

Part of the album was recorded with Huw Price at Monnow Valley studios and then later at his home studio, you can find the rest of those songs on our first record, World On Fire.

Those tracks would have made up the first album, but the pandemic struck changed the landscape massively.
That’s where our keyboard player Jon stepped in and basically taught himself how to produce whilst I finally got my head around a click track.

We got to work recording remotely and Jon’s production skills progressed exponentially and now, with the help of Dirty Carrot Records, we’ve got two albums that we couldn’t be more pleased with.

What are your plans to take it on tour?

Last year I naively got us roped into a 12 month contract which has and continues to exhaust our funds (and my disposable income) to no benefit to the band whatsoever – it’s a cutthroat business, you see.

Once that’s over, we can go back to self-funding some shows, too. Ahh, the joys of being a grassroots musician!

Cast Me Down by Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy is available on all major streaming services via Dirty Carrot Records. You can also order a vinyl bundle here.