Pals since their school days, and founders of Juniper (with Damien Rice) as well as Bell X1, Paul Noonan and Brian Crosby have returned with their new project Pilgrims. They now have a beautiful collection of songs that have come together on their debut record Wintering. Ahead of an intimate national tour whose setlist will include Pilgrims tracks and Bell X1 classics, we caught up with the duo to discuss it all.
What was it like reuniting with each other for the first time in 16 years? Was your creative dynamic exactly how you remembered it, or was it something new entirely?
Paul: It’s like slipping on an old overcoat, finding a Wham Bar in the pocket from years ago. We are different people than we were 16 years before, but also very similar. There’s an unspoken understanding of certain things. We were in our first band together, we fell in love with music together in our late teens. That’s a very powerful, fierce time. It’s a formative, profound experience that you share, and it’s still very much there. It has felt very natural and easy. We both have our bits of neurosis in different parts of the workspace, but it’s been great.
Brian: The timing felt very natural. In my head, it had been in the making for a while, because we’d done a couple of collaborations in the meantime. We did a project Paul led called Starboard Home about 10 years ago. That was the first time we’d done anything musically together since the band, just a few days in the studio and a couple of live shows. That felt great. Ever since then I was like, “Oh, I’ve missed that.” I’d been waiting for the right time and circumstance, and it did present itself.
Paul: That Starboard Home project, I was very stressed doing that.
Brian: You had to deliver it.
Paul: It marked the centenary of the 1916 Rising. We were asked to write music about Dublin Port and the River Liffey, the city’s heritage and spirit. It was a specific brief. We gathered songwriters and musicians, made a record, and did shows. I’d never really produced something that wasn’t going under my name. I remember waking up with night sweats from stress and anxiety around being outside my comfort zone. I don’t think that was my best self. I don’t remember being super stressed day to day in the studio, but I saved it for my night terrors.
The starting point for this project was “My Bones a Scaffold.” At what point did it start shaping into an album?
Paul: Brian put out a solo piano record a couple of years ago called Imbrium. I listened to it and imagined singing on these beautiful pieces. I recorded some singing on one of them and sent it to Brian, not as “let’s do something,” but as an acknowledgment of what he’d put out.
It was Brian’s first substantial solo record. So we sat on the song for a while, then Brian said, “Let’s do something with this.” We put it out, made a video, did some shows together, and there was an inevitability to doing more. The song released a desire to work together again. When we played those shows, we’d worked up new material in various stages. Playing them live helped shape what a Paul and Brian project would look and sound like. The spirit of it became clearer through the performances.
If you were to pick two tracks from Wintering, one easiest and one hardest to create, which would you pick, and why?
Paul: A lot of the songs were me responding to Brian’s instrumentals. Some were sketches I had on guitar that we filled in together. The piano-based things were easier.
Brian: What’s new for us is how we worked. Before, Paul might have had a song fully sketched on guitar and we’d embellish it. This time, we reversed that. I had piano sketches not intended to become songs. They came from my film and composition work. I’d bag ideas for later. We had a shared folder, we listened, and responded. That was a very natural, easy way to get the initial writing done.
Paul: Brian mixed the record, and some things were trickier. The last song, “Tangerine Mine,” is a meditation, a trancy three-chord thing, but the journey was hard to pull off.
Brian: We assumed it would open the album and put a lot of pressure on it. Once we moved it to the end, that unlocked it.
Paul: You agonize over running order, but few people listen that way now. Still, for a coherent long-form project, it matters.
Paul, the single “Who’s Kissing Who” was inspired by a photograph of a couple from 1970s Dublin. Where did you find that photograph?
Paul: At my parents’ house. They don’t know who they are. It was in a random collection, probably friends at a party. The flock wallpaper, the 70s hair, long-collared shirt… Really evocative.
Are there other songs with interesting sources of inspiration?
Paul: A lot of the songs are characters I inhabit for four minutes. There’s a theatrical quality, maybe exaggerated versions of me, also cosplay, wearing someone else’s skin. I come back to meditation and dreamlike immersion. “My Bones a Scaffold” felt like an underwater journey, almost magical realism. Escaping to somewhere sub-aquatic. There are probably other springboards like the photograph that I can’t think of right now.
Brian, you spent 10 years in Berlin building your own creative space and collaborating with artists. What made you leave that chapter behind and continue your work in County Wicklow?
Brian: We had an amazing 10 years. We never planned to stay forever. We went as two single people: me and my girlfriend, now wife. We had kids there, and our third in Ireland. Communities in Berlin feel transient. People come, great things happen, and they move on. It’s ever-changing, brilliant but finite. Pragmatically, our kids were about to start school and there was a window to move home. Also, it felt like the end of a chapter. People in our community were going their own ways.
And you eventually miss where you come from.
Brian: Yeah. I really missed my friends and family and wanted to establish roots again.
Brian, you’re a certified Holotropic Breathwork facilitator. Paul, you’re a qualified music therapist. How have these shaped your understanding of music?
Paul: Music therapy puts me in settings I’d never otherwise see: nursing homes with people living with dementia or at the end of their lives, schools with children with autism or adverse childhood experiences… It’s given me perspective and appreciation for what I have. I’d possibly been in a bit of a bubble until I was exposed to these settings. Music therapy feeds my writing, and my musical expression feeds the therapy. I still feel a bit of imposter syndrome.
Why?
Paul: I come to it as a listener and maker of music. I feel its power emotionally, then think about applying it clinically. That marriage is hard to quantify. You also have to justify your presence and explain how it helps. There’s tension there.
Brian: The breathwork training was intensive. It’s helped my anxiety and procrastination, which affects creativity. Studios can be isolating. Working with people is a psychological field, and music is a major component of breathwork. I wanted more of that.
Do you have a favorite lyric from Wintering?
Paul: “Daisies in the Dirt” grows from something delicate into a marching band, and has the line “Would you look at that sky?” It’s optimistic, wide-eyed, and uncynical. Not about ignoring the world’s problems, but enjoying looking up. In cities, we forget to. There’s something to be said for it.
When you last made music together, the world was social media free. How has it shaped creativity now?
Paul: We’ve seen its rise. Music is still the core, but visuals, videos, staging add depth. Social media is another layer. I’m not an enthusiastic poster, I don’t want to add noise, but it’s useful for conveying spirit and association. We filmed a recent radio session, which showed the core of what we do: singing and piano. Posting it on social media was a great way to introduce this new project.
Brian, what synths and hardware did you use on Wintering?
Brian: I went down the modular rabbit hole during Covid. A lot of atmospheric sounds are piano notes processed through that system. I also used a JUNO-60 and a Jupiter-6 for melodic lines.
Paul: What have you got, Deniz?
An Arturia Microfreak, a Pocket Operator KO, and a few others.
Paul: I’ve bought some hipster keyboards myself. An Orchid, the synth of Kevin Parker from Tame Impala, and an Organelle from Critter and Guitari. It has these wooden buttons.
What can fans expect from the upcoming tour?
Brian: At its core, acoustic piano and bow. Also prepared piano with felt strip for a muted sound. Some atmospheric synths. Paul plays guitar, loops, and drums. A lot of it will just be the two of us, until it expands. We’ll play the new record and songs from the first four Bell X1 records.
Will you film the performance?
Paul: Maybe on some shows. Red velvet, cabaret style.
Brian: Super club vibes.
Paul: Dinner and a show… without the dinner.
Words: Deniz Ekim Tilif
Wintering is out now. You can order the album on Bandcamp, and get tickets to see Pilgrims on their national tour at pilgrims.music
