Enjoy!
Can you tell me what first inspired you to make music, what made you pick up a
bass/drums and start writing songs?
CON: I remember for years I wanted to play music, and always thought it’d be cool to
be at the front. I tried guitar and sucked at it, I couldn’t really sing so I wasn’t sure
what to do next. A neighbour of mine had a drum set and I’d occasionally muck
around on it. Then I remember getting really heavily into Slipknot at about age 11 and
seeing Joey Jordison play drums on a huge spinning platform on a YouTube video.
Who wouldn’t want to try something like that? So my neighbour helped find a kit on
gumtree which I got for my birthday that year, and I mostly taught myself. From
there, I played in a few cover bands, but always wanted to try write some of my own
stuff. I eventually met Mark and the pieces fell into place.
MARK: I can remember having very little interest in it as a kid, it wasn't until I was
15 or 16 that a buddy of mine started turning me onto all these cool bands. Next thing
I'm finding all this awesome music by myself, next thing I'm picking up an
instrument, next thing I want to be in a band, next thing I'm trying to write my own
songs, few years go by and next thing I'm in a room with Conall. Though I will say
that AM by the Arctic Monkeys was hands down the album that got me into singing.
What bands posters did you have upon your bedroom wall and what was the first
record you ever bought and why?
CON: I have a single “poster” of Pearl Jam’s Ten album (it’s literally the CD cover
folded out), and most recently got a Queens Of The Stone Age concert poster from
Finsbury Park in 2018 as a gift. It’s got Iggy Pop and The Hives and Brody Dalle and
some other awesome bands on it.
My first CD that I ever bought for myself was probably Wasting Light by Foo
Fighters. I bought it because I’d listened to some of their stuff and was starting to
refine my music tastes a little, but this album really got me into drumming. I used to
play it front to back, and would always have it on in the car and tap along. It’s
symbolic to me because of the variety in it and helping me find my way into some
other of my favourite bands and pushing my musical boundaries that little bit more.
MARK: My first proper cool poster was that iconic black and white photo of Kurt
Cobain with the acoustic guitar and a cigarette. I remember thinking that thing was
SO DAMN COOL, but my dad hated it! Over the years I've had plenty go up and
come down but I have two in particular that I've held onto; a photo of Lemmy leaning
up against a Marshall stack and a massive framed print of the artwork for Sleep's
Dopesmoker (they're gonna have to bury me with that).
First album was a Three Days Grace album, 'One-X&' I think. Again I was like 15 and
have an old friend to thank for that one! At the time it was the heaviest thing I'd ever
heard and teenage me, although I missed out on an emo phase, definitely resonated
with some of those angsty lyrics. I've gone back to those first four TDG albums a few
times since, and yeah they can be a bit cheesy, but they're still solid in my book.
Can you tell us a bit about how the band came together, was it always the plan to be
bass and drums and at the risk of giving everything away can you tell us where the
band name came from?
MARK: The bass and drums thing just sort of happened. I never gave a six string
guitar the time of day until very recently. But very early on after picking up the bass I
figured out that I am a major fan of distortion on bass. There's an old video of me
somewhere from like 2013/14 of me with my dad's bass and a Behringer Bass Drive
playing White Stripes riffs in my room, keeping time with a kick drum. I remember
thinking I wanted to be Reignwolf, but with bass.
I was still pretty oblivious to a lot of the big bass and drum bands out there, but over
the years I started coming across a lot of great bands that didn't have guitarists, while
simultaneously getting further down the rabbit hole of distortions and switchers and
octavers and fuzzes. I had this notion then to write my own songs and play them live
and eventually I realised, 'wait a second I could probably do that.' Fast forward a
year or two and I get introduced to Conall and it was love at first blast beat.
As far as the band name goes...
CON: Well Mark and I unofficially met years ago in a bar at a gig his old band were
playing. Our local “scene” in Newry was all interconnected so years later after
playing in a bunch of cover bands, Mark messaged me through a mutual friend of
ours, and we practiced. We were both working on building sites at the time so we
spent our weekends practicing with eachother and wrote a couple of songs in the first
few practices.
Pretty soon after that, we entered a battle of the bands thinking we’d try take it
seriously. We sat down trying to think of a name for the band and couldn’t think of a
good one. Next thing Mark blurted out “Fagash McCann” in a sentence, and we
figured we’d use it for a laugh and change it once we found something that sounds
better. We haven’t.
