Miscellaneous - Interview

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 14 / 4 / 2006

intro

Six piece band Irish Mainline merge together distorted Jesus and Mary Chain style guitars with Spiritualised psychedelic grooves. Anthony Strutt chats to them about their first British single and touring with Primal Scream and Sonic Youth

Mainline are a six piece band from Ireland. Dressed all in leather, and with an elegant hint of swagger, their music mixes distorted Jesus and Mary Chain and early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club guitars and Spacemen 3 and Spiritualised psychedelic grooves. Pennyblackmusic caught up with them at a recent gig at the Sonic Cathedral in London in which they supported the Morning After Girls. Mainline have to date only released just two singles, a UK 7 inch 'Black Honey/Once More(Because of You)' on Loog Records, which, limited to 1000 copies, is still available, and in the United States a 12" vinyl version of ‘Black Honey’ which also consists of two remixes of that track. The band consists of three brothers, Neil (vocals and guitar), Conor (bass guitar) and Daniel Paxton (drums), and their life long friends Patrick McHugh (guitar), Scott Glennon (guitar) and Jeff McDonald (keyboards). We spoke to Scott, Daniel and Conor in a very noisy bar .As they all have strong similar-sounding accents, the text will be credited as Mainline so as not to misquote any member. PB : A friend described you to me as an Irish Jesus and Mary Chain. Do you think that’s a fair comparision ? Mainline : It is not really. It's an easy thing to say because we wear leathers and have distorted guitars. It goes deeper than that though. We’ve got three guitarists and there is lots going on. That’s just an easy thing to say. PB : How did you guys meet then ? Did you all go to school or university together?. ML : We all went to school together. It started off with us brothers and Scott went to the school and joined us and it just went from there. It was a little scene. We were all into the same stuff. We were just mates. PB : Does Dublin have a good scene ? ML : It’s getting better.all the time. There’s a lot of talent there. PB : How long has the band been together then? ML : About two years now. PB : You toured with Primal Scream in Ireland, didn’t you ? ML : Yeah, we did a few gigs with them. We have done a lot of support slots. Playing with Primal Scream was great. We did some gigs with Sonic Youth too. Loads of people came to that. PB : Have you done many tours then? ML : No, not really. PB : Future plans ? ML : . Definitely more gigs. PB : How many times have you played London now ? ML : About four or five times.We have done as many as we can. Just keep an eye open, because we plan to come back soon. PB : Do you have an album's worth of material by now ? ML : .We have our own studio. It’s just a case of getting it down, there and out. PB : You have put out a 7 inch.. ML : Yeah, we put it out like a promo and we did a 12 inch in America. We did a few shows in New York recently and we also did South by Southwest. PB : The single was released on an indie. Was there much interest on the back of that? ML : We had the usual general labels sniffing about, talking your ears off, talking a load of bullshit. We have been out with a few sharks, but we want to do it properly and to do it in our own time. It’s better in the long run because there are definitely people out there that would buy records by us. Major labels just want hits. PB : Is there a new single on the way ? ML : We are recording a few new tracks. PB : Is that on CD this time ? ML : Yes, we just put the last one out to see what it would do. It’s been pretty successful. PB : . And why Mainline ? ML : Lots of reasons, but it’s just a name.! PB : Thank you. More information about Mainline can be found at www.mainlinesounds.com.

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