It’s the evening of the Trinity Ball, and the under-23 gig-going contingent are noticeably absent. Instead, Slattery’s in Dublin is exclusively filled by people in their late-20s whose natural habitat is at the back of gigs, though obvious logistical issues prevent that happening tonight. A tough lot to win over, but frontman Geoff McArdle isn’t phased.
“This is the audience participation bit,” is his cheery introduction to ‘Holy Moly’, oblivious to the fact that such interaction is anathema to such a crowd. “Neil will play an F-sharp, and you have to sing along after. Ready?”
And as the moon turned blue outside, it turns out the audience was ready. Aided by the magnetic charm of each member, it would take a person with a corpse-like stiffness not to be drawn into their triumphant performance.
The next Monday, at The Mezz in Dublin's Temple Bar, it’s the same band, but most definitely a different vibe. Sound problems aren’t exactly aided by confused looks from those out for a quiet pint. An enjoyable show, to clarify, but it’s just not their night.
“I don’t know what happened,” sighs Geoff the day after, audibly exhausted. Living in Dundalk and with a day job in Belfast, each weekday gig in the capital involves a lot more effort than a out-of-hours activity should require. It’s a dedicated lifestyle, and one which he probably questions when all that effort is spent on a bad show.
“I could do without the three-and-a-half hour drive everytime we play Dublin,” he confesses, “but I think our music’s brilliant and I love playing every gig we do, so if we’re offered gigs I don’t think twice. We’d even planned to play on the roof of a friend’s shed once, but it was raining so we had to change it to his living room at the last minute.”
The band, completed by Neil Smyth (guitar), Australian Tim Groenland (bass) and Frenchman Glenn L’heveder (drums), settled in their present line-up six months ago. And The Colours clearly go well together: already they’re the object of international A&R affection, thanks to their quirky American desert-sounding tunes that Spinto Band, Neil Young and Violent Femmes fans would adore. Although they’ve had some stranger comparisons, according to Geoff: “A friend of mine said that we sounded like early Cardigans. I can hear it in my voice, sometimes when I go particularly deep I might sound like Nina Persson,” he jokes.
That said, they do draw their music from a variety of sources.
“Neil and I are the main songwriters – we usually come up with the core of the song and then from there it grows, with everybody chipping in. It works between us because I like acts like Kings Of Leon and Neil Young, but Neil – our Neil – is a lot more into dance and hip-hop, so he pulls in another set of names altogether.”
While that’s audible from the three free downloads they have on their myspace site - ‘Hunting Song’ in particular contains a spectrum of sounds all condensed into five minutes - it’s just as clear that they’re not a band to follow trends.
“I like a lot of contemporary bands but I don’t have any strong opinion on any scene. We’d rather just concentrate on what we do, which is more melodic, than worry about all that spiky stuff going on at the moment,” he shrugs.
About the name: I imagined that each of the band would show up in their assigned colour, like Reservoir Dogs, only with t-shirts and without the bludgeoning.
“That was the plan, and that still is the plan, but we just haven’t got around to it! Tim’s the only one that tries to stick to it, he normally wears orange. But that was the original idea, to add bit more of a visual element.”
Apart from becoming colour-coded, the band have plenty more action in the pipeline: “We’re going to go record some more tracks in a couple of weeks. We have about five new songs that we really, really love, which are more upbeat than our previous material. We’re at the stage where we have a small amount of great songs, but we just need to concentrate on getting enough material to play our own headline shows.”
In a refreshing change to the norm, they happily admit they’re still in the early stages of development, and learning with each gig and each studio experience. “On a scale of 10, I’d say we’re about a six and a half, but we know we’re on our way to getting full marks. We want to be very successful, and I think there’s definitely something in our music. Although I know that didn’t come through last night!”