Kodaline thought it would be "unrealistic" to try and break America.
The ‘High Hopes’ band, who recently appeared on ‘American Idol’ and went straight into the top 20, admit in the beginning they thought success across the pond was out of their reach and it was only when they started performing in the country they realised it could be done.
Guitarist Mark Prendergrast told BANG Showbiz: "I didn’t think [breaking America] was that important to us when we started out, because it seemed unrealistic.
"But when we started touring over there, you kind of fall in love with it. You’re in a different state and city every night.
"We only found out we got ‘American Idol’ about two weeks before, so we were already in America, it was a huge deal.
"It got our name out there a lot more. Our Twitter followers definitely went up, [the show] went out to about 15million people."
And Mark enjoyed meeting all of the judges, including Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and host Ryan Seacrest, and was surprised when they told the band – also made up of Steve Garrigan, Jason Boland and Vincent May – how much they loved their music.
Mark continued: "Randy Jackson is a huge fan, he was bigging us up. Because it was so big, all these cameras and lights, people made it easy for us and looked after us. Everyone was really cool."