You released How to Dance last year which is such a great record. Can you talk about
making the record, the song writing process, lyrically what you cover in those songs
and did it achieve what you set out to achieve?
Thank you! “How to Dance” was a culmination of stuff we’d written in the year or
two prior, and we kinda focused on it as making our first “dent,” and having
something that we can point people to. We never had a plan of what themes and
things we were gonna work at, it just kinda became a collection of our favourite
sounds.
When it came to recording time, we went into the studio with them all well rehearsed,
and just took some live recordings between the two of us. There’s an energy in a live
take, and what we lack in the number of band members, we try to make up for in our
energy. We recorded 7 tracks total, but we picked the 4 that sounded best. Since then,
we’ve re-tweaked some tracks and wanted to re-record others, plus we’ve been
writing a good bit in the last while. We’re content with what we’ve started with, but
we’re chuffed for the future.
Being bass and drums how do you continue to push the sound and yourselves
creatively, do you ever find it’s a hinderance or does it give you more scope in that
there’s less to balance?
I think the minimalism in what we have to work with pushes us to experiment and
push the boat out. We always stick true to our roots of big fuzzy bass and obnoxiously
loud drums with a sort of dance-y vibe. With that said, we’ve touched on blues, alt-
rock, desert rock and even some Heavy Pop.
Mark, you’ve a wide array of pedals and a very specific amp set up. Are there any
pedals or combination of pedals that are the quintessential Fagash sound? How does
your setup influence the song writing process?
MARK: The bass rig started out pretty simple and then sort of spiralled out of control.
It's seen a lot of variations over the years and is still changing a lot today. I love fuzz
and distortion, and I'm constantly looking to try out different ways of distorting a
guitar signal. I've blown up a lot of amps and tried a million and two pedals, and even
some weirder ways of making fuzzy noises ( for example, the BT landline phone
distortion on the EP) but I think it's safe to say that the switchers, funny enough, are
the heart of that rig, followed closely by the octavers. I will say this though, the pedal
that has been on that board the longest is the DOD 250 Preamp. I also have a very
toxic love-hate, relationship with an OpAmp Big Muff Reissue, just when I think I've
moved on something goes wrong and I just keep on crawling back.
The song writing process isn't really set in stone for us, we have songs that have
started with a riff, some with a lyric and some by just jamming out together. Nervo for
example, came from a groove Conall started playing that I joined in on, next thing we
had some changing parts and lyrics to go over it. Maybe down the line we'll fall into a
more concrete process, but for now it's just the two of us trying to make something
that sounds good to both of us, my bass rig just happens to be the somewhat
complicated tool I have at my disposal.
What plans do you have for Fagash McCann next? Will there be an album, are there
any plans to expand the instrumentation?
So far we’ve been focused on playing gigs, but with recent events we’ve had to put
that on hold. We’ve been throwing around the idea of re-recording some of the tracks
we’re sitting on, and writing’s been going quite well. There’s every chance we could
be in the studio with a bunch of new material for putting out, and at a push you could
maybe see something new by the end of the year.
We’ve been doing some thinking about the instrumentation, and as much as we love
the sound we achieve as a duo, there might be room for something extra. We’ll have
to see. But guitars are a no no.
The scene both north and south seems to be stronger than ever, is there anyone you’d
want to shout out to?
CON: We’ve had a bunch of awesome gigs with Paper Tigers who are putting some
killer songs out there and bringing a great sound to the scene.
A personal favourite of mine, THVS have their killer album Fevers our for a while,
and I’m a huge fan of their vibe.
Dean and Chapter have been wonderful to us, and they’ve some stellar music out too!
We’re loving Alpha Twin’s sound, we’ve had the joy of supporting them and they
kick ass.
MARK: I have to plug the hometown boys over at Cloakroom Q. We've known those
gents for years and I'm definitely excited for what they've got in the pipeline. We
recently played a great gig with a new band called Set Alight who are some top notch
fellas. And I know Conall agrees with me on this one, that Molarbear are excellent if
you're a fan of the big heavy chug-chug.
And finally in the vein of Rob Gordon. What are your Top 5 favourite records.
Queens of the Stone Age
Done.
Find and follow Fagash McCann at:
https://www.facebook.com/FagashMcCann
https://www.instagram.com/fagashmccann
Photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/bobloganmedia/
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