Live4ever Presents: The Minutes


minutes

“You’re sexy bastards the whole lotta yiz!!” – lead singer, Mark Austin, humorously compliments an obviously impressed and packed BD Rileys crowd in Austin, TX as the band intro their last song of a short set – a set that proves all too brief.

Amongst the live music chaos and overwhelming nature of the SXSW music festival, one of the most beautiful things in life has the possibility of occurring – falling in love. Now, I know how those Texas girls with their sexy southern accents can provide a warm welcome and during this week in Austin there are more than a few stunning imported beauties, but slow down that heart rate for a minute because what I’m talking about here is Rock n Roll. Balls to the wall, energetic and unbridled live fucking rock n roll. And that is exactly what these three Dubliners deliver.

Having missed the intro, and possibly the first song, the question quickly becomes, who the fuck are these guys? The answer, however, is that it doesn’t matter – for now. They’re exceptional and their music elicits feelings similar to love at first sight.

Luckily, there’s four more tracks from a, yet to be released, debut album to revel in. One of which is the last song ‘In My Time Of Dying’ and it has such a thumping, driving, fuzz laden bass line, Chris Wolstenholme would be well proud.

secret-historyAnother is two minutes of 60’s laced garage rock musical mayhem called ‘Secret History’, the first release off their debut album. The single was officially released Friday, May 14 and is being followed by a string of dates in Ireland and the UK.

This band is The Minutes. They’re from working class Dublin and their music is imposingly good.

Live4ever recently visited Dublin to witness them live in their hometown and were delighted they found time to sit down and chat about SXSW, their debut album, vintage gear and the new single ‘Secret History’.

L4E : Ok lads, thanks for taking time out of your hectic schedules to chat with us – How’s it going?



M.A. : Goin’ good. Bit mental these past few weeks. But that’s a good thing.

Before we get into all the juicy stuff about the upcoming single release, your debut album, SXSW and Phil Lynott’s bass head among other things, let’s introduce our readers to the band…

M.A. : Mark Austin – VOX & GTR
Tom Cosgrave – BASS & VOX
Shane Kinsella – DRUMS & VOX

Who are The Minutes? Who does what in the band? And where did the name come from?

M.A. : I think I answered the who & the whats in the last , so to get on to the name . Before we started to play live we spent a good 9 months recording songs. Trying to get some new shit together . In that time a name for the band was Irrelevant . We had no shows booked and so no need for a name. Towards the end of the recording we got itchy . We wanted to get out there and play , we had some new songs and now the need came for a name. We all agreed it should be something ambiguous , besides the obvious time referencing , THE MINUTES means nothing. We wanted to put our sound to the name. And now 3 and a bit years later I think we are almost there.

Where in Dublin are each of you from and how did you all meet?

M.A. : All from south Dublin .
Shane’s from near the mountains . I’m from the other side of the mountains and tom’s sorta from the foothills In between where me and Shane are from. Myself and Shane are cousins. Tom is not our cousin , But we are all brothers , just from different mothers.

What’s the history of the band? Have there been other members or has it always been the three of you?

M.A. : The Minutes has always been us 3. Although previously we were all in other bands , with and with out each other. Spanning pretty much the past 10-12 years. A long time.

You used to consider yourselves an indie band, or you tried to be an indie band. It seems ‘indie’ has varied meanings. In your case, it’s clearly a reference to your sound but you’re still (unbelievably) an
unsigned band and hence, could be considered ‘indie’.
Do you think genre classifications help or heed new and unsigned bands?

M.A. : I don’t know if it does either but since we realized we are a rock n roll band , and started telling people so , Its definitely an easier draw than to say ‘ yeah we’re like Indie pop ‘ or whatever. Classifications fuck your perceptions you know?
Only good bands know what they are and then in turn are uninhibited by that . Shit bands stick to their stamps and never change because they’ve labeled them selves and try forever to plough that furrow.
All I can say is thank fuck we aint an INDIE band no more.

What do you make of the music industry nowadays, where there seems to be a lot less ‘record deals’ being done with new artists and the Internet, social networking and other creative means are used to
promote new bands?

M.A. : I think it is what it is. I don’t think in any era artists have been happy with the music Industry. The ones that seem to get on best are the one s that carry on regardless.
That’s our way . Just get on with your own shit and If someone wants to swoop in and offer the world , we shall talk .

Let’s talk about your sound. It has changed considerably from previous releases such as ‘Black Keys’, ‘Harmonic’ and ‘Ukraine’. What prompted the change and/ or why did you make it?

