Hailing from Navan, County Meath, Le Boom have developed something of a cult following over the past few years with their blend of high-energy beats, thought provoking lyrics, and devastating live shows.
Currently helmed by brothers Christy and Andy Leech – although the actual Le Boom lineup has changed a few times over the years – the year to date has seen Le Boom embolden their reputation as festival favourites, embark on a North American tour, as well as host a series of underground parties at intimate venues (including an upcoming ‘day rave’ at Cork’s Cyprus Avenue on 27 October – tickets available here).
Le Boom‘s currently single is All I Need, which was released on 30 August and has already received considerable airplay, but far from resting on their laurels – and in keeping with their infectious energy – they have a series of follow-ups scheduled between now and the end of the year.
909originals’ roving reporter Emer O’Connor caught up with Christy and Andy Leech in the days following their massive performances at the All Together Now and Electric Picnic festivals. Over to you, Emer!
Wrapping up the 2024 festival season with a brand-new single, a warm welcome to the Le Boom brothers, Christy and Andy Leech, from 909originals.com. Now, give us the lowdown on your latest banger, All I Need. Where did you get the idea for those piano riffs? Do you sing harmony on this, or whose vocal is it?
Christy Leech: Shall I go for this one, Andy?
Andy Leech: Yeah, please do.
CL: Well, we sampled that record. It’s off a pretty old track, and we messed with it a lot…
Which record?
CL: Oh, I’d probably get in trouble with the copyright people if I told you.
People will have to guess, then…
CL: So, yeah, we made this one back in March when we were going on a small venue tour. We were playing 360 with the crowd around us, a Boiler Room kind of vibe, and we tried a load of new, unreleased stuff.
This track was only the second tune in the set, and every night, it went off every time. I think it stands out a bit with that sample, and it’s kind of different. Then, obviously, our vocals are on top, doing the harmonies and random ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs’. So, it really kicked off during the live gigs, and it’s been going strong ever since.
AL: It’s funny, we didn’t realise how much of a banger it was maybe, playing it so early in our sets. We were always blown away by the reaction, because it usually takes a few tunes to warm people up. Then we had to put it to the forefront of our minds and thought, ‘Jesus, we need to get this out.’
CL: And after the shows, people were asking us about it too—‘When’s it coming out?’ We hadn’t really planned to release it at all, but towards the end of the summer, we decided to put it out. It’s kind of kickstarting four other tunes that are coming very thick and fast over the next few months. It feels like a great starting point for those.
Wow, there’s no stopping you two! This is your second track of 2024, following Class earlier this year, also released on London indie label Another Rhythm Records. Those brilliantly emotive lyrics resonate with anyone who’s connected with someone on the rave. Tell us about the background to that tune.
AL: There’s a funny backstory to that one. We have this exclusive WhatsApp group where we share details of our secret shows, particularly around Dublin. In the group, we put out a location and say, ‘We’re going to play here on Friday’, etc. But one day, we asked the group to provide us with voice messages, voice notes—anything they had to send—and we spent a few hours trying to make a tune with that.
CL: It was a slow day; we were fairly stuck…
AL: But one lad sent one telling us about something and said, ‘it was f**kin’ class’ and we thought that was brilliant. We popped it over the tune and thought we needed to make something more out of that phrase. That’s actually where the idea came from—haha.
Le Boom has an excellent record of releasing three to four singles a year since 2018, excluding the depths of the lockdown in 2020–21, when former bandmate Aimie Mallon decided to leave. Was it difficult for you, Christy, to push on solo before Andy joined you midway through 2022?
CL: Yeah, it was a change when Aimie left. Lockdown was so long, especially in the music world. So, I suppose I felt like I was on my own for a good while, writing a lot of new stuff as we came out of lockdown. For the first period, I wasn’t exactly sure what direction we were going in. We were doing some shows as a band, some smaller, some bigger. It wasn’t until we started those smaller rave-type things that things started to click.
