Hailing from the Irish town of Kilkenny, 49th & Main are an indie-pop duo consisting of producer Ben O’Sullivan and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Paddy King. The pair first met in school and after growing close, they began working on music together during a particularly warm summer, with O’Sullivan dabbling with acoustics and how to record King’s guitar. “It felt very ‘I don’t know how to do this” O’Sullivan admits, “it turned out so bad we didn’t revisit it again for a few years”. Time passed, and when they both decided to join a group of friends moving to Canada for the summer in 2019, they decided to take with them some recording equipment on the off-chance they’d get some time to experiment. Little did they know that by the time they returned home, they’d have the bones of their debut project.
Over time, the pair have been attracting attention across the industry, including Red Light Management where they quickly joined the impressive global roster. Excitingly, the band recently announced that they have signed a global record deal with independent label Counter Records, an imprint of Ninja Tune, who already house artists such as Bonobo, Bicep, Thundercat, Kelis and Black Country, New Road. On top of that, Paradigm have come on board to support their live journey. “It’s surreal, it hasn’t really hit yet, that this is like a career” the pair laugh at the recent announcements, “but it’s really exciting. It’s really cool and we can’t wait to get started”.
