“And for the first time in my life, family members were telling me how proud they were.
“Funnily enough, it made me feel worse than when they were telling me to quit and get a proper job.
“That’s when I realised. One of the reasons for doing this was to prove them wrong. Now I have to find someone else to prove wrong.”
Singer Grian Chatten added: “People wave compliments at you like finish lines. Adulation makes you feel like you’re done. It’s important not to listen to it.”
The group – which also includes Tom Coll, Conor Deegan and Conor Curley – have also found juggling touring commitments and recording new music left them exhausted.
Carlos said: “For our first tour of Europe in 2019 we were so broke that we couldn’t afford a driver, a tour manager, nothing.
“Then the shows got bigger and bigger, and in the middle of touring we would fly back to Ireland for a few days to work on the second album. We never took a day off. I don’t think we realised how much it would destroy us.”
Grian added: “I developed chronic insomnia. When you’re doing seven gigs in seven days, you give yourself over to a lifestyle of drinking all the time and eating wraps from petrol stations. It becomes bizarrely comfortable. I still look at a bed as a terrifying prospect.”
And even being on stage offered no joy to the band as Grian admitted he ends up “messed up” from trying to force himself into a “dark place” to make their music more authentic.
He said: “The most isolating experience is when your performance is a lie, but the audience believes it.
“To stop that happening I try and force myself into a dark place on stage, to channel the emotions of the song, and that takes its toll.
“I remember a gig in San Francisco where I couldn’t talk to anyone for an hour afterwards because I was so messed up by the things I had been thinking about on stage.”