That’s when Andy came on board—he got up and did his first piece. Again we didn’t really know what that was, a small location but a safe space to try new stuff. It was just a bit of craic. I think I rang him two nights before the show. He had actually got tickets to come with his mates.
AL: It was the night before, actually! I remember you rang, and I was in a panic trying to remember the words.
CL: During lockdown, Andy had moved in with me for a couple of months, and that’s when we started writing stuff together. But we never tried it out live, never really knew what it was. So that was the first time we did it. The reaction in the room was unreal, and it felt like everything was clicking into place. Then, a video from one of those nights went viral, with you doing Australia. Then we started leaning into that more and doing more of that.
AL: Yeah, it took a viral video to convince Christy to have me!
CL: Ha ha.
Just six months after Aimie left, you were invited to headline the St. Patrick’s Day Festival with the inimitable AE Mak (aka Aoife McCann). I’m thinking it was probably the week before when you decided to have a little jam with Aoife in your friend Peter Fleming’s sitting room?
CL: Yeah, so Peter’s been a mate of mine for years. He was part of the old version of Le Boom pre-pandemic, he was our videographer. Just before that show, Aoife and I went over to his place, shot a video, and stuck that up.
Then we did the show [at Collins Barracks] shortly after, we actually performed with an orchestra—it was wild! Soon after, Peter started playing with us, and he’s in Le Boom now as the synth player. At the time, he was performing as Cinema and supporting us on a lot of shows.
Then Aoife moved away to Berlin and Peter moved into Le Boom and we’ve been in this kind of set-up for the last year and a half, maybe.
How did you feel, Andy, watching from the sidelines since the birth of Le Boom in 2016? I believe you were always a writer and even wrote plays that your brother Christy composed music for. Did you ever think you’d want a piece of the action someday, or what were your ambitions back then?
AL: Absolutely not. I can’t explain just how far that thought was from my mind. I mean, I used to go to all the gigs—I was selling t-shirts on your last tour in 2019, before the pandemic. Writing was my thing, and a lot of it was from the other side of the stage or the camera.
What kind of writing were you doing? Did you stage any plays yourself?
AL: Yes, I staged two plays at Smock Alley Theatre, both part of the Scene and Heard Festival back in 2018/19. That was my passion before the pandemic, along with bits for TV, though they didn’t get to TV in the end.
So, during the pandemic, we sat down together at home one day, just for the craic, and said, ‘Why don’t we spend an hour in the studio? Christy, you write the music, I’ll write the words, and we’ll see what we come up with.’
That ended up being the basis for a tune we later released, Orange Glow, with pretty much the exact words we wrote that day. I used to just be be watching with a load of my mates, down the back, having the craic.
CL: Yeah, our dad has a great video in our family WhatsApp group from 2019. He came to Electric Picnic, where I was playing, and took a video of me on stage. Then he swings out to the right, and there’s Andy taking a piss against the side of the tent! He says, ‘Yeah, two sons making me proud!’
AL: Haha, yeah, that video resurfaces every so often.
Ha ha, hilarious. Since joining Le Boom on stage accidentally at a rave in the summer of ’22, you’ve been catapulted into the spotlight, performing to a sold-out Centre Point within just six months. You still seem super grounded in all your past interviews, but how did you adjust to this newfound fame?
AL: Fame? I don’t know if I’d call it that. I think I was just so lucky. Everything fell into place. The shows were so gradual, and while it might sound mad, all of a sudden you’re playing to a sold-out Centre Point .
As I joined, we were doing a small room tour, so we literally went out looking for the smallest rooms we could find, setting up in the middle. My first three or four shows – bar the Electric Picnic one that came in the middle, but I think I must have just blanked out during that one – most of the shows were these small intimate settings, and over the course of a few months they incrementally got bigger.
So, by the time we got to Centre Point, it didn’t feel so huge, because we played Dolans in Limerick a couple of weeks before…
CL: …and the Olympia four weeks previous.
