Hello everyone, it’s your host Tehillah from DULAXI, and today I’m delighted to be joined by The Elusives, the enigmatic Irish project preparing to introduce their official debut single, “Run Away Into The Night.” Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, The Elusives draw from alternative rock, indie rock, melodic pop rock, synth-driven textures, and electric guitar-based music to create a sound that refuses to settle comfortably inside one genre. Their debut single, “Run Away Into The Night,” is set for release on October 09, 2026.
Before we begin our conversation with The Elusives, here’s what you need to know about today’s featured project.
About The Elusives
The story of The Elusives stretches back to the mid-1990s, when lifelong collaborators Paul Gilligan and Joe Brady first began writing music together. Their early connection was built not only around a shared musical outlook, but also around similar attitudes towards life and the world around them. Although the pair eventually went their separate ways as life and other musical projects intervened, the creative relationship never disappeared completely.
In 2014, that connection brought them together again, leading to the formation of The Elusives. For years, however, the project remained largely outside the conventional machinery of the music industry. Rare live appearances and low-fi home demos shared with a small online community allowed the music to develop without the pressure of having to satisfy an audience, fit neatly into a genre, or conform to a predetermined artistic identity.
The project’s creative dynamic changed significantly in 2025 with the arrival of vocalist Laura Hand. Her voice brought a different tonal and harmonic dimension to the material, helping the band realise ideas that had existed within their music for years. Alongside Paul’s atmospheric guitars and synths and Joe’s drums and vocals, Laura became an important part of the sound The Elusives had been working towards.
That evolution now leads to “Run Away Into The Night,” the band’s first official single and the first public glimpse into a debut album that has been developing behind the scenes. The song emerged unusually quickly for a project whose arrangements can often take considerable time to develop. An idea initially connected to another song eventually became its own track after Joe suggested speeding it up, with Paul developing the arrangement over several days before the vocals were added.
Musically, the song reflects The Elusives’ interest in atmosphere without sacrificing movement. Paul’s use of synths and clean chorus guitars helped shape the kind of nocturnal atmosphere he associates with 1980s noir cinema, while the rhythmic energy gives the track a sense of forward motion. The creative connection between the members also played a role in how naturally the song came together, particularly when the chorus synth line aligned with Joe’s melody.
With “Run Away Into The Night” arriving on October 09, 2026, The Elusives are opening a new chapter after decades of musical friendship, experimentation, separation, reunion, and quiet development. What comes next is a debut album shaped by that entire history, while still looking firmly towards the future.
Having this brief introduction to today’s featured project, I’m sure both new listeners and those who have followed The Elusives’ journey will be interested to hear directly from the project about the music, the history behind it, and what comes next. So, without further ado, let’s begin today’s interview.
INTERVIEW SESSION
Tehillah:
Paul Gilligan and Joe Brady first began writing together in the mid-1990s before life and other musical projects eventually pulled them apart, only for that creative connection to bring you back together years later. Looking back at that entire journey, what do you think kept the musical relationship alive even when The Elusives did not yet have a permanent shape?
The Elusives:
When we were younger, we were always on the same page when it came to music, our attitudes towards it, how important it is. And not just music; our attitudes towards life in general, and the world around us were also pretty similar. This made us very close. We did lose touch for a long time, but I think the friendship we had established all those years ago pretty much made it inevitable that when the time came to get back into writing music, we were going to do it together. Plus, I don’t think anyone else would have us to be honest.
Tehillah:
For years, The Elusives existed almost deliberately at the edges of the music scene, with rare live appearances and low-fi home demos shared with a relatively small online community. What did that period of privacy allow you to develop creatively that might have been lost if you had tried to establish yourselves publicly much earlier?
The Elusives:
It meant there was no stress, no one to answer to or to try and please. I always had an inability to write in a consistent style; every time I sit down to write, something completely different comes out. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, just the way it is. But when you’re in a band trying to make it, you’re constantly reminded that you need a sound, you need to fit into a box, or you won’t make it, which is probably true because we never made it. But anyway, stepping away from all of that just freed us up to do whatever we wanted. We’ve become much better musicians because if it.
Tehillah:
Your decision to avoid being boxed into one genre seems to be fundamental to the band’s identity, with your sound drawing tasteful influences from different decades and styles rather than following a single musical blueprint. When you are shaping a new song, how do you decide which influences belong together and where the line is between creative freedom and simply throwing contrasting ideas into the same arrangement?
