Extra Relish

Relish were first introduced to radio listeners last year with the Shaped On People EP and lead track 'Heart Shaped Box' (no relation to the Nirvana single of the same name). Relish sure know a thing or three about standing their ground, overcoming prejudice and getting on with the job at hand.

The band are brothers Ken (vocals, guitar) and Carl (drums) Papenfus, whose mother was a famous South African singer. Brought up in the rock 'n' roll capital of Downpatrick, Co Down, Ken and Carl where raised on a diet of rock, jazz, blues and pop and have been playing live since their early teens. Being the only black faces in a predominantly white town was never a problem when they had a musical hero to look up to. "Being Irish, black and in a rock band was made much easier after Phil Lynott," says Ken.
Relish were fully formed by the mid 1990s when the brothers ran into bass player Darren Campbell who cut short a promising art school education (he designs all the band's artwork) to join up.
"We're all misfits in a way" says Ken. There's black and white and Protestant and Catholic in the band. But more importantly there's the influences of acts like Curtis Mayfield and The Beach Boys".
As word filtered out from Downpatrick to Dublin and London about this extravagantly talented and musically ambitious three piece, various record companies were ushered into Ken and Carl's living room, where, sitting on a sofa bed, they were treated to in-house Relish auditions.
The band signed to EMI in 1998 and immediately caught the attention of famed producer John Leckie (The Stone Roses, Radiohead) who got them into the studio to begin work on their debut album. Last year's Shaped On People EP which was produced by another fan, Al Clay (Stereophonics, Reef) was an early warning that Relish were producing prime-time melody-driven, harmony-soaked rock music "Al Clay was fantastic to work for. We immediately hit it off. With John Leckie it was little bit ooh it s John Leckie ."
A band hailing from the North at the moment can except to be lumped in with pop punk funsters a la fellow Downpatrick boys and girl Ash or else alongside the eclectic likes of Mr. David Holmes.
"The big dance undercurrent in the North has to be acknowledged, and there is a kind of R n' B thing happening as well. When you look further back into the Northern scene you have Van Morrison with a huge blues influence. A massive blues undercurrent isn't accredited much but definitely exists. We can even hear it on a lot of dance music produced in the North. It s a very natural, organic sound. I think Therapy? were an incredibly important act, because they genuinely came out of nowhere, and showed that it can be done."

The new single, Let It Fly is out now on EMI. Relish play the Main Stage at Wittness on Sunday 5th August and the Temple Bar Music Centre with Pugwash on Thursday 10th August.