Super Extra Bonus Party

Controversial (we’ll get to this) Choice Music Prize winners in 2008, Super Extra Bonus Party certainly showed the blogging mud slingers a thing or two with the May-released Night Horses, “a refined successor to a debut brimming with raw potential”. Ragged Words sat down with two of the bands seven - Stephen 'Fatz' Fahey and Cormac Brady – to look back and the hype and the hoopla of eighteen months ago and look forward to the next steps further a field.

Having surprised everyone with such a diverse album first time around, it seems cohesion was the name of the game second time over.

Cormac: Definitely. It’s the first one we’ve written altogether properly. There’s a lot more instrumentation and a lot more flow to it. I don’t know, we were just happier with it as an album.

Fatz: I think there’s less possession over songs. With the first one, it was that’s his track, that’s my track but now every song belongs to the band. I think you can hear that straight away from the first song. It’s a band now.

Did you keep the process the same as before though, recording at home in the your kitchen in Terenure?

C: Pretty much, there was a few different locations. We produced and recorded the whole thing ourselves. We did it in Newbridge and in a little house in the middle out of nowhere in Waterford that belonged to Gavin’s parents. It’s their retirement home and they hadn’t moved in yet.

F: We aired it out for them…

C: Yeah, it was an empty house out in the sticks, no distractions or anything so you can just make as much noise at possible. So between Newbridge, Waterford and Terenure.

F: All houses, it retains the first kind of housey vibe

C: All the natural reverb of kitchens and hallways and shit.

Is that something you particularly enjoy or is it a restriction? Would you go into a studio if you had the means?

C: There’s a certain satisfaction to be able to do it yourself, it’s a nice feeling to be self sufficient. I think we’ve improved the production on the first one by quite a bit. Sean Corcoran, who’s a member of the band, he’s responsible for all the production and he’s brilliant. We’re all developing together and hopefully people will see it as a development. The first one, we’re proud of it and it is what it is, it reflects where we were at the time.

F: This is another snap shot of what we’re capable of now and there’s going to a constant progression. Always learning. But in terms of going into a studio, studios are by their very design dead, there’s nothing in them. We record all our music in places that we live, have fun in and socialise in so there’s already something there before we even go and play a note. There’s already part of the band in it. It came out in the first one and has even more so in this one…. But we were just really proud of it. The day we finished it, it was big release but then I just wanted to go and make another one.

C: It was like finishing your leaving cert; you still think you’ve got shit to do. The day we mastered it, we all went down to Newbridge and ended up getting stopped by the cops after we’d been drinking in the local pub. It was just this great weight off our shoulders but I think we probably went over the top by moving a load of bollards into the middle of the road!

And you released it yourselves too, right?

F: We’re lucky enough from the last two years that distribution opportunities have opened up. We have other business contacts - stuff that the label usually takes care of - we have that covered. There would be absolutely no point in us signing with an Irish label or getting PR or anything like that. It’s not beneficial.

C: One thing we did forgot to do though was put the fucking catalogue number on the album for shops… And we’re still lacking on the PR front too. There is only a certain amount we can get without paying a PR company to do it. We would do it for handiness sake but we’re all fucking broke. The month we payed for the cd duplication was heavy in terms of bills. Ideally it’d be nice to not have to worry about sending all the shit out ourselves and promote it but Ireland’s a small country and we’ll do a good job ourselves.

F: I like the slow progression of word of mouth too though. It’s not too much in your face and that’s what happened the last time, it let the album speak for itself. And that’s why we’re quite lucky with the internet, bloggers and people like yourselves. That’s what does wonders for us. We really appreciate that kind of stuff.

Even just glancing at the guests this time around, another obvious development is working with people like Cadence Weapon and Mr Lif. Three years ago when you were writing the first album, were these the kind of collaborators your dreamed of?

C: Yeah, totally. If you had have said it to us a year and a half ago even, we would have said ‘yeah right’. It just worked out really well. It was a lot less complicated that you might imagine. If they’re happy enough to do the track, they’ll just do it. All the collaborators were really enthusiastic and it was just a pleasure again.

F: We really owe a lot to those people too because the songs as they stand before there’s even a vocal on, we’re proud of them and have put a lot of work in, but they really put the effort in to bring them to that next level and if we didn’t have that, it wouldn’t be the album that it is. Same with the first album. We really do owe them more than just a thank you on the back of a CD, we really appreciate it and just the time they give - because we’re not paying them huge royalty fees. It’s purely good will and genuine interest in the music.

