Rafto and Fuz sat down to let us inside Slyrydes world.
Can you tell me what first inspired you to make music, what made you pick up a guitar and start writing songs?
Rafto – I personally grew up with it, my oul man was proper into his records when I was growing up. He loved Neil Young, but not the Harvest stuff, he was into records like Weld. The Crazy Horse stuff. I know Clarkey, our drummer, his old man was a professional musician, Myself and Clarkey actually grew up in the same estate, but we had both moved out before we were in our teens and into making music. My mam was proper into musical theatre too so I used to have to go to these dodgy ameateur productions of stuff like West Side Story. So I was just into music. The band thing sort of happened just knocking about with mates with similar interests in school
What bands posters did you have upon your bedroom wall and what was the first record you ever bought and why?
First record I ever bought was actually a compilation of the songs they used to sing at the end of Bosco. That probably is not representative of where I am now though. I was sort of into the grunge/Seattle thing initially. But what really changed things for me personally were the early Britpop stuff. I was proper into that, Definitely Maybe, Blur, Supergrass etc. They dressed better than the American bands and had way better haircuts.
Can you tell us a bit about how the band came together. You play an angry, aggressive and noisy style of music what drives you to create this wonderful noise, what fuels that fire?
Myself and Marco worked for the same company of pubs and Fuz used to drink and DJ in them. We just used to talk about music a lot after hours over a few beers and the band is what emerged from that
As regard musical style, there is a lot to be pissed off about. We have been living through a mental health crisis that has been ignored now for the guts of twenty odd years. Housing crisis, whatever you are having yourself. We are the generation that did not benefit from a supposed economic boom but we have to pay it back. Sonically, the sound is what just came out when we started. There was never a conscious decision to sound like we do (well I think anyway). Also the Irish music championed by Irish broadcasters is so fucking mundane and nice. The Coronas ? Away to fuck, we had a Corona virus way before China.
You’ve had an amazing response to the singles you’ve released so far, which along the way has resulted in a slot at Sunstroke along side Faith No More and Deftones! What do you think attracts people to the band?
Well shout out to Paul McCloone for a lot of the initial momentum. He played us pretty much from the get go and that definitely made life easier as regard getting peoples attention. He is our John Peel type character.
As regard our appeal, I think we are pretty honest. I mean lots of people in Ireland like music that is tough or aggressive. I mean not everybody likes songs that fit the boy meets girl template beloved by day time radio. That is why there has been a resurgence in Irish underground-ish stuff.
Your new single ‘I Claim to be Intelligent’ just came out. Which is an excellent slab of noise dripping in a palpable tension, it feels like being locked up with someone. Can you talk about what themes and topics the band cover lyrically and talk about the recording process for the single?
Fuz: Its really cool to hear that you got that vibe from the song. As one of the songwriters we try to create a back drop for Raftos lyrics. Even if he hasnt written them yet. We all feel the same way about what we're trying to convey so for us we write music thats maybe tense or angry or claustrophobic. I dont think we actively set out to write that exact mood but that's how it comes out. Damon Albarn has an amazing lyric from End of a century "We wear the same clothes because we feel the same" that's a bit us. Whatever we come out with, whether it's a pounding drumbeat or a screeching guitar or an amazing melody or lyric we're on the same page. We are saying the same thing through different mediums. That's probably why it works.
The recording process is interesting. So when we have the song written, what we've done the last few times is myself and Paul (drums) will go to Darklands with the amazing Daniel Doherty and we'll track the bass and drums. We dont need guide tracks or anything. We know what we're playing.
Mark Comer and Rafto will come into the studio a few weeks later and colour it in.
That's usually Me, Dan, Mark and Rafto for a day or two. We just get into it.
We like to use a lot of feedback and noise tracks in the background. That probably adds to the tension. We have tracks entirely made of noises that careen along through the songs.
We keep it as live as possible but under Dan's guidance we usually come out with something much cooler than we went in with. It's a huge group effort of ideas and creativity.
Do you feel that living in Galway and the current state of Irish politics have a direct impact on your lyrical content and how does that environment feed into the music, if at all?
Oh absolutely. On paper we are a doomed generation. We dont have the opportunities our parents had when they were younger.
Buying a house and setting up a stable life was so attainable back then. We are a generation of people who can barely rent an apartment anymore. While Ireland is becoming quite progressive (and that's great) we are still practically ignoring huge issues that are staring us in the face. Our mental health system is an absolute joke. Not to mention the homeless crisis.
These are real life problems that definitely add to our shared anxiety and anger.
We write about this shit.
It's a huge theme for us because it's real and not only does it scare us, it pisses us off.
You’ve released 5 singles to date, are there plans for an EP or an album?
We are currently working on our debut album with Dan Doherty. We've been chipping away at it for a while now.
The plan is to have it out this year! We're doing this whole thing quite organically.
We have no real clue what way the songs are going to come out so it just keeps getting more interesting for us.
I imagine the album wont sound like people might expect it to sound like. We definitely dont want to write the same song 12 times.
The scene both north and south seems to be stronger than ever, is there anyone you’d want to shout out to?
We've done a few shows with Bullet Girl lately. Great band and great lads. Creative Crime is Dan Dohertys outfit. Dan and Teddy Darling. A sort of mixture of hiphop and dance music. We love it because it's also fucking REAL.
Melts are another band who are definitely smashing it at the moment. We have a few more shows with them this year.
There are loads of great bands out there man. Paper Tigers are great!! We got to play with you guys before Xmas. Really cool band.
It's an amazing time for irish music.
I'm honestly just glad to see the laptops fucking off for a bit and the guitars coming back.
And finally in the vein of Rob Gordon. What are your Top 5 favourite records.
Aaaaah!!!
That's a bastard. I, as a rule do not do favourites. As soon as I made that rule for myself I felt so free. You have 1000 different records for 1000 different moods but I'll pick 5 albums that had a profound effect in my life?
In absolutely no order, and this answer would probably be different every time but:
Nevermind - Nirvana
Blur - Parklife
Whipping boy- Heartworm
Radiohead- The Bends
Pulp- Different Class
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