IN CONVERSATION WITH… CHILD OF PRAGUE
Child of Prague defies the traditional bounds of genre in their six piece, pulling influences from Folk, Irish Trad, Jazz, Chamber pop, and Midwest emo, the Dublin based band weave complex soundscapes with ease. Comprised of Jack McDonnell (Vocals / Guitar), Adam Tracey (Guitar), Amelia Durac (Violin), Rachel Baum (Saxophone / Violin), Noah Edwards (Bass), and Miranda Gallacher (Drums), members of Child of Prague hail from San Francisco, Boston, London, Tipperary, and Dublin. We caught up with Adam and Jack to chat about their evolution since 2023, religious imagery and what’s next for Child of Prague.
Child of Prague started as a two piece, yet you have morphed into a six piece, talk us through the band’s evolution.
Jack: We just started jamming and playing music together. Adam had been in his own band, back in Thurles, and I had been doing other independent music stuff, so we were like “We want to start a band”.
Adam: We started off and we were writing songs for a little while together, and we liked what we were doing, and we became friends. Then we started pulling in other people that we knew through friends. The first few rehearsals were with people that we just had a good gut feeling about, pulled them in, and from there we found the right line up over a couple of years.
You emphasise that each member comes from a distinct musical background, how did this aid in creating the sound that would become Child of Prague?
Adam: We made a conscious effort at some stage, where we weren’t confining ourselves in a certain genre; and I think everyone in the band would also choose a different genre if they were asked what their favourite is for sure.
Jack: It’s rare all six of us can converge into one location at the same time. Which is funny, it's the two of us doing this interview right now, but in the past, it’s been one person, or two other people. If you read other interviews, what we’re described as changes based on who is doing the description. So, in some we’re a Folk-Pop collective, in some we’re a Midwest Emo band, sometimes the trad is more emphasised, sometimes the Jazz is more emphasised. So, I don’t even know at this point.
Adam: I think the two of us bonded over Midwest Emo guitar. You (Jack) also used to make a lot of EDM music, so you have that background with production.
Jack: Yeah, a lot of my production capabilities came from originally making electronic music; but I had been playing guitar for ages, and just getting sick of being stuck solely working in the box, and then wanting to transition that to live recording, getting the guitar back in there, and vocals and ultimately shift towards a live band performance, because that's what's most rewarding for myself.
Tell me about the name Child of Prague, I think it’s a really interesting symbol to banish misfortune, of course it’s associated with the wedding tradition to place one outside, the night before your wedding to ensure that it does not rain the next day, but it is a ward, so why choose this name?
Adam: First, I think it sounds cool, I like it a lot, I think it suits us very well. I quite like religious imagery, and I used to collect that stuff. Around the time we were starting the band, I was in that phase of collecting memorabilia, and had an interest in that kind of stuff, and I think that resonated with us. I had also got one of them (a Child of Prague) around that time, and someone mentioned it to us, so it fit at that time. We knew we were something different, in terms of Irish music, then a lot of other bands, we were putting in lots of genres, but it still fit.
Jack, is it yourself that does the majority of the songwriting or is it more of a collaborative approach? What is the process of songwriting within Child of Prague?
Jack: It’s definitely become more of a collaborative approach. For the EP it was mostly Adam and I that collaboratively or individually came up with the ideas for the lyrics or the chords of the songs. But obviously, when you bring that to the band, it does change. Unless it's a specific “you play this” thing, everyone's seeing where they fit into what's being provided for them and coming up with their own parts. I think now, it’s becoming more collaborative.
Adam: It’s totally become collaborative: even in the last two months, everyone is bringing their own songs.
Do you guys see yourselves as a part of the Irish Cultural revival that we are seeing right now, or do you feel the band exists outside of that?
Jack: I’d like to think that we’re included in that to some degree.
Adam: We’re trying to be. In our minds now, especially in the last couple of weeks, we’ve been writing way more Irish trad influenced stuff, way more twinkly bits; not so much in the drone trad stuff that we’re seeing at the moment, but more aligned with the music we like with trad influence. We made a conscious effort in the last little while to emphasise that more.
What is next for Child of Prague?
Jack: The main thing to mention is that we have a headline show on May 14th in The Grand Social Ballroom! Molly Donnery is going to be supporting us, and we’re so excited for that; we have a couple of new songs, some surprises.
Adam: We are also supporting Madra Salach in Workman's on April 17th, and we’re also playing Fuinneamh Festival in September!
Jack: Then we’re just focusing on new music, getting as much written before we release anything else or work towards a release.
Child of Prague headline show, May 14th @ The Grand Social:
https://www.ticketmaster.ie/child-of-prague-dublin-14-05-2026/event/18006426C0E1BCE6
Written by: Shar Dullaghan @killrockshars
Edited by: Jules Nati @giuls.nati
