In the latest edition of Conversations, we sit down with a bona fide NI music legend and true ambassador of our creative community. As a founding member of North Coast instrumental giants And So I Watch You From Afar, Rory Friers has spent two decades taking boundary-pushing sounds from local rehearsal rooms to some of the world’s biggest stages. Yet his work has always sprawled far beyond the band – through film scores, sound installations, collaborations, DJ sets, and most recently, the unveiling of his debut solo project HOME.

In this wide-ranging chat, Rory reflects on everything from the formative magpie years of discovering art on the North Coast, to the lessons of burnout and balance, to finding transcendence in collaboration. With HOME premiering at the MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival on 25th October, and ASIWYFA gearing up to mark their 20th anniversary at the Ulster Hall with the Ulster Orchestra on 19th December, he opens up about what drives his creativity across so many forms, and why gathering, presence and connection continue to be the compass point in all his work.


Hi Rory. You’ve always been a bit of a musical shapeshifter: from ASIWYFA’s globe-spanning tours to sound installations, film scores, collabs and other bands, DJing, and now your debut solo work. What pulls you toward these different mediums and how do they feed into each other?

ing up on the North Coast in the ’90s, kind of pre-ubiquitous internet, I became a bit of a magpie. If I stumbled on a great record, a film, a piece of writing or art, I’d cling onto it because you didn’t have this endless stream of everything at your fingertips. You really lost yourself in the few things you had. I was also fortunate to have a few older friends who were plugged into more eclectic worlds of music and cinema, so I was exposed early on to things that felt exciting and out of reach. That combination shaped me, I was always a fan first, completely consumed by whatever medium was in front of me at the time. I think that’s why I’ve never felt that there are big boundaries between forms. Whether it’s a band, a score, an installation or a DJ set, it all comes from that same place. In a way I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of a greedy artist, I just want to try a bit of everything.


HOME feels both intimate and expansive, rooted in that personal story on the Antrim coast but realised with strings, collaborators and a deep sense of place. Does that blend of the deeply personal and the collaborative in your music-making feel like a North Star?

I’ve always been drawn to environments where emotions run high, those transcendent, joyful or angry moments at a live gig or the way a single scene in a film can stop you in your tracks. That’s always where I’ve looked to music and art to take me, into those heightened states. But when it comes to making my own work, it’s telling that I’ve spent most of my life in an instrumental band. I like creating the environment for strong reactions to happen, but I don’t often want my own personal story front and centre. I’d rather be part of the supporting cast than the lead narrator.

With HOME, that’s really what I’ve been chasing: responding to and soundtracking stories that feel personal but somehow universal. These recordings, a mother and child on the Antrim coast, or a care home resident singing to herself, already hold so much meaning. I want to frame them, create a space around them where people can find their own reflections. That word ‘home’ is complicated. For me, after years of touring, it shifts, it changes, it carries weight. And I think that’s true for everyone. Exploring that tension musically has been my way of letting go of my own centrality to it all, and instead building environments where listeners can bring their own meaning.

You’re bringing HOME to life at The Mac as part of Belfast International Arts Festival later this month. What does it mean for you to launch this project in such a setting with friends and long-time collaborators on stage?

It feels really special to be launching HOME in Belfast, and particularly at the MAC. That theatre is such a beautiful space, and to stand there performing my own work feels both exciting and surreal. What makes it even more meaningful is the group of people I get to share the stage with. Michael Keeney, my great friend and collaborator, has been such a mentor, constantly encouraging me to branch out and have the confidence to write for others. Arco String Quartet, Claire and Rich, Tommy McLaughlin from Attica Studios in Donegal, and my great friends Laura Hunter and Áine Gordon, two of the most incredible voices I know, are singing with us on the night. It’s such an amazing ensemble. So in a way, the gig isn’t just me presenting songs, it’s a gathering of collaborators who’ve shaped the music along the way. It’s rare that we’re all in the same room at once, so to bring everyone together for this show will be really special.

Between scoring Battleship Potemkin, the solstice sound installation Circle, ASIWYFA shows, and your solo EP, you’re working at an incredible pace. How do you protect yourself against burnout these days? Has your approach to balance shifted since the early ASIWYFA touring years?

Burnout has been a recurring theme in my life. For years, I lived in this cycle of throwing all my energy into too much at once, then crashing and then beating myself up for not being able to sustain it. I’d pick myself up and go again, only to repeat the same pattern. It’s only in the past decade, and especially the last five or six years, that I’ve really started to unpack that and understand myself better, my mental health, how my brain works and how to manage that in a healthier way.

