The Ocelots
Waltons New School of Music
We are delighted to welcome The Ocelots, who will perform as the interval act of the 2025 Waltons RTÉ lyric fm Music for Schools Competition Finalists Concert!
They'll be performing in the National Concert Hall on Monday, 24 March before a packed National Concert Hall and thousands more who will be watching the webcast, after the twelve Finalist groups have performed and while our 2025 Adjudicators – Aedín Gormley, Lisa Hannigan and Aideen Walton – decide on this year's prize winners.
The Ocelots are twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Watson from Wexford, now living in Leipzig, Germany. Formerly a school band, they learned their craft by playing blues standards and indie-rock songs during school lunchtimes. They started writing their own music from early on, influenced by the folk-rock sensibilities of Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel. After finishing school, they released their first EP, Till We Get There, which hit more than 1.7 million streams. Over the next three years, backpacking and street-performing turned into extensive touring, headlining shows and festivals all over Europe and Australia. They joined the stage with artists such as Jack Johnson, Glen Hansard, Hudson Taylor and Kim Churchill, among many others.
The Ocelots' debut album, Started to Wonder, was released In March 2020 – the result of endless touring and over-exposure to paperback fiction. In July 2023, they released Addlepated, an EP leaning into their more whimsical influences such as Midlake and Sufjan Stevens. And in November 2023, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, they returned to Ireland to record Everything, When Said Slowly. Recorded live in Orphan Recordings, Wexford by Gavin Glass (Lisa Hannigan / BellX1 / David Keenan / John Grant / Villagers), the album was produced and mixed by long-time collaborators and sometimes band members, Cillian and Lorcan Byrne (Basciville) and mastered by Julia Borelli.
'Rich in spellbinding harmonies, The Ocelots second album, Everything, When Said Slowly, takes indie-folk in a compelling new direction. Overall, an impressively honest and poignant piece of work.'
– Hot Press
The Ocelots have built a reputation for dynamic, intimate concerts, filled with humour and storytelling, and we're delighted that they can join us as the interval act of the 2025 Finalists Concert.
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