Born a few miles apart and reunited in Dublin, this duo are making waves and are here to shake up the scene.
Photo: John Harding
Burglar are defined by musical friction. They exist perfectly in the space between the push and the pull. The band is made up primarily of friends Eduardo Pinheiro and Willow Hanlon, both on guitars and vocals.
When the two first met at Trinity College in Dublin, they hit it off instantly as they connected over alternative music. As Eduardo describes, they initially “listened to The Velvet Underground’s debut album and SOPHIE together.” It makes sense. Whilst both artists appear at opposite ends of the pop spectrum, Burglar define themselves by making things that shouldn’t quite fit crash together to create something new and energising.
Even their musical upbringings were vastly different. For Willow, “going to gigs was my entire life. I remember going to see Blur when I was ten, and it was life-changing.” Those formative experiences with live music made Hanlon want to get stuck straight into the act of making music herself. “I started making my own music in my bedroom, and everything felt a lot more accessible because you could just get GarageBand on your laptop and do anything you want it to.”
However, due to growing up across the world in Brazil with a lack of access to live music on that same scale, Eduardo was forced to become a student of scenes, bands and records. “I was always very encyclopaedic about bands, and I cared a lot about scenes and the history of specific scenes all over the world.”
Eduardo’s scholar-like approach to music is the perfect foil to Willow’s DIY spirit. They may have grown up worlds apart, but their musical upbringings fit together seamlessly.
However, reducing them to their geographical distance growing up is to do them a massive disservice. After all, they were surprisingly born only a few miles and one month apart from each other anyway. “We were both born in London. Then he went off to Brazil, and I went to Dublin,” Willow says. Finding each other in Dublin 21 years later almost felt like fate. Their musical perspectives and personalities don’t feel like opposites attracting as much as it feels like two sides of the same coin coming together to fill in each other’s blanks.
Interestingly, Burglar were nearly not supposed to even be a band at all. What started as simply a vehicle for Eduardo to record solo material quickly transformed into something much bigger and greater. As Willow says, “I was producing his solo music. I did some harmonies on the top, and we were like, ‘Actually, let’s keep doing this’.”
Whilst their distinct musical influences coalesce to create such vibrant and energised music, it is their shared vocals that really create the most satisfying friction. There is a discordance to the way their voices connect that transforms them into something greater than they could ever be individually. Rather than just complementing Eduardo’s vocal with a harmony, Willow prefers to simply stack a lead vocal on top and let them shapeshift into one entirely new voice.
“Sometimes I’m like, ‘Are we just being lazy, not coming up with harmonies?’ For now, we just do what feels right,” she says. Sharing these vocals, in much the same way as The Libertines or Better Oblivion Community Center do, also fundamentally changes the entire tone and meaning of their songs.
Willow says that, “Sometimes when it’s lyrics that Eduardo has written, it changes the meaning of it when it’s both of us singing together. It plays with a lot of the gender roles.”
Eduardo adds, “I always want it to sound a little bit messy. There needs to be a little bit of a connection, almost like we’re talking to each other.” It’s impossible not to get swept up in the infectious dialogue of their vocal blend. It’s the sort of chemistry that just can’t be manufactured.
Alongside their unique vocal blend, another of Burglar’s secret weapons is their innate intuition when it comes to crafting songs. They are not afraid to let songs breathe and shape themselves. For example, as Willow describes, recent single Lovey was “originally recorded with electric guitar, and then it just didn’t have the vibe that the song needed, and so we just recorded it with acoustic to see what it sounds like, and it was not a rock song anymore. But it’s what the song needed.”
Whilst he writes the initial skeleton for most of the band’s songs, Eduardo isn’t keen on being just a solo songwriter for the band. He says, “There’s no point in being too strict about the parts that I’m writing. It sounds better with everyone else.” It’s hard to disagree when you hear the way the drums, synths and guitars all crescendo together on Star Crossed. The final cacophony of noise as the song reaches its climax is an absolute riot. It simply wouldn’t be possible without everyone’s individual input.
The band are currently finishing up recording their debut album, which will feature both recent singles Lovey and Star Crossed. Eduardo informs us, “It’s done, but we need to revise it. We have 11 songs.”
As ever with Burglar, it’s sure to be a surprise as they even tease a song that breaks from their alternative rock mould, which “has a lot of Brazilian rhythm.” Whilst work is still finishing up on the record, it’s perhaps inevitable that a band so schooled in the history of music is already thinking even further ahead. Eduardo continues: “For a debut album, I think we have to go succinct, but a double album will happen. It’s very [much] within our nature.”
Burglar are a wonderful contradiction. Their influences, vocals and personalities blend together to create songs that are filled with chaos and melody. They celebrate friction. It all results in songs that are as exciting and energising as they are memorable and catchy. Their debut album certainly isn’t going to be one to be missed.
You can also find this interview in print. Order Issue 2 of The Indie Scene Magazine here.
