Since releasing their diversely memorable eponymous debut album in the spring of 2004, Cork boys STANLEY SUPER 800 have almost constantly been on the road earning their stripes as one of the country's very best live bands.
W&H hooked up with the band for their triumphant homecoming show at Cork's Cyprus Avenue, which also acted as the launchpad for their excellent new five-track EP, "2 Hours Late." That show kicked off yet another lengthy trawl around Ireland's indie circuit, and W&H were determined to catch up with the band as the tour winds down in the heart of West Cork.
Consequently, you join us as in De Barra's, in Clonakilty: a deceptively large pub cum venue that looks tiny from the town's main street, but actually goes way back and features a spacious upstairs area as well as the Folk Club downstairs. The venue itself has passed into legend of late, as former Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Radding frequented the pub for many years and basically used it as his local and a place to play countless gigs before he passed away a year back.
Even without Redding's presence, however, De Barra's remains a constant on the Irish club circuit, and Stanley Super 800 have played several blistering gigs here themselves too. The mood is a little subdued initially, though, as the band only went onstage post-midnight in Waterford the night before. However, once the soundcheck is complete, the band are back on form and we take the opportunity to slip upstairs with guitarist/ vocalist/ chief songwriter STAN for a head to head about life, music, intrigue and why some songs simply write themselves.
Like all of the Stanley Super lads, Stan is great company and full of interesting angles and witty asides. Inevitably, we begin by discussing the recent tour, which has been full of the usual ups and downs, though Stan enthuses about several great nights in Tralee and Galway as well as the depressing Waterford show the previous night where the band played to a huge crowd, but one hellbent on alcoholic weekend oblivion.
Stan's sanguine about taking the rough with the smooth, and is still excited by the band's recent debut on the European circuit when the Stanley Super 800 played two nights in Brussels.
"Yeah, that was great for sure," says Stan.
"We've been involved with a compilation on a label called Sofa Records. There are some Belgian bands on the label and an Irish girl out there got us onto a gig launching the compilation over there. It was a great experience and we got an amazing reception, which we didn't expect at all, though I have to admit a lot of the crowd were Irish and English."
I assume industry types may have been sniffing round too?
"Mmm...well, there were rumours of a guy from EMI being there, but he didn't make himself known to us," replies Stan.
"But then we tend not to take too much notice of stuff like that, we just do our own thing. The travelling was great though. We're also hoping to play in the UK soon....Glasgow, London an maybe a few more are mooted. We'll see."
Stan is clearly unfazed by the live circuit's demands, though after this current jaunt, new material and the sessions for the band's second album are the thoughts utmost in his mind. The band's debut album was an eclectic affair, with feet planted in both rock and dance camps. The end result was a fascinating and headily danceable brew that marked the band out as something different from the regular indie norm. But how will their new material develop?
"It'll be a lot sharper, I think," muses Stan,
"Though we've got a pretty tight deadline to have it written by August and recorded and out by October, because some of the lads want to go travelling for a while."
Do you mind the pressure of that kind of situation?
"No, because we can get very lazy," laughs Stan.
"Deadlines are good for us, me especially, writing songs more or less on the spot, y'know. I mean, the new songs are sort of there, but they're not arranged as yet. It means a shitload of work, but it's a challenge to make another album quickly because the first one seemed to drag on for years. So no, pressure is good. It's not good to get too precious about stuff, y'know?"
Yup, reckon I do, Stan. But tell us more about how you come to sound like you do. I've previously alluded to you sounding a little like an Irish Super Furry Animals in a couple of my reviews, in that you draw on both rock and dance and create something new and inventive. Was that the kind of sound you always envisaged? The album and first EP are quite trance-y, and were made before Dave, the band's drummer came on board, of course...
"Yeah, well I like the Super Furries comparison," notes Stan.
"I mean, the music has a lot of possibilities. I could see us being remixed in the future, and in fact "Over And Over" from the new EP....I've given that to a guy to remix, we'll see how it goes."
"It's kinda mutated over the last few years, really," he continues.
"Initially, I had a vision of Stanley Super 800 as a solo, dance-related project, and I was using drum machines and thinking about bringing laptops in. But gradually, when I started getting offered gigs it seemed the right thing to get the boys in, so gradually Flor (bass, vocals) and Tosh (keyboards, banjo, guitar) came on board, and they kept urging us to get a drummer, which is how we got Dave. And they were right, it's made the sound a lot more interesting altogether."
Plus most of you play traditional Irish music outside of the band, don't you?
"Yeah, we do a thing called The Ceilidh Allstars, which is like 2 gigs a week...like a sort of musical day job," Stan chuckles.
"I think sometimes bits of that trad spirit subconsciously come out in our music too. I play fiddle and definitely I've been known to use bits of Irish dance tunes, stretch them out and turn them into other things. Is that cheating?" he finishes, laughing.