AL: Now I thought I was cool and collected, but when I look back at the footage, jeez I find it hard to watch, I was so robotic and shite. I suppose its a bit mad but because it’s still so new to me, I’m just really enjoying it.
I’m writing away now, but I am enjoying all of it, if it ended in the morning, it would be just this absolute whirlwind, amazing experience. So I’m just trying to remind myself with each show, ‘isn’t this mad and great’.
CL: Well I suppose with Andy on board now and post-pandemic, when you get into music, especially if you feel a little bit of momentum, you can get a little bit careerist about it, and see it as ‘I’m gonna make it’, and view everything as this kind of ladder, and these are the aims.
It’s kind of ambitious, which is always good, obviously, but that may present as pressure. You could get a bit too focused on that or obsessed with that and never just assess where you are. I think one thing about maybe having Andy on board, it being very family, it pulls it out of this ‘rat-racey’ kind of feeling.
It’s more family first, and friendship first, with Peter being there as well. So, with most tours, it would be the three of us going around.
I suppose during the lockdowns when you were only allowed to have a handful of people in your life, you three were always together hanging out. You must have done an awful lot of work back then?
CL: The shows and the music are just an excuse really for us to be hanging out – travelling to London, travelling to Prague or wherever we’re going, we get to stay there, play a show, have the craic.
I think that has been the best part of all this – it’s just realigned everything and made us understand what’s important with all these experiences, because it really can be all over in the morning. It could all just finish for us. At the same time while it’s happening, it’s good to be aware that it’s happening and just enjoy it.
You must have had plenty of craic when you buzzed over to the all-Irish speaking island off the coast of Galway, Inis Oírr that summer, saw AmyMC at a seisiún cheoil and heard her singing Rhianna, and stayed in touch. This led to her doing the vocals for Shit Guinness… sorry, Chiqueness in Paris?
CL: Haha yeah, how did you know that? That’s exactly it, yeah, she started singing, and oh my God, her voice! We were at this session and there were a lot of trad singers, but her voice when she was singing, I was like, ‘what the hell is this, this is amazing!’
So we kept in touch and then she ended up singing two tunes for us, including The Only One, which we released last year, I think. Then she came on tour with us. We got to hang out with Amy loads.
AL: Yeah, Amy is amazing for the live tour. She’s obviously an incredible musician and an incredible vocalist, but she just fitted the craic, she’s just so sound, such a pleasure to bring around on the road and to be working with. That’s the big thing for us, it really is all about the craic – lovely vibes.
You seem to love a good collab! Any more planned for the coming year, or if you could have anyone in the mix, who would it be?
CL: Yeah, we’re kind of working on something with my favourite Irish producer, one of my favourite producers ever, actually.
Who’s that?
CL: Eh, maybe I shouldn’t go into that, just in case it doesn’t happen.
Okay, hypothetically then, who’s on your dream collaboration wish list?
CL: In Ireland, I love Shee. Big fan.
What about an internationally acclaimed act?
CL: Leonard Cohen, we adore him.
I meant someone you could actually work with in this life!
AL: Ha ha, we always get compared to The Streets, probably because of the spoken word. So for me, that would be right up there. Can you make that happen, Emer? Can you get onto Mike Skinner for us, please?
Yes, of course! Shout out to @mikeskinnerltd #thestreets—say Hiya! to @weareleboom! I believe you now have 18 singles in your arsenal. Do you still play all of them at raves, and do you ever improvise when performing live, or do you stick strictly to what you’ve rehearsed?
AL: There was plenty of improvisation in Paris, wasn’t there?
CL: Oh yeah, there was! I remember we were in Paris, and we hadn’t planned to include Shit Guinness in the set. We were on tour and didn’t think that the people in Paris might want to hear the song where we mention Paris.
