I’ve met a lot of dedicated bands in my time, but I think lead vocalist and main songwriter Stewart Quinn just steals the crown in terms of sheer enthusiasm, determination and willingness to work. “We want to work very hard,” he stresses “You talk to bands hanging out in the pub, and they go ‘yeah, we might have a gig in about four months time,’ but there’s no point in that. We’ll play anywhere in the country – anyone that wants to book us can book us. We’ve done some of our best gigs in tiny parishes, at those little festivals in towns you wouldn’t think would hold two people and suddenly thousands show up.”

Although only in their early twenties, Blue Monday have been around for six years and have grown up together as a band. “My brother David plays guitar and he went to school with the drummer, Alan Ryan, who used to be in another band with the bass player, David Lacumber. So we started very young, about sixteen. You spend the first few years trying to figure out who you are and the next few trying to put that across,” Stewart says.

They recently released their debut single, ‘Perfect World’, believing it was a necessary move in order to get more support slots in bigger venues, but two years ago, they took the unusual move of self-financing a tour of America, before releasing anything at all. “People told us it was madness going to America, but, to us, it was madness spending money to release a single that might not do much. It’s a very slow process in Ireland and we wanted to speed things up,” Stewart explains. “You can walk down Broadway and there’s about seventy record companies. It’s a long walk. We got an awful lot of refusals – ‘Sorry, no unsolicited material’ and whatever. But we put the foot in the door and said, you’re not closing the door on us ‘til you take our bloody demo. We’ve come 3000 miles!

“America was a great life experience. I always think that if the band split up, I could write a book about it. Stuff like coming home on the subway at 4am – it was a real eye-opener. We got some new songs out of it, the audiences were very open and positive and we made some great contacts. We met Ricky Martin’s lawyer. We were on stage with all this mad stuff going on around us – Scottish guys flashing us and Irish guys smashing the place up, and this one guy sitting quietly in the corner sipping a Budweiser. We went up to him after the gig and asked him if he enjoyed it. He said he did, and asked if we were looking for ‘representation.’ He gave us his card and said he was working for Latino artists like Mark Anthony and Ricky Martin. We got in touch, and he’s prepared to help us out next time we go to the States.”

Blue Monday’s luck in making good connections has continued apace.

“The first thing that happened when we got back from America is we bumped into a guy called Kim Fowley. He’s worked with anybody who‘s anybody – John Lennon, the Beach Boys, Guns ’N Roses, Motley Crue. He’s responsible for about hundred thousand million record sales, in terms of production, writing or making them himself. He was living in Kilkenny, stumbled across our number in the hotpress Yearbook, trying to get in touch with local bands, and asked to meet us. He was impressed by the fact that we had gone to America off our own back, and had that desire to work. He thought we were a bit slow at songwriting, though, and challenged us to write fifteen songs in twenty-eight days. To prove that it could be done, he sat me down with an acoustic guitar, told me to play any tune and asked me to tell him a bit about myself. He then sang a song about me on the spot. We were gobsmacked, but he said he had a formula worked out. We went off and wrote the fifteen songs and he said, ‘Alright. I’m prepared to work with you.’ He was always setting us little tests like that.” Stewart recalls fondly. “We’re in almost daily contact with him now, and he’s talking to people about us with the hope of setting something up in the near future. There’s a good possibility of getting a song onto a film soundtrack, just as soon as this pesky Hollywood strike is cleared up.”

Blue Monday are brimming with impatience to get out there and make an impact. “That’s the hardest part – the waiting game. We want to be bigger than the Beatles, U2 and Travis put together. All we’re missing is a record deal. We’d prefer to get one in America, so we’ll go back their very soon. We’ll find the money to do it somehow. Even if it means robbing a bank!”