David Rea: What’s your earliest memory of hearing music?

Albert Hogan: My grandfather played the organ at church. But it’s more visual than remembering sound. Him in his fedora, the smell of B&H, old hands. He was asked to leave because he refused to take his hat off. He wasn’t religious; he just loved a crowd. I can also remember old pianos in various houses and an acoustic guitar in a family friend’s house. We actually acquired Josef Locke’s piano somehow (he was a very famous Irish tenor and quite well known in the 1940s).

What was your parents’ record collection like? How did it influence your sensibilities?

Lee Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden. I think that was a movie too. The Wham of Sam by Sammy Davis Jr., Walt Disney records and Elvis 45s. Best of ABBA, Best of the Bee Gees. Nina Simone, ’Little Girl Blue’, I think, was a song I often heard at my grandfather’s. Cliff Richard was definitely an artist ingrained in my memory. The Grease soundtrack, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Mamas and the Papas, Beethoven.

I think Engelbert was a hero of mine at four. He must have been; I knew all the words to ‘Please Release Me’ at four years old. The Kinks and The Doors came slightly after. A good friend and old songwriting partner gave me Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate on tape. That had a profound effect on how I listened to music.

What was the first record/tape/CD you remember buying?

The first CD I think I owned myself was Blur’s 13. I never owned many CDs. I used to play a lot of ’60s number-one-type things on piano, Bacharach-style stuff like ‘This Guy’s in Love with You’. ‘The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde’ was the first song I learned to play.

Was there a music fan in your early life who you looked up to and who influenced your taste?

My brother’s friend, Johnny Martin. He broke my heart when I played him my first proper demo and all he commented on was the sound of the snare, which he liked. I get it now. I made that demo with a very good friend of mine, Sean. There are occasions — probably only a handful — where my trajectory, or what I perceived it to be, was shifted by a few profound encounters. Sean was definitely one. He remains a very close friend.

Is there a song, album, or record that changed everything for you?

Yes. Noel Gallagher playing 'Live Forever’ on The Late Late Show in Ireland, on an acoustic guitar. It literally changed everything. I wasn’t hugely into music in my teens — not as much as I was from three to eleven — but when that came on the TV, that was it! I stopped playing football, and the focus became getting an acoustic guitar. I worked for three months in a hotel in County Wicklow, got the train up to Dublin, and bought my guitar.

Much earlier than that, a Cliff Richard concert when I was six, in a place called the RDS. He came out on stage skidding in fake snow, wearing a white suit. The crowd obviously loved it, but I remember cringing. It felt contrived even at that age. I wasn’t used to seeing my father and his pals so animated. It was strange.

Sean, similar to Noel, had an impact. He was writing well beyond his years at eighteen. He played like Johnny Marr and could strum a guitar and sing very similarly to Noel Gallagher. Not many people play acoustic like Noel.