We were almost finished, and the crowd just started chanting the lyrics! We had our next tune lined up, but we ended up doing a stripped-down, almost acoustic version of Chiqueness in Paris. That song is the least suited for an unplugged version, but it somehow turned into this emotional moment!
There’s zero emotion in that song to start with, ha ha, but we were hugging each other and shouting it out. It was quite a lovely moment, that had no right to be, being honest.
Speaking of emotions, your epic lament Australia went viral on TikTok in May 2023 and got a stunning reaction at the Beyond the Pale festival. Was your mind blown that your words resonated with so many people?
AL: Absolutely, it was the biggest surprise ever. We’d been playing it at smaller shows, but a lot of those had my actual mates in the audience. I could understand why they were feeling it because those words were written for a group of ten mates—seven of whom left for Australia within a few weeks. So for anyone who was there, well it was very specifically written for those lads.
Beyond the Pale was the first time we played it to a huge crowd, and we got a massive shock from the reaction. That swell from the crowd and the cheer at the end—it was never written with the intention of mass relatability. It was just things I’d said to my mates or things that came up at gaff parties, written specifically for them.
So, every time we play that tune, even in places like Madrid or Prague, where they might not fully understand the lyrics, it still gets this huge reaction. It blows our minds every time. Even at a couple of shows this summer, it’s still a song that resonates with people.
Well, when you think bout it, everyone around the world has lost family or friends to emigration, leaving home for jobs.
CL: Funnily enough, our management and label are based in the UK, and I don’t think it is as poignant for them. I don’t think it is as relatable, it’s not as much as a thing. Until they saw it or watched the show, they just didn’t really get it, they thought ‘oh that’s kind of a cute, very Irish kind of thing that happens in Ireland’.
Well that’s the imperial syndrome in them, no?
AL: Yeah, they’ve only got Australians moving to London, really.
Like you say, so many of your mates have fecked off to Oz – but why would they leave your internationally acclaimed hometown of Navan, the birthplace of a vast array of celebs, including former 007 Pierce Brosnan. What’s going on there, Navan is the place to be, it seems?
CL: Haha, we know! We could talk about this all day.
AL: It’s a mad thing—once you mention Navan, no matter where you go, people start listing off Tommy Tiernan, Dylan Moran, and others. For a relatively small town, there’s obviously this huge culture of the arts, but you wouldn’t necessarily see it just walking around the shopping centre. It’s unbelievable, the amount of talent coming out of there.
The best one I heard was about the singer Gloria, aka Gloria Smith, who was the first Irish woman to record in Nashville. She cut the Kris Kristofferson-penned One Day at a Time in the late 1970s, and it stayed on the Irish charts for an incredible 90 weeks. Do you have plans to cut a track in the rave equivalent of Nashville—maybe Berlin, Detroit, or New York—and knock her off that pedestal?
AL: Yup, that’s the big goal for this year!
CL: Funny enough, the first-ever band I was in had Gloria Smith’s nephew or grandnephew on guitar, Robbie.
AL: No way, that’s class!
Wow, literally two degrees of separation—especially in Navan, ha ha! It sounds like you’re getting used to playing in front of huge crowds—over 20,000 at your incredible All Together Now show, where I last saw you—but you’ve mentioned you often prefer smaller, more intimate gigs. Why is that?
CL: Well I guess the big ones are class, there’s a serious buzz off the energy in a tent and all that, but with the small ones, you’re just closer. You’re physically closer to the people. Especially the ones where we’re in the middle of the floor.
I mean, sometimes you’re hitting something or whatever and it’s literally smashing in someone’s ear. They are so close, there’s people pushing up off you, you can see everything that’s going on, you can really feel the energy. These tend to be all low-ceiling places. There is something that happens in a really small room – a different kind of energy. It can just feel more exciting sometimes. It definitely feels like you’re very much in it.
Whereas sometimes with the big shows – actually it hasn’t been happening to us lately – but sometimes you’re actually physically so far away from the audience. You’re on a big stage, there’s a media pit, there’s a security pit and then there’s barriers. You’re just so far away.