The Elusives:
The idea of writing in different genres isn’t a conscious decision; it’s just how our songs come out. This is fine when just writing and putting them out individually, but it does become a problem when putting a set together, or the album we’re currently working on. We don’t want to just throw anything into the mix. I think though that we’re learning to steer a song in the direction we want it to be, to create even a small semblance of cohesion. And if it still wants to be in a different genre, then so be it, we can always write another.
Tehillah:
Laura Hand joined the project in 2025 and brought what you describe as the tone, ambience, and harmonic weight the music had always been waiting for. What changed inside the band’s creative dynamic once her voice entered the picture, and what could you suddenly express musically that had previously remained out of reach?
The Elusives:
We’d always had the intention of having a female singer. The dynamic that opens you up to is fantastic, especially when writing. So when Laura joined it was great to finally realise a lot of the ideas we’ve had over the years. Her voice is great and suits our style perfectly, and she’s a real singer (not like myself and Joe), so she helps to keep us in tune when we’re wailing.
Tehillah:
There is something intriguing about a band called The Elusives moving from underground secrecy toward an official debut, because the name itself suggests mystery, distance, and something deliberately difficult to grasp. How much of that enigmatic identity is part of the band’s conscious artistic world, and how much simply emerged naturally from the way you have chosen to make and share music?
The Elusives:
I can’t remember how the name came out if I’m honest, but it does suit us. I think even if we had success, we’d be happy to stay out of the limelight, not to create a mystic or anything; we’ve just always been more comfortable like that. We might play a bit into it when it comes to videos and the like, as background characters maybe, just for the fun of it, but we won’t be wearing masks on stage or anything like that.
Tehillah:
“Run Away Into The Night” is the first official glimpse into the wider world you have been building, and even the title carries a strong sense of movement, escape, and possibility. What emotional or visual scene existed in your mind when the song first began taking shape, and how did that initial feeling guide the direction of the finished track?
The Elusives:
Joe wrote the lyrics for Run Away so he could probably answer this better. But doing the music, I always liked that 80s noir movie feel in songs. Using synths and clean chorus guitars kinda give that sense of a nighttime city scene, cars driving in the rain, city lights, all that. I know that sounds pretentious but it’s actually something I try to capture if it suits the song. I think Run Away has some of that.
Tehillah:
The phrase “Run Away Into The Night” can suggest freedom, rebellion, romance, fear, or even a desire to disappear from the world for a while. Which of those ideas, or perhaps something completely different, sits closest to the emotional heart of the song for you?
The Elusives:
I always found it difficult to talk about our music in any deep sense. A lot of the time I’m happy as long as it sounds good; no real meaning is necessary, at least that’s the way I see it. I always find myself trying to make sense of a song after it’s finished, which is why myself and Joe always have a different idea of what a song means in the end. I like simple lyrics that are ambiguous, so the listener can determine the meaning if there’s any to be found. Like you have said, the lyric ‘Run Away Into The Night’ can mean a lot of different things, but the most important thing for me is that it sounds great in the song.
Tehillah:
Your music has always lived somewhere between atmospheric textures and more driving musical movement, with Paul bringing guitars and synths while Joe provides drums and vocals. How did you approach the arrangement of “Run Away Into The Night” so that the atmospheric side could remain immersive without taking away from the song’s forward momentum?
The Elusives:
Run Away actually came pretty easy which is unusual for us, I tend to labour over most of our arrangements. We were trying to finish this other song, and we stumbled on the idea for Run Away. Joe wanted to speed it up so we double-timed it, and it just came out. We talked for a few minutes about the style it should have, so I produced the arrangement over a few days, and handed it back over to Joe for vocals. We got lucky with it because the synth line I had produced for the chorus sat perfectly with the melody line Joe had. A bit of synergy, probably a result of us writing together so long.
Tehillah:
The return from years of limited releases and rare appearances to a full public debut is a significant creative shift, especially for a project that has existed in some form since the 1990s. What has been the most challenging part of moving from making music primarily for yourselves and a small community to preparing a definitive release for a much wider audience?
The Elusives:
I was reluctant to get back into the business side of things. I’d been through it for a long time, stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder struggling for success. In Dublin at the time you weren’t competing against other bands, but against the promoters themselves. They were more popular than the bands on the scene, like they were the fucking rock stars. The ‘Self Promoters’ we used to call them. So unless you were kissing their arses you weren’t getting onto any of the decent stages. The radio DJ’s didn’t make things any easier, very little support for unsigned acts. This made it difficult for me to attempt it again. Maybe things have changed since then, it was a long time ago.
Tehillah:
You have already experienced the unusual situation of playing sold-out shows at notable Dublin venues before officially releasing your debut single. What have those live audiences taught you about the music that you could not have discovered from recording and listening back to the songs in the studio?
