Katie Melua is coming to Dublin with Charlie Pinder, MD of Sony Publishing Uk. We get a phone call from our manager Ger asking if we're rehearsing anywhere that evening because Charlie wouldn't mind sitting in on a few tracks to see how our live set is coming along. "Re-hearse..", ok, that shouldn't be so hard, considering we wrote the songs. It was Charlie Pinder who gave us our publishing deal, but off the back of four monitor mixes and a busker style acoustic performance in a hotel room. Now it was time to prove we could play the songs as they were on the album. You could say we panicked a little. We were tight, but no matter how tight we performed the songs, the band was one acoustic, bass and drums. Even through the volume of a P.A there was no escaping the fact we still hadn't advanced from busking our songs, playing whittled down versions of very textured album tracks.
So we bit our lips, booked a venue in Dublin to do our 'rehearsal' and prepared to do our best for Charlie. The resident sound engineer on the day introduced himself as Keith Lawless. We were sitting around, chit chatting, like we normally do when watching Shaky lift and assemble his drum kit, when we casually spoke with Keith about our minor ordeal. Keith then casually mentioned he played keys, and so we casually asked if he'd like to jam with us and he casually replied 'sure'. Charlie Pinder arrived, we played the skin 'n bone versions of our songs, which was... fine, had a chat with Charlie about what the track listing of the album should be and then we all parted satisfied ways after Charlie glared at his watch in the realisation he was an hour late for dinner with Katie.
Turn back the clock a few days and Dara is working hard on an investigation he opened to search for a long time neighbourhood friend and superb guitar player, Conal Doyle. Conal, last spotted in reggae/rock band 'Day Jantus' while we we're playing under the moniker of Blo.tooth in Lanzarote 1998, presumed to be in love and living it up in Austria for the last four years, was rumoured to be back in Dublin.. to live! It was an investigation worth the effort. Only when Dara called to Conals family house and spoke with his mother (for the first time in 10 years) did he get Co's number. Not only was Conal up for a jam but he was playing covers in a band with a great keys player, who we were informed would also be game for a jam.
Now turn the clock forward 4 days, this is when the band entered the Twilight Zone. It's been two days since we entertained Charlie Pinder and another two days spent entertaining the notion of playing with an extra guitarist and keys player. We arranged for Conal to pick up a copy of the album to run his ears over, we also mentioned that if his keys player buddy wanted a copy, that was cool, he casually replied 'cool'. We also brought to his attention that we had met a keys player/sound engineer in a music venue only two days before, "cool, a sound engineer? What's his name?" Conal asked, "Keith Lawless" we casually replied, then we all casually freaked out when Conal so casually told us that Keith was the very same keyboard player that Conal had mentioned he was playing with in a covers band. Casual or what? Too casual! More like extreme coincidence, or perhaps even destiny. We met, jammed in a hay-shed in Kildare, and yes.. smiling from ear to ear, 'destiny' was a thought on all of our minds.
No Sooner had Conal and Keith rested into a few rehearsals in Kildare, than our album starlight Drive was on record shelves. Our first gig in The Lobby, Cork, was quickly followed by our album launch in Tower Records, Dublin, a week long press and radio tour of the east and south coast of Ireland and our album launch party/gig the other night in The Sugar Club, Dublin. So we're all having fun, and lots of it, and here's hoping it doesn't stop too soon (or like most musicians who've come this far, stop at all).
