(S'n'O) First of all, congrats on finally getting "Come out fighting" released in the UK. Why the delay and when can we expect a proper US release?
(Leeson/Neck) Thanks John - it's a massive relief! Well, it was set to go a year ago, but there were some last minute glitches that, due to tour commitments, we weren't around to fix. So it got postponed - which gave us & the label time to reflect & it was decided, as Wispy was back off 'the Subs bench' to let him overdub some bass parts, re-master it (at the right level), completely overhaul the artwork & get proper PR campaigns working behind the album - which meant putting it back to now to enable all that.
(S'n'O) The title - "Come out fighting" and the fists up on the CD sleeve. I'm guessing there is a statement there?
(Leeson/Neck) Yep - but it's more about having a 'pugnacious' state-of-mind rather than going down the boozer ready for a ruck. It's down to the title track, which is about those times in life when the shite really hits the fan & you, literally, feel like you've gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson & you're on the ropes, emotionally, with the guy ready to throw in the towel. So you really have to dig deep, & figuratively speaking, get off the ropes, catch your breath, get your balance - put your guard up, set your brow & be downright bloody-minded & take the fecker on! If ye know what I mean...
(S'n'O) I heard a few complaints from long time Neck fans that while the production on "Come out fighting" is 1st class there's a lot of older Neck tracks re-recorded. Any particular reason why?
(Leeson/Neck) Of course: rather than selling people short, we're just trying to give them the best we can - we thought that, as this is our first world-wide release, & particularly with legendary producer Pat Collier's alchemy at our disposal, we had the opportunity to re-visit & improve upon songs that we love & are live favourites, but the previous recordings are either really old or were recorded either so cheaply, in a rush or mixed at silly o'clock with one eye on the clock, that we find them hard to listen to now. We knew Pat could help us do a better job of them. Which we have, and which, it appears, everyone does actually agree with!
(S'n'O) We've been following Neck here in Shite'n'Onions for about 8 years and while a lot of bands that started out around the same time as Neck have had a lot of success stateside Neck are still a unknown quantity - do you feel disadvantaged being based in the UK? Any plans to raise your US profile.
(Leeson/Neck) Well, none of our stuff's been widely available in the US up 'til now (apart from a Heroic effort via your very own 'Shite 'n' Onions' - named after on of our very own tunes! - with 'Here's mud in yer eye!'); Also, the costs of touring & promotion without big label backing make things virtually unfeasible for us. But, despite that, because of the immense support for us over there from you guys - we've tried to hang-in there. We know we're a good band & things are progressing: our two U.S. trips last year were proof of that. It's just finding a way to make sure people know about us, & now that we've got a U.S. label - Abstract Recordings - who are going to get behind the album, hopefully we'll get our arses back over there & put together a tour around the album release in the new year.
(S'n'O) Finally, with "Come out Fighting!" finally out. What are Necks next plans - tours, next CD?
(Leeson/Neck) Well we've started the rolling UK tour & then, with the album being released in the USA the week before St. Patrick's Day, it makes sense that, if it's at all possible, we need to be in the U.S. for that - so we need to get onto things like ShamrockFest in DC, etc. to ensure that. Then we'll be touring the album in Europe in April, with more dates & festivals all over the place to follow throughout the summer into The Fall / Autumn - so 2010 may be our busiest year ever! Release-wise, we're starting to work on the next Neck album, & we promise it will defo be all new material.
(S'n'O) There's also a rumour of a CD of covers already recorded, any truth in that?
(Leeson/Neck) Yes indeed: we'd already recorded a covers album (with Pat) before 'Come out Fighting!', but it was ultimately felt that it was better to put out an originals album as a first release. It was inspired by Johnny Rogan's writings &, is, subsequently, 'Necked-up' versions of songs by other 2nd & 3rd-generation Irish artists - from Johnny Cash to The Libertines. It's a testament to our contribution to popular music & how far we've punched above our weight! The front cover & title's actually our best-selling T-shirt 'Plastic 'n' Proud' ('Plastic Paddies' is a derogatory term - so we're turning the insult on it's head, like black folk do with the 'N' word). The version of The Sex Pistols 'Anarchy in the UK' is already reaching cult status! (there's a clip on YouTube of 5,000 people singing along to it at Glastonbury festival)!.
Shite'n'Onions in association with Mustard Finnegans Good Times Rock-n-Roll Emporium is proud to bring you the digital release of "Sound as a Pound", the new EP from Sidney, Australia's The Rumjacks.
Featured CD - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
01- Egan's polka - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
02- Night Pat Murphy Died - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
03- Roddy McCorley, Whiskey in the Jar, Finnegans Wake - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
04- Pipes and Pints - Pipes and Pints - EP
05- Amazing Grace - Flatfoot 56 - Knuckles Up
06- This Town - Flatfoot 56 - Knuckles Up
07- New Race - The Go Set - - The Rising
08 -Tae the Battle - The Real McKenzies - Clash of the Tartans
09 -Bars and Scars - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
10- Maries Wedding - The Rumjacks - Sound as a Pound
11 - Drunken Piper- Cork Hill- Jackdaw - Armed & Legged
12 - Stairway To Scotland - Prydein - Loud Pipes (Saves Lives)
13- Tying My Own Noose - Charm City Saints - Hooligans and Saints
14- Sally MacLennane (high) - The Pubcrawlers - One Too Many Again
15 - Steve O'Donnell's Wake - Rusty Nail - Ounce and A Half or Whiskey
Deceptive bugger this. You're sucked into a state of tranquility as you listen to the traditional intro of Egan’s Polka - you picture yourself in the warm environs of a pub on the west coast of Ireland, nursing a Guinness, warming yourself on the blazing peat fire. That tranquility doesn't last long as the pub door is kicked open by a bunch of heavily tattooed, Irish-American thugs who start to beat you hard about the head with the loudest guitars you've ever hears. All while the ceili band keeps playing. For fans of Dropkick Murphys, The Pubcrawlers, Flatfoot 56 and loud, aggressive music in general.