M.A. : When you start to realize that all you are doing as a band is mimicking different aspects of current bands around , you make a choice to keep going and end up dead or follow your brain. We took the latter route. We made a conscious decision to make a loud rock and roll record because that’s the music we knew. The music we grew up with . That’s what we naturally played . So the reason we changed was because we knew the road we were on with Ukraine etc , was a dead end. Harmonic & BK were us starting to get to grips with being a rock n roll band and the final fruits of that can be heard on the record

The band is heavily influenced by the rock n roll of the 60’s and 70’s
Why did you first try to become an indie band?

S.K. : Everyone was an Indie band when we first started as The Minutes. The Strokes had broke the mould, like Oasis did by making everyone either wanna be in a band and play that sort of music, or just look like they were in a band. We really wanted to get our music on the Radio. We thought that was really important to be successful but later realised that it didn’t really matter and no matter how good you were the only way to get radio play on the big stations was to be really sh*t and have a label behind you with money, which we didn’t have either.

Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy, The Beatles and The Smiths are bands that have had an influence on you – who else, from the 60’s and 70’s AND currently, plays a part in The Minutes’ music? Name a few from each era.

S.K. : Fleetwood Mac (old and new), I heard that tune ‘Oh well’ by Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac and it just changed something inside of me and all of us then Marko brought in a few other tunes to practise from different dudes like Dylan and older Blues hero’s. After listening to this stuff along with bands from today like BRMC I started to notice the feel and grove of our tracks getting more and more dirty, sexy and heavy. The Indie thing had really started to fade and the record was written in about 3 months. Its crazy how easy things come together once you find something your good at.

Tom – you own and use Phil Lynott’s bass head, is that correct? How did you get your paws on that coveted item?

T.C. : Yep I got it about two years ago. A custom Hi-Watt 200 watt bass head. My own little piece of history. Here’s a photo of it in Germany in 1972. I think Philo would have used it in the early days of the 3 piece line up.
I bought it off Oliver Cole another Dublin musician who’d used it on all his records and toured with it. He used it for guitar so when I got it I had to get it fixed up for bass which cost a pretty penny.

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Here’s what it looks like now. She’s a beauty! Shane’s a hard-hitting drummer and Mark uses a two amp set up live so this helps me get MY point across.

And Shane uses a set of drums from the 70’s, correct? Where did they come from?

S.K. : I bought this kit from a drummer who plays with a lot of well known heads in Ireland. He bought them from a drummer that played with a lot of well known heads in Ireland back in the 70s’ It was a show band kit id say, perfect condition and plays great. Never gives me trouble and always records amazingly. Iv nearly made the money I paid for it back renting it out for recording sessions! They really don’t make them like they use to

What other vintage equipment do you use? and more importantly why do you use this vintage gear?

S.K. : Well there’s Tom’s Hi-Watt head, Marko owns a 1970s Fender Bassman and My Gretsch kit, then a few little things, an old Hi-Watt speaker, iv a 70s Ludwig 402 snare, Tom has a 70s Ripper bass – Basically it’s the 70s gear that makes us wet but its not a cheap obsession!!

You travelled to the US to record your debut album, in upstate New York in fact – What was behind that decision?

S.K. : Money! Well, Money and the want to record in America. Records seem to come out of the states sounding a lot different then Europe. Biggers, louder, cooler. A lot of our favourite bands come from the states and the records sound great. We priced studios everywhere, from Ireland, UK, Spain, France but the US was by far the cheapest and after some serious research we found Marcata, this place looked great and had all the older gear we wanted including a Tape machine (as we wanted to record everything live to tape) a few mails later we had booked the studio with Kevin and start sending over demos. It all worked out great and we got to get the fuck out of Dublin for a while

The album was recorded live and you used analog tape in doing so.
Explain why you felt this was important and how did you prepare for it?

S.K. : We spent years recording on pro-tools, recording everything separately, to a click and it always sounded generic. We could never capture the feeling we were getting when we played a show. Tom had an old 4 track, after writing the first few rockers off the record Tom brought up the 4 track just to get the basic ideas down on something even a TDK90 cassette. We set up one night, started to put down some of the tunes live, mark put the vox on top then we listened back. It sounded AMAZING! Raw, live and exactly what we wanted US to sound like. This wasn’t the start of the tape obsession though but in short, things just sound better on tape to us

Earlier this year you were at SXSW in Austin, TX – How was that experience?

T.C. : Craziest week ever!! When we got accepted we just started to plan and plan and wanted to play as many shows as possible, get as much exposure as possible and that we did. Our friend Kay in the states really helped us out. She put us up in her home for the whole week along with The Might Stef (another Dublin band) there was about 15 of us in the house, it was mental. So Kay helped book all our shows, drove us everywhere, got us out of bed, organised Interviews, she was amazing and we couldn’t have done it without her and Frank. We look forward to our returned in 2011!!