What’s changed is learning to be kinder to myself and to set boundaries. These days, I only say yes to projects that genuinely excite me. If I’m working from a place of curiosity and joy, the pressure lifts, the work doesn’t have to prove anything, it just has to fulfil me while I’m making it. Strangely, that shift has made me more prolific, because I’m not overthinking or perfecting things to death. I’ve also learned to put my own well-being first rather than trying to please everyone else. It’s been a long learning curve, but that shift in self-understanding has been transformative. It’s what allows me to move between all these different projects without burning out.”


And So I Watch You From Afar turn 20 this December, with that huge Ulster Hall show alongside the Ulster Orchestra. When you look back from those early Nirvana covers to standing on that stage with a 60-piece ensemble, what goes through your head?

It’s quite a thing to get your head around. As a person, I try not to look back too much, and as a band we’ve never really been particularly nostalgic. But when the opportunity came up to mark 20 years at the Ulster Hall, and to do it with the orchestra, it was impossible not to think back to Chris and I hacking our way through Green Day’s Dookie and Nirvana’s Bleach in his bedroom on the North Coast. I was playing bass lines on a guitar with only the top two strings, and I’d given Chris my drum kit because he just looked way cooler behind it. All we wanted was to play one gig together, that was the dream.

That feeling has essentially powered the band ever since. Starting such a strange little band in such a complicated corner of the world, the idea of ever filling a venue bigger than the corner of a pub felt unimaginable. In the grand scheme of music, we’re just a small footnote, but for us it’s already surpassed everything we thought possible. To have people around the world connect with our music is incredible, and then to bring it home to the Ulster Hall, a place that felt like Wembley Stadium to us growing up, is magic. I remember Chris and I going to see our first shows there as kids, and it felt like hallowed ground. So to get to stand on that stage with a 60-piece orchestra, playing this music we’ve made together for 20 years, is surreal and deeply special.

You’ve long been one of the biggest ambassadors for NI music on the international stage. With Belfast setting the pace as a UNESCO City of Music, how do you view the scene at the minute and what gives you the most hope about where things are heading?

I’ve no worries at all about the future of music in Northern Ireland. Any time I speak with younger musicians, producers or composers, I sense a real spirit of confidence and independence. When we were coming of age, the industry was in flux, revenue streams were closing off, and there was this sense of decline after a high point. For us, that was difficult to navigate, but in some ways starting from a lower baseline now clears out a lot of the dead wood. It means there’s space to reframe things, to build an audience on your own terms, and to retain more control.

It’s not easy, but it is empowering, and the quality of what’s being made here is more exciting than ever. Ireland as a whole feels like it’s having a moment, and Belfast is starting to as well. I think we’re going to see artists from here making truly great music that will last forever. That gives me huge hope.”


So much of your recent work – from Circle to HOME – seems to return to themes of gathering and shared presence. Has this focus been shaped by the last few years and how do you think music can continue to provide that sense of connection in uncertain times?

From the very beginning, even those first band practices, I’ve felt that there’s something primitive and vital about being with other people, communing in some way. I’ve never found social situations easy in the traditional sense, but music has always created this alternative space. Loud music takes the pressure off needing to say or do anything, you can simply exist in it. And at the same time, it gives you the chance to disappear further into yourself, to transcend, whether outward or inward.

When COVID stripped that away, it really exposed just how necessary those moments are. Beyond the wider crisis, I think a big part of why people’s mental health suffered was because we lost those simple rituals of gathering, of being present together. That absence only reinforced for me how important it is to create those spaces. In many ways, my whole creative life has been about building environments where people can come together, and then providing the soundtrack that makes those moments feel more vital, more transcendent. Every culture has its own version of that, whether a gig, a ritual, or a place of worship, because it’s something humans fundamentally need. I just hope we never have to be without it again.

On a personal level, when you’ve got ASIWYFA rehearsals, orchestral scores, and immersive projects all on the go, what grounds you? Is there a ritual, habit, or simple thing that helps you reset and keep the joy in the work?

What grounds me is routine. I try to keep my days and weeks really structured, up at the same time every morning, in bed at the same time every night, and no matter how exciting the work is I still clock off at the same hour. I like to get some early sunlight, and when my wife finishes work, I make sure I’m finished too so we can spend time together. If I can, I still chase that Friday feeling and protect my weekends.

That rhythm gives me the energy to “attack the day,” as a friend of mine used to say, but it also makes space for the smaller, grounding moments. It might sound trivial, but I probably spend far too long making myself a coffee each morning. Taking that time, focusing on something simple, physical, and completely present, is often what resets me and keeps the joy in everything else

Lastly, name one book and album that you’re loving at the moment. 

93 Til by Pete Thompson and ‘The Stray’ by Áine Gordon

Photos by Graham Smith