Super Extra Bonus Party

We’re standing outside Ginglik – that very odd underground west London venue – awaiting Super Extra Bonus Party who are currently negotiating the challenges presented by TFL given that there’s a big hole across the road where Shepherds Bush Tube station used to stand. “Well you won’t exactly miss us,” Bonus Party button-pusher Cormac Brady assures us. “Seven thick-looking Irish fellas and a Brazilian.” Distracted by some rare April sunshine, we do in fact initially miss all eight but the comment is more than a little apt because the (majority) Kildare-bred collective and their wildly diverse 2007 self-titled debut, stand out both from and ahead of the pack.

“I’ll tell ya though, we’re the fucking Take That of the Alphabet Set,” guitarist Gav Elsted later says - referring to their Dublin-based label’s eclectic roster - when he, Cormac, Niall Byrne (visuals) and briefly Rodrigo Teles (MC) sit down to talk. “Yeah, when you’ve got mental fucking breakcore like Prince Kong, we’re like Britney Spears,” Cormac agrees. The band’s electronica/ ambient/hip hop and indie pop blend did however stand out considerably from fellow Choice Music Prize nominees in February when they won the prize for Irish album of the year. And although the nomination brought more attention than the award (“mobile phone company’s ringing you up and asking can you do some bullshit”, says Cormac), the band see the prize as an important door opener for similarly minded Irish acts.

“What’s great is that because seven mullas from Kildare and one looper from Brazil ran around Vicar Street like spas and walked away with a ten-grand prize, bands as mixed up and diverse as us might now get a look in,” Gav says. All sight labelmates Nouveau Noise as being particularly “fucking ridiculously good,” while Niall – himself an award-winning blogger and journalist for State magazine – says the success shows how smaller, independent bands can now approach making a record. “There’s no money in this band… it means you don’t need money; you don’t need to go into a recording studio; you don’t need a 20-grand loan to make an album.”

It’s the band’s approach to making music that’s the greater fascination. Although finely harnessed, there’s so much going on that there surely can’t be one set formula to a SEBP song? “You’d be surprised man,” says Gav, who despite playing with Cormac and fellow producer Mike Donnelly for years (and indeed Niall in the short lived Chewbacca Defence), only began to play live with the band two months before the record was released. “We’ve decided to go a completely different way for the next one,” he continues. ”But for the first album, certainly with the purely electronic stuff like ‘On the Skyline’ or ‘Dorothy Goes Home’, they were very insular things. Co and Mick would have a very definite idea of what they wanted to do. I mean they’d be open to suggestions but the first album was their defined idea of what the songs should sound like.”

A post on the Sigla blog’s rather magnificent Musical Rooms series explains the process in more depth and also introduces the band’s kitchen in Terenure where the majority of their debut was recorded. “The reason we can record in the kitchen and come out with a decent quality record is because of Sean our sound engineer,” explains Cormac. “He can set everything up in there and I don’t think a studio would make any difference.”

“We haven’t come out with a bad result from that kitchen yet,” agrees Gav. “Although we might be taking it to a different kitchen at some stage.

“Yeah, one with a bigger fridge or a fucking oven that works,” says Cormac.

The other kitchen – fully fitted or not – hints at a broad plan to spend a secluded week or two writing and recording material for album number two. Cormac says that despite shows and day jobs pushing things back, they’re “walloping into the writing” with five or six definite keepers from 20 demos. The different approach, referred to above by Gav, is producing songs now more collaborative from their inception. Niall, who you imagine acts as the wall that most ideas are bounced against, says the new material is “more comprehensive and involved… You can hear, so far at least, that it’s not just a band song or an electronic song. Sometimes one can dominate but it seems a lot more cohesive.”

And before we can even ask about potential collaborators – Nina Hynes, beat-boxer White Noise and members of Channel One and Kill City Defectors helped out last time – Cormac beats us to it. “There are a couple of collaborations that I can’t reveal yet but we’re fucking delighted with them,” he says relatively early before becoming visibly excited later on: “I wish I could tell you about these collaborations.” They did rather well on February’s ‘Everything Flows’ 12” enlisting the help of Nouveau Noise, Jape and Cadence Weapon. “Ah old Roland, nice chap, very nice chap,” Gav says of the latter’s Rollie Pemberton, when both supported the Go Team at the infamous “Nokia-gate” gig. “Stole all our Buckfast though, fell out of the venue chasing tail.”

And it’s with a live show famed for its energy and exuberance that we finish. “Live, people like the Go Team are a huge inspiration,” Gav admits. “They came out heads down, lamped into a tune and that’s the way it should be.” It's something the 'Boners also do very well. “I’ll never forget,” says Cormac. “Mike likes to run around with a hurley on stage and at the Choice, there was one woman, and I’ve never seen such a dirty look – a mix of shock and disbelief and absolute disgust as well.” It is in fact the exact kind of divisiveness that makes Super Extra Bonus Party the most unique Irish band in a very long time.