We heard you played a lot of gigs and Mark barely had a voice by the end of the week, admitting on stage at BD Rileys he sounded “like a bit of a hoor”! Was it all worth it Mark?

M.A. : Absolutely .

What was your your favorite gig in Austin and why?

T.C. : For me it was the show we played at the Hole in the Wall. A great spot! A bit away from the madness of Sixth Street. We were booked to play the Six Flags festival that day in the car park out back. We had a great slot on the outdoor stage just after The Hounds below. Only problem was it was -10 degrees in Austin that day! Global warming maybe as the previous day had been a scorcher and we all got farmer tans… Apparently it was the coldest day in March in Austin since 1914 or something like that! As a result there was literally 2 people outside watching the bands and it looked like our show was gonna be a nightmare. It was too cold to stay outside longer than 10 minutes… Kay Gourley the Texan lady who had sorted us with all our shows as well as feeding us, driving us and putting a roof over our heads asked her friend Matt the engineer in the venue would there be a free slot indoors for us. There was! Local musicians let us use their gear. We set up in 10minutes and played one of the most memorable shows of the whole trip. The response from the crowd was immense! Real music fans that appreciated what we were doing and gave back the energy we put into the show.There’s a clip from that show here.

If you plan to go back, what did you learn (if anything!) and how will you use for a better experience next time? Less gigs?!!

T.C. : You are not special at SXSW! You are just another band with another story. You need to grab people and shout about yourself and the more opportunities people have to see what you do live the better so get as many gigs as possible! Be professional! Don’t go all that way just to get pissed up every night. You’re there to do a job!

I wouldn’t have changed anything about the way we did it. We were well prepared and had great team of people around us to help us get the job done. Things ran really smoothly and we got the most out of it. Ironically the best contacts we made were with the irish press/media contingent at the festival.. They seemed to take notice of us a lot more when they heard we were doing so many shows and we’ve got great feedback since..

The new single, ‘Secret History’, off your debut album comes out this week and good luck with it lads – Why did you choose this song over 9 (or however many) other killer tracks?

T.C. : Honestly, two words, Paul McLoone.. We met up with Paul at SXSW and he came down to one of the shows. Since we got home he’s been championing the band and playing the tune off the air. We had planned on releasing a single around May and it just seemed like an obvious choice. We like the fact it’s raw and direct and only 104 seconds long. We needed to show people this is what we’re at now. The lead up to the single and a video shoot has kept us busy promoting and playing around the country the past few weeks. Live it always seems to get a great reaction from people. It’s got a kind of a rockabilly shuffle to it to get’s the heads bopping! Check out the video and you’ll see what I mean!

The Minutes – Secret History from Krank Music Videos on Vimeo.

It’s gotten a lot of mixed feedback from radio. ”Too rock n roll” ”Too fuzzy for daytime radio” are comments we’ve been hearing. Comments that confirm to us we are heading in the right direction. There’s definitely a few more songs which lend themselves to singles on the record but we felt Secret History was a damn good place to start..

How did you decide what songs made the album or were to become b-sides?

T.C. : We wrote the songs in a garage together then took them on the road. It’s always about the audience reaction for us. We gigged these songs a lot before we went to record them. It helped us shape them and we learned how to arrange and adapt them to suit each show. The album is gonna be arranged like one of our live shows with some songs bleeding into others. From day 1 it was always about capturing what we did live and I think with Kevin McMahon’s help we’ve done that on this album..

What can listeners expect from the debut album?

T.C. : It sounds like three lads playing their hearts out in a room. A huge converted barn near the Shawangunk Mountains to be more precise. There’s energy to it. There’s life in it. Tracked it all live to tape and kept overdubs to the bare minimum.

Aside from your own headlining tour in support of the album, who would
you most like to support on tour and why?

T.C. : Right Now.. The Jim Jones Revue, The Raconteurs and BRMC.. When do we leave!?
Mainly because we feel we have a similar sound or ethos. It’s always the hope to play to an audience that have similar tastes in music to you. You’re more likely to get a positive reaction and sell some Cd’s after. We’ve had the pleasure of supporting some pretty great bands in the past.. We use it as an opportunity to watch what they do and see if we can take anything on board for our own show.

Can you explain for our readers what ‘GIGS IN YOUR GAFF’ was all about? Is that something that’s still on offer?!

T.C. : Gigs in your Gaff was Mark’s idea and a hell of a lot of fun it was too. We were getting sick of playing the same shows, club nights in Dublin so we decided to take our show into people’s houses. People would get in touch and we’d arrive at their house in the van or sometimes a school bus. We’d set up a makeshift stage and a few lights and get to it! They were some of the craziest shows we did.

Thanks a lot lads and we hope to see you stateside sooner rather than later!

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