The guest spots also speak volumes for Irish music. With the likes of RSAG, MayKay from Fight Like Apes, Heathers etc, it says a lot about where Irish music is now compared to three or four years ago?

F: I didn’t know a lot about Irish music three or four years. I haven’t much involvement in it so I’m not really an authority but I know now there are at least 20 bands that have potential to be amazing bands, people who have genuine potential to progress. As far as the album goes I think the people from the Irish scene are definitely the cream of the crop. I know there are some others out there but these ones certainly make the place a bit more exciting to be in.

Speaking of Irish bands, despite being one of only four to have won the Choice Music prize, you didn’t feature in the Irish Times Top 100 Best Irish Acts Right Now. How did that go down?

C: Ah sure whatever, if they don’t like us, fair enough. I mean there were four different journalists compiling that – one of them has liked us in the past and the other three, we’ve always got a laugh out of some of the shit they’ve said about us. They definitely hate us. In a way, when we’re broke and we can’t afford PR, even bad publicity is good.

F: Again though it’s the opposite of the in your face factor.

C: After the big burst of limelight that arguably we didn’t deserve after the whole Choice thing, we were hearing nothing but people giving out shit about us so it’s nice to fall out of the limelight. 

Do you enjoy the divisiveness around the band though, that people really love your stuff and will defend you to the hilt on blogs against those that feel completely the opposite?

C: It’s great, it was a really good experience for us around the Choice Prize. Obviously some people are out to get us but it’s a good kick and a good laugh to watch these things develop on blogs and stuff.

F: It takes about a week or two to get used to and that what’s going on is not life and death. Some people actually do take it a bit personally and they do go close to the bone but at this stage, it’s like water off a ducks back. As all this goes on, we’re still out writing tunes in our house.

C: One funny way of looking at it is two years ago we released an album with 13 songs and that was it. That was out entire creative output. Nobody goes for it but a tiny bit of hype builds up and then journalists latch onto it and start raving about you. Then the hype reached stupid levels, it was just weird and we won that prize and the whole thing was suddenly ‘what the fuck are they doing there’. All the while you’re thinking ‘it’s just the same album you’re talking about’.

So what’s the plan beyond this album – I know you’ve played a couple of European dates but is the next step the UK?

F: Those first few ventures out were a great learning curve. At the time, there was no way we could go further a field for every reason you could think of. Now we’re going to focus on England, do a tour this year and maybe even release a single there – we’ve a few things being negotiated and we’re talking to a couple of heads - and then hopefully get the album out. After the Irish tour earlier this summer, it’s all eyes on the UK.

I always think the survival of an Irish band really depends on having some sort of success elsewhere, particularly two or three albums down the line. Do you feel that way?

C: You’re dead right.

F: If you have to talk about markets and selling and surviving – then that’s what we’ve got to do.

C: I’d love to try somewhere like Japan though. It seems a bit high-falutent to say that but mates of ours Adebisi Shank went over there and they said we should definitely give it a go and that there’s a lot of bands touching on what we’re at.

F: I can’t understand why more Irish bands don’t have the opportunity to go further a field. I really don’t understand it. I suppose it’s a money thing to some extent.

It’s also an attitude thing, whether you’re prepared to put in the work like say a band like Fight Like Apes who have just toured and toured and toured.

C: You can’t be afraid of the auld groundwork and that’s inevitably ahead of us if we want to make any impact over there at all. We’re ready for it.

F: Yeah, we’re ready to go. I mean there’s not much point in putting all this effort into an album if you’re not ready to push it and we all want to push it as far as it will go. We want it more than anything else.

C: Hopefully in a while we might be able to say we’re full time musicians as opposed to disgruntled fuckers. We can’t burn the candle at both ends forever.

F: That’s the only way it’s going to progress as well. It’s a lot of work when you’re trying to hold down jobs as well. People get cranky and they get burnt out very easily. Who knows, if we had time to devote soley to this, the possibilities are endless.

And if it could happen tomorrow, would you dump jobs, the lot and go for it?

C: Fuck it man, we’re all itching to leave.

F: It just takes an opportunity. What can you say; we’re ready to go.

C: At some point it’ll just be a case of growing a set of balls and taking that risk and if it works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t