Beirut aka Zach Condon: 'People were, like, ‘Why the hell did you come here in January? What were you thinking? Please come back in summer, when it's nicer.' Photograph: Lina Gaissen
He was falling apart. Several months earlier Condon had suffered the latest in a series of breakdowns caused by his anxiety around touring. Having lost his voice, he scrapped a clutch of dates, including two shows at Vicar Street in Dublin that August. As the new year came around, Condon and his German girlfriend, Lena, packed their bags for Hadsel, where they would rent a cabin on the island of Hadseløya.
“I was sick on every tour,” he says. “One of the reasons I waited so long for the record is because I was, like, ‘I don’t know if I have the guts to put this stuff out there right away.’ I’m more comfortable talking about it now. I quit drinking in 2018, a year before that tour. That’s how I used to get through – ride that wave.”
By staying awake at night, “I could have them nearby without having the chaos. I became comforted by that. It was the daytime that came to represent the stress of the mundane – things you don’t want to do. When I was trying to recover in January 2020, it made sense to go somewhere that was permanent night. I get that feeling: slow down, relax.”
Condon craved the acclaim. “I was a high-school dropout. I was a disorganised mess,” he says. “I still am in my life. I like chaos. So when they’re saying all that stuff, you have to imagine that at that time I was actually starving for that kind of attention. I drank it up: ‘I need this, please.’ That was one of the reasons we’re on tour. ‘Fistfuls of anxiety medication in order to get on the road again? F**k it. I’ll do it.’ Anything for that attention.
He “suffered constantly” – “this feeling of doom and horror”. “In hindsight I’m, like, ‘Of course. That’s why I got sick every day,’” he continues. “I was sick the entire US tour, five weeks on and off. Antibiotics and steroids, I got back on them. When I went to Europe and I got sick a lot, a doctor sat me down in Madrid. I was, like, ‘Can I take some steroids and get through this concert?’ He was, like, ‘If you do this again you might do some permanent damage.’”Hadsel marks a new beginning.
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