Hey, what’s the story behind the band?
Hey. We’re a young 3-piece band made up of Mícheál Keating (aged 18, on vocals and guitars), Cathal Histon (aged 19, on synths, sampling and backing-vocals) and Brendan McInerney (aged 17, on drums). We began playing in a garage about 5 years ago and still do! We started playing together after we met at a rock summer camp at a local music school. We found an instantaneous joy when we first played together, in a traditional guitar, bass and drums setup. We have been working patiently and tenaciously ever since, developing our music and ourselves.
Where do you hail from?
We come from the humble and sparse rural surroundings of West Limerick, in the southwest of Ireland. It has green grass, grey skies, and everyone around knows each other.
What are your (musical) influences and how have you gone about creating your sound?
We all listen to tons of bands, and we’re massively interested in electronic and classical music too. We think that our music tends to be a nice mix of all the music we love, rather than picking and choosing a certain few bands…
Is there anything unusual that influences you?
We wish we had a good answer for this one…. Erm, Animal Collective? Stravinsky?
What’s the day-job?
Mícheál just finished his 1st year of a degree in Music, Media and Performance Technology in the University of Limerick, Cathal will be heading to University in September, and Brendan is heading into his final year of school.
Do you prefer being in the recording studio or playing live?
We do enjoy recording but it can be hard work to get it right with limited time and minimal resources (there’s no recording studio, unfortunately, just a bedroom). Playing live, though, is always really invigorating. It feels like your hard work is coming to fruition when you play to people who are actually listening. We only played our first ‘real’ gig recently, as a supporting act for Little Green Cars (a phenomenal band) in Whelan’s, Dublin, and it was great! Hopefully there’ll be many more to come.
Any terrible live experiences yet?
Well we once played in a lorry trailer in the lashing rain, with no audience. But we didn’t complain because it was the only time we ever got paid!
Tell us something we don’t know:
All three of us are classical pianists! Cathal and Mícheál have been playing for years. Brendan started last year, and he’s already playing some Satie pretty nicely.
What’s your favorite release of 2012?
It’s always hard to pick a favourite. Dirty Projectors, Grimes, Actress, Chromatics, Beach House, Liars, Lone, Fiona Apple, Daniel Rossen and Lotus Plaza have all released top class ones this year. Grizzly Bear, Four Tet, The xx, Flying Lotus, and Animal Collective are all sure to be huge ones.
What can we expect from you this summer?
More songs in one form or another, and a few gigs too!
