Davey says, call your mom on May 12th!
DAVEY O’BYRNE OF HOPELEUS
Lush’s Western North America headquarters was busy on the April morning BeatRoute popped in to say hello to Davey O’Byrne. With Mother’s Day rush coming, O’Byrne is busy at work but making sure he still has time to keep his music going on the side and call his mom. He actually attributes his passion for music to his mom, who let him play in bands and go to shows throughout his teen years. Growing up in Regina he would be allowed to drive to Winnipeg on weekends for shows and really immerse himself in the culture. Years later her trust and support has paid off. Thanks, Davey’s mom!
BeatRoute [JB]: What’s your job here at Lush?
DO’B: Currently we’re sitting in the distribution centre for Lush North America west. We provide all the product for every store from all the way in Hawai’i to California, Texas, and west to Winnipeg. Everything is manufactured here in Vancouver, then packaged up, put on skids, and sent out. I’m the manager of the warehouse part. It’s still a fairly new company with lots of modernizing so I do a lot of troubleshooting. I’m a manager and problem solver.
JB: And at night Davey emerges?
DO’B: Yes, well I’m lucky enough that so far all of our shows have been on the weekend, but I’m the singer in the band Hopeleus. Actually it’s a funny tie-in to the last Working for the Weekend, Johnny de Courcy. He’s a good friend of our band, and Mike our guitarist was watching this movie that was filmed at Johnny’s parents’ house with Megan Fox in it, just out of interest because it was the de Courcy home. He saw “Hopeleus” spray-painted on a wall in the background and liked it.
JB: What’s the best part of the job?
DO’B: Never having to worry about smelling bad.
JB: You still shower though, right?
DO’B: With the utmost! I have all my products in a line. All my ducks in a row. Other than that, it’s a really cool company to work for. It’s really young, people my age, a lot of musicians, artists of other sorts…
JB: Do you listen to music at work?
DO’B: Definitely. Between mine and Chris’ iPod, we listen to a lot of heavy psych music, old foregone psych bands… I’d say definitely the stuff we play the most is Sleep and Yob. Since we’re mostly friends who work here we have a monopoly on the music. Sometimes a little too loud for gift wrap [staff].
JB: What’s the first thing when you get off work?
DO’B: On good days I head right to Bully’s to have band practice.
JB: With Mother’s Day coming up, what do you plan to do?
DO’B: My mom doesn’t live near here, so my biggest thing is to give her a phone call. Let her know I’m alive. I’m still doing good. I think that’s what she cares about the most. I’ll probably send her some Lush stuff since she expects it.
JB: What would you recommend people to get their mothers from Lush?
DO’B: There’s one cool one that I like, it’s a bath bomb called Secret Garden with a big flower on it. There’s a whole range of seasonal gifts though.
Hopeleus have a freshly recorded EP to be released soon, and a show coming up May 26th at The Rickshaw in support of Barn Burner. P.S. Call your mom!
By Jess Brodeur
Photos: tiina liimu