Cheers from THE MIGHTY REGIS (http://www.myspace.com/themightyregis),
the Irish show band from Co. Sligo, now based in Los Angeles. Our
mate Gabby Byrne is moving on, and we're in the market for a new
drummer. We're loosing one helluva player, and we're hoping to find
someone as good or better. If you're readin' shitenonions.com, you've
obviously got the right influences, yeah? We're lookin' for someone
skilled, energetic, easy-going, and comfortable with not getting paid
until we get to where we want to go. If you are that person, or if
you know that person, please get in touch with Dave at daveynate@att.net. Slainte'!
With The Rumjacks’ second EP ‘Sound As A Pound’ available this month, we’re talking here with Will Swan from the band.
S’n’O: Like your debut EP ‘Hung, Drawn and Portered’, this one has a well-known traditional song on it.With ‘Marie’s Wedding’, you’ve chosen to record a real standard, a very popular song that has been covered by several bands.Did you hope to bring any particular Rumjacks quality to it?
Will: ‘Marie’s’ was an offhand suggestion made by Johnny, just a good energetic song to throw into the set, we never thought we’d bother recording it.But, you know, Frankie was more than happy to lay on the ’20 Golden Scottish Favourites’ treatment, but with the volume right up.And we gathered whoever was around that day and got some gang vocals happening.Isolated within the mix, some of them are truly dreadful - wonderfully bad singing -but all in there together they make for a good ol’ hooley!
S’n’O: Tell us about Katoomba, of the song’s title.
Will: Katoomba is a big mountain town about two hours train ride from the centre of Sydney city.Although I lived in various places around the state – city and country – I had cousins there so I’ve always been familiar with it.Katoomba is a distinctive place in that it is a sort of nexus for drunken hillbillies AND New Age types AND artists, etc, etc.It is very cold in winter and often shrouded in mist and fog.There’s a lot of 1920s architecture up there and the whole place is set amongst lookouts and cliffs.
S’n’O: What’s the story within the song ‘Katoomba’?
Will: I was walking around the steep streets on the fringes of Katoomba and I came across these 1950s houses that were perfectly preserved.I think I actually said to my companion “it could be 1963, it might as well be”.From there I found a character, a melancholy barfly, and by the time I’d got to the train station I’d written the song in my head.I made it a distant love-gone-wrong story, as viewed through the bottom of a beer glass.You find all these postcards in the antique shops up there, really personal stuff, and you wonder what happened to the people who wrote and received them.So I fused a few ideas together and set it where I found those ideas.
S’n’O: ‘Katoomba’ and especially ‘My Time Again’ are more ‘serious’ songs than most Rumjacks songs so far …
Will: ‘My Time Again’ is one of Frankie’s, we put it together very quickly.Like ‘The Bold Rumjacker’ before it, ‘My Time Again’ is an acapella but it is the opposite of the swaggering and fanciful ‘Rumjacker’.‘Time Again’ is somehow both dreary and epic and I think it achieves a very stark sentiment.It blurs the lines between three generations of characters who are locked in the cycle of working the pits and drinking on Friday nights, etc., and the narrator and his father both carry the terrible burden of wondering if they could have been more than what they are.
S’n’O: ‘My Time Again’ has a different sound to the other songs.Was this deliberate?
Will: We were going to make it pretty reggae but that wasn’t really in keeping with the sentiment of the song, so I threw in a vaguely European minor-key accordion loop and Johnny put a lot of mood in with the guitars and bass (Gabriel joined the band after we’d recorded it). We like to consider it an ‘original folk song’ because we didn’t derive it from any one particular folk idiom.
S’n’O: ‘Kirkintilloch’ also seems to be about working in the pits and drinking!
Will: Exactly!And also the hereditary tradition therein.‘Time Again’ is another take on the same world.‘Kirk’ is a Scottish song, Frankie attributes its survival to one Geordie Hamilton.
S’n’O: So, you’ve got an overt Scottish influence happening on ‘Sound As A Pound’, and yet you are an Australian band.Other than ‘Katoomba’, is there anything particularly Australian in any of the songs on the EP?
Will: ‘Shadrach Hannigan’ is about riding the rails around Australia.The protagonist is one of those arseholes who bangs on about settling down with a wife and clothesline but nobody is buying it, least of all himself.By the end of the first verse, he’s already ‘jumped the rattler’ and taken off to the sunny north with a bottle of rum in his hand.The ‘Boxcar Willie’ side of things is romatic and sepia-toned but Shadrach is a timeless figure.I wrote ‘Shadrach’ before Brisbane became our regular port of call but I’m pleased to say it does pay tribute to the area of Brisbane where we usually play.