The Elusives:
We got great feedback from those shows in terms of what was working and what wasn’t. I do like our more laid-back tracks, but when the crowd is responding more to the energy of our dancier songs, you have to take note of that. It’s helped us to focus the style of the album a bit more.
Tehillah:
There is a long history behind The Elusives, but “Run Away Into The Night” is technically the beginning of the band’s official recorded chapter. How did you decide that this particular song was the right doorway into the project, and what does it reveal about the wider body of work that listeners have not heard yet?
The Elusives:
I think because it’s new, the song I mean. We do have tracks that I would have said are more definitive Elusives, at least to the people that know us. But Run Away is just so fresh, and sounds great, so why not start this new chapter with something totally new to everyone, including ourselves. What it reveals, I’m not sure, hopefully an album of great tracks, but that’s not for us to decide.
Tehillah:
Because your forthcoming debut album has been developing behind the scenes while the band remained relatively elusive, you have had the opportunity to build a substantial musical world before introducing it publicly. How important was it to have that larger body of material in place when deciding how this first single should represent The Elusives?
The Elusives:
Maybe it’s helped determine the shape of the album. As I’ve said we tend to write in a lot of different genres, so now that we have Run Away as the first single, we can dig into the rest of our tracks to build something cohesive around it.
Tehillah:
Your history with Paul and Joe stretches across decades, while Laura’s arrival has given the band a newer dimension at a crucial stage of its development. How have those different generations of experience within the group’s creative history influenced the balance between nostalgia for where The Elusives came from and excitement about where the band can go now?
The Elusives:
It’s just about growing up, musically and literally. To become better at anything you need move on from what went before, learn from it but not dwell in it. I’m more excited about what we’re doing now than what we we’re doing when we were young, musically. Although we did have a lot more fun back then, what I can remember from it anyway.
Tehillah:
The band’s story includes periods of separation, reunion, experimentation, quiet development, and finally this moment of stepping into the wider music landscape. What have you learned from that unusually long journey about timing, patience, and knowing when a song or a project is finally ready to be shared?
The Elusives:
This is gonna sound morbid, but we’ve reached a point in our lives where there’s a lot of talk about what we’re gonna leave behind. Depressing right. And we’re just about still young enough that we can pull it off without being the old guys trying to be teenagers again. So that’s enough of a reason for me; it’s now or never, simple as that.
Tehillah:
With “Run Away Into The Night” opening the door to your debut album and The Elusives no longer existing only within that underground space, what kind of world do you hope listeners discover as they move from this first single into the rest of the band’s music?
The Elusives:
It would be great to influence a younger audience into guitar music, not just our own music. It’s becoming a lost art, which is heartbreaking to think about. When we first started, everyone was in a band; it was a great time. But there’s just no desire for that anymore; everyone wants to go fucking viral or be an influencer; it’s tragic. So, to influence someone into guitar music, that’d be job done for me.
“After decades of friendship, experimentation, and making music largely on their own terms, The Elusives arrive at this moment without feeling like a band chasing the past. ‘Run Away Into The Night’ instead feels like the opening of a door they have been quietly building towards for years.”
~ Tehillah (DULAXI Team)
EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVE
What stands out about The Elusives is the tension between their long history and their willingness to keep moving. “Run Away Into The Night” becomes particularly interesting in that context because it was not treated as a carefully calculated statement, but emerged naturally from a spontaneous change in pace and direction. The combination of guitars, synths, vocals, and rhythmic drive gives the project room to explore without sacrificing its sense of identity. Their refusal to force every song into the same mould may ultimately be one of their most defining creative strengths.
~ Tehillah (DULAXI Team)
CLOSING
Our conversation with The Elusives offers a fascinating glimpse into a project that has taken the long way around to its official beginning. From a friendship that began in the 1990s to years of private musical development, rare live performances, and the eventual addition of Laura Hand, their journey has been shaped by patience, experimentation, and a willingness to create without forcing the music into a predetermined category.
Thank you to The Elusives for taking the time to speak with DULAXI and for sharing such candid insight into the band’s history, creative process, experiences within the music scene, and hopes for what comes next. With “Run Away Into The Night” arriving on October 09, 2026, listeners can now experience the first official chapter of a story that has been developing for decades.
We encourage readers to spend time with the new single and follow The Elusives as they continue towards their forthcoming debut album. Whatever direction the music takes next, the band’s long history suggests that predictability is unlikely to be part of the plan.
Thank you for spending time with DULAXI. We look forward to bringing you more conversations with artists and projects from around the world.