Well, a bit of judicious creative pilfering never hurt The Pogues, Noel Gallagher and a stack more we could mention, so why not? But back to the present: this tour's ostensibly to promote your new EP "2 Hours Late" (Bingo Records and available through www.stanleysuper800.com ), so let's discuss that for a moment. Lead track "It's All Over Now" has been given a radical overhaul from the desolate, piano-driven ballad it is on the album. Now, it's a driving, anthemic song that is tailor made for live audiences and radio alike. Despite its' neo-suicidal lyrics, it's very upbeat, isn't it?
"Yeah, it is, though initially I admit I wouldn't have picked up on it," Stan admits.
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"Flor (bassist) spotted it would sound good this way and it does. It really takes off live, though with the lyrics the way they are, I guess the piano version's closer to the song's spirit in a way."
Yes indeed. "I look down to the rocks and I know that's where they'll find me" etc. This is heavy stuff, Stan. This isn't any way autobiograhical is it, God forbid?
"No, no!" Stan laughs.
"The first verse is true enough in that I did start writing it when the relationship I'd been in ended, but it's entirely me trying to take the idea of devastation as far as it could go. I kept thinking "how can I make this sadder?" and wanted to see that through with the song."
It works well, for sure. Though second tune "Over And Over" is almost as hook-infested, if a little quirkier. I really like this tune, because it entirely captures the idea of being on the road, without any of the so-called glamour that's supposed to go with this business. Mostly it's motorways, beer and sandwiches, lack of sleep and humping dodgy gear around in clapped out vans, isn't it?
"Yeah, that's it, tearing around in shitty vans, but still having a good time," says Stan, remarkably upbeat about all this.
"The EP's title "2 Hours Late" is because we're always late when we travel to gigs. Even though we're always trying to start early and shove the schedule forward, we're always two hours late...it's like an inbuilt thing in the band, y'know? (laughs). But as the song goes on to say, it's worth it when the crowds say you're great at the end of the night."
The song also includes the immortal line "and when we show up we look like shit on a slate". I've heard some good ones, but never that expression before. Is it a Cork saying? It's not one I'm aware of...
"No, it's a Waterford expression," Stan reveals.
"It's a lady I know down there, she describes people with hangovers as looking like "shit on a slate"....it's fucking brilliant, I couldn't resist using it!"
Absolutely. But the kiss off line in "It's All Over Now", the line, "I'm still well in love with you"...that's a great Cork saying, isn't it?
"Yeah, that one's down to a time I worked with Annette Buckley (Cork singer/ songwriter) and a girl called Joanne O'Toole at this place called The Music Collective, where we'd organise gigs, take photos etc...all based around the Cork scene, all chipping in different things," Stan reveals.
"It was something they'd both say, "I'm still well in love with you,"....and it is a great Cork expression. Again, I couldn't resist using it, its perfect in the song. I'll get loads of stick off them now (laughs)."
"Mind you," he continues, "I'm trying to fit in another thing they used to say about "if you play your cards right" into another new one, so they'll be after me again (laughs again.)"
That's one of the things that always intrigues me with your songs: the lyrics are really fascinating and often really off the wall. You introduced "Borange" off the EP at the Cyprus Avenue gig as dating back to a "Think tank" you attended up in the Irish midlands. How much truth is there in that?
"Well, it's loosely true," says Stan disarmingly.
"It's about a conversation I had years ago with someone who was a schizophrenic. They had this thing about "inventing the borange". Then, more recently, I was up in the midlands on a weekend visit with a friend....a drinking session, not really a think tank...and I had exactly the same conversation with this girl's brother in the pub....he was on about "inventing the borange" as well. It's nonsense, but it's strange the way it happened a second time, so that's the basis of the song. It pretty much wrote itself one night actually, it just came out as a lyric when I was playing guitar. Lucky I had a tape recorder to hand."
I'll say. But such is Stanley Super 800's wonderful, but unlikely creative streak. As Stan explains this, we realise it's almost time for him to go back downstairs to join the band for what turns out to be a scorching set.
So one final question, Stan: do Stanley Super 800 feel a part of the Irish 'industry' or do you feel isolated from what is traditionally a pretty fragmented scene over here?
"Well, I don't think there's exactly a gaping hole or that the Irish public in general are dying for a band like us," Stan considers quietly.
"It's hard to stay if we'd do better in America or London, or whatever, I really don't know. I don't have a perspective on that."
"But we do worry about ending up a great lost band sometimes," he says, as we rise from our seats.
"I don't think we're an obvious industry sort of band. So far, people have mostly stumbled upon us, which is how we linked up with Sofa Records, for instance. But then, we get people coming up to us at gigs who've bought the album and are still playing it and enjoying it a year later. In itself that's enough to push us and we're really looking forward to making the second album now. Stepping up a gear and being challenged, that's what it's all about for us."
And so it should be for all our best bands. Keep on keeping on, Stan: Ireland and a much wider world deserve to be enriched by your presence.
(www.stanleysuper800.com)
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