You’re not hearing what they’re hearing either, you’re hearing your monitors, which can sometimes not sound as good as what they’re hearing on the big speakers. Sometimes it gets a little bit lost, feels a bit disconnected.
Yeah, All Together Now did a brilliant job in that Something Kind of Wonderful tent this year, didn’t they?
AL: Yeah, the sound in there was amazing. On the stage it was really class.
So, what’s the schedule for 2024-25? More raves lined up?
CL: Oh yeah! The most exciting thing about our shows being sold out is that we can put them on again.
Yes, you’ve got Index on November 29th, and that’s already sold out, right?
CL: Exactly! Which means we can look at doing more in Dublin. Cork is also sold out too, at Cyprus Avenue.
I missed your Red Cow rave last November because I had walking pneumonia, which put a spanner in the works, but I’ll be at the next one for sure.
AL: Do, do, do!
CL: Definitely come down! And we’re in London again towards the end of the year, which is always such craic too.
You played XOYO before, right? Such a stunning venue.
AL: Yeah, we did that one on the floor too, with people on stage and all around us. It was brilliant.
I think The Pickle Factory, which is where we’re supposed to be in October, is also a class venue. And we’ve got four releases now between now and November so it’s going to be busy.
And one last thing before I let you go… Tá Gaeilge agaibh comh maith, d’fhreastal sibh ar scoil lán-Gaeilge? an bhfuil sé ar intinn agaibh aon amhrán trí mheán na Gaelilge a chumadh? (*You also speak Irish, you went to an all-Irish school I believe? Have you had any thoughts about composing an Irish-language tune?)
CL: Bíonn sé i gcónaí ar intinn again ach níl sé déanta again go dtí seo. (*We’ve thought about it for a long time now, but we just haven’t had a chance yet.)
AL: Yeah labhair muid faoi cúpla amhrán ach níl said déanta again. (*Yeah, we’ve spoken about a few songs, but we haven’t recorded them yet.)
CL: Labhraoínn muid Gaeilge go minic nuair a bhíonn muid ag touráil ‘s ag dul thart, so tá neart Gaeilge again agus labhraíonn Peter Gaeilge comh maith, úsáideann muid go léir Gaeilge. (*We often speak Irish on tour and buzzing about, we have plenty of Irish and Peter speaks Irish too, we all use Irish frequently.
Ahhh caithfidh sibh e a dhéanamh. (*Ohhhh, you must do one.)
CL & AL: Cínnte. (*Defo.)
Cad é do bharúil faoi cheol agus scannán Kneecap, an bhfuil sé feicthe agaibh fós? (*What do you think about the music and film made by Kneecap, have you seen it yet?)
AL: Savage yeah. Tá sé feicthe agam dhá uair anois. Íontach. (*I’ve seen it twice now in fact. Brilliant)
A bhfuil yeah? Thóg mise mo phairtnéir, Protastúnach as Béal Feirste chuig an scannáin in amharchlann Queens agus b’aoibheann leis an scannáin. Ach an mbeadh suim agaibh fhéin scannán fada a chur le chéile? (*Oh really? I took my Protestant partner from Belfast to see it in the Queens Theatre and he loved it too. Do you have any plans to make your own film?)
CL: Níor smaoinigh mé faoi seo fós ach yeahhh… (*I haven’t thought of that yet, but yeah, maybe…)
B’fhéidir scannán faoin réabh? (*Perhaps a film about the rave?)
CL: D’fhéadfadh sé a tharlú cinnte. (*It could happen – yeah why not!)
Bhuel leaids mile buíochas as ucht an t-am inniú agus beir bua sa todhchaí! (*Well lads thanks a million for your time today and best of luck in the future!)
CL & AL: Go raibh mile maith agat Emer! (*Thank you so much, Emer!)
Words by Emer O’Connor. Keep up to date with all things Le Boom related here.
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