Interview With Republic Of Loose

They’ve become one of the biggest bands to break onto the Irish music scene in recent years and they’ve recently played the new Hotel Kilkenny venue and, in between Oxegen earlier this year and the Hotel Kilkenny gig, Sean McTiernan managed to catch up with Republic Of Loose.

From their favourite gigs to date, to Irish acts they like, to a few words on their new album, the band take the time out to answer a few questions for Sean.

Straight off the bat how is this album different to the last one?

The new album’s much more contemporary sounding, it’s got more bounce. Our first album was full of every idea we’d built up since we started playin as kids, so it was a kind of mish mash gushing of our musical lives. This album is far more focused and potent.There’s a greater binding on the album as a piece, filled with a bunch of sounds and grooves we wanted to use, and as many hooks as we could build in.

What was the recording process like?

It took over a year altogether, sometimes working in short bursts on a song or two at a time, and then a couple longer stints. We went down to Grouse Lodge in WestMeath on the 2nd of January for around a week and a half.It’s a residential studio in the middle of the country so there’s not much to do apart from work, and the occassional pheasant shoot. After that we spent till March in Apollo and Sun in town finishin it.It was hellorific at times and great fun other times.Recording’s usually like that.

Isabel’s vocals on the new single rock, what inspired you to work with her gain?

Her voice itself is a hook, she could sing the weather report and you’d be compelled to listen.Mick wanted a female vocal on Break so she was an obvious choice.We’d love to do stuff with her in the future.

Your live shows are legendary, when you’re recording do you try to document the live experience as best you can or do you strive for something slightly different?

Nah the studio and the live setting are different realms, they’re different energies.In the studio you’re making this thing that will never change for eternity, whereas a gig is literally that moment in time which won’t come again. They are different crafts which demand different approaches

What’s been your favourite gig so far? Oxegen must have felt amazing.

Yeah it was great, it pissed rain so the crowd caught their deaths but it looked great from the stage!! We’ve played every type of toilet and sewer over the years, the grimes usually more charming than the nicely upholstered dressing room.We played a biker festival once where a couple of strippers came up on stage and preformed oral sex on eachother while we were
playing.That one was petty memorable.

Compared to most other Irish acts, mere weedy three pieces, ye’re a veritable squad. Do things ever get tense?

Yeah we all hold eachother in complete contempt,the only reason we increased the size of the band was to give everyone greater opportunities to ignore and avoid eachother! We struggle on…

What Irish acts operating today do you like?

I think Humanzi are deadly, saw them live a couple weeks ago and they were deadly, lookin forward to hearin their album. The Mighty Stef is one of the best singers around, and Damien Dempseys obviously a hero.

Are their any bands you despise?
Only the weak give in to brutality