Commando a go go

There has to be a sense of audacity about any band willing to call themselves Go Commando.

Formed in Belfast in 1998 when Tanya Mellotte left Tunic, the band’s genesis wasn’t exactly a precisely planned operation. Steven Emerson – who’d played previously with Chimera – discovered that Tanya was putting together a new group and in the best rock’n’roll tradition accosted her in a club.

“I can’t remember how I heard, “ he says, ”just somewhere along the grapevine. I’d always liked the stuff that Tanya had done so I drunkenly approached her one night and the seed was sown.”

Tanya’s not sure:

“That’s sounds a bit rude actually Steven. You might want to rephrase that.”

“And the plot was hatched?”

“Yeah! That’s better.”

The two of them went on to recruit Aoibhinn MacManus on drums. Tanya: “Girl drummers are cool” and Therese McKenna, a multi-instrumentalist.

“I wanted a cello player really, really badly.” explains Tanya. “It was something I always wanted to do. Then Therese came into the picture and it turned out she could play flute, piano and sing. Apparently she can play cello as well but we haven’t actually seen any evidence of that yet.”

Finally last year the band poached guitarist Paul Kinghan from Sons of Massey.

“It became quite clear after recording that we were gonna need another guitarist. We were doing 3 guitar tracks in the studio but live it just wasn’t the same. So we had to get somebody else in. Paul seemed like an obvious choice - one of the first conversations we had was about the Afghan Whigs…”

Following success in the Peoplesound charts, Go Commando caught the attention of the BBC’s Evening Session. Steve Lamacq crowned them unsigned band of the week last autumn and this led to a rush of label interest.

“We started getting loadsa phone calls from labels in London saying ‘Send us some stuff.’” recalls Tanya. “It was slightly overwhelming cause everybody was asking ‘What’s your plans?’ and I was going ‘What am I supposed to say to these people?’ Are you supposed to be dead keen or say ‘We’re busy right now, we’ll call you.’ “

In the end, Go Commando entrusted Evol Records – run by Kieran Mellotte – with the task of releasing ‘Shake It Like You Mean It’.

“My brother had been offering for ages to put out the first release. I’m sure it’s not just a family thing – I hope its not,” says Tanya. “He’s already put out 12 other releases so it made more sense to put it on a label that already had some respect.”

Fierce Panda have also included the track ‘Homesick’ on their latest 7” compilation Vet Sounds.

“It was coincidence more than anything,” explains Steven when asked about the proximity of the two releases. ”They asked us to contribute a track and we were obviously happy to do so. It just so happens that it’s coming out at the same time as the EP.”

The songs on ‘Shake it…’ showcase the diverse spurs that shape Go Commando’s sound. “Song for the spoken for” is a gentle heart-broken lament while ‘Wow! Progress’ builds to a chorus of in-your-face punk. The closing track is an unedited message left on Evol Records answering machine by a hyper Vegas performer looking to join the band.

“Is that not one of the funniest things you’ve ever heard?” laughs Tanya, “This guy had

read about us on the Internet, got the number

for Evol and left this message. We just had to

use it.”

You have to wonder what exactly he was searching for to have found Go Commando…

Shake It Like You Mean It is out Sept 17th on Evol Records. Vet Sounds is out now on Fierce Panda