THERE MAY be a lot of uncertainties in life, but one undisputed truth is that it is very, very difficult being a young Irish band in the current climate. From brief flirtations in bands and being on the other side of the fence as a promoter, I fully recognise the gut-wrenching stress that putting on even one gig can induce. At a time when the venue situation goes from bad to worse (take 1999 alone - The Attic, The Funnel, Mean Fiddler RIP), anyone who is committed to writing and performing music for zilch material reward deserves much respect for that alone.
Enter Dublin's Patrol with a polished brand of intelligent suburban guitar pop. Just another bunch of 'young whippersnappers', as their first Hot Press mention branded them? Maybe. But at least this shower of whippersnappers have a spanking new single handled by none other than Warner's Ireland. So what's going on?
"We sent out CDs to record companies and they were the ones that rang us," explains Eamonn Peregrine, making it sound ever so easy.
"They wanted us to do more songs and we had a single ready to go which we were going to put out on our own. Since we had it ready, they agreed to distribute it for us. We are not signed to Warner's as such, its more like a development deal of sorts. We are going to press ahead and write more songs and have another single ready for the New Year."
"We spent too long before hanging around not doing anything so we decided to get up off our arse and put out our own stuff. That's the story so far in a nutshell," adds Eamonn's brother Andrew.
So in the words of the Roses, the past is yours and the future's mine. What's next?
"We want to get to Number One!" exclaims Eamonn.
Yeah, right. Doesn't every bunch of hopefuls?
"No! We don't just want to, we will! We are hoping to go Top 30 with this one. Everyone's praising all these great Irish bands who come out like Westlife, but no one is remembering the fact that they're shit. In latter years the record companies have become very good at marketing boy bands. They've seen Take That and used that template as their cash cow. They need a new explosion of music. Techno started off the decade and you had your grunge thing and Britpop thing, but there has been nothing on that scale in the last three to four years except all these manufactured boy bands. They are getting very good at putting so much money into a band and receiving so much return, because they don't fail very often. That's why it is so hard for new bands to break through."
"I think everyone can listen to our music" continues Eamonn, much to the amusement of his band-mates ("ooh, cheesy!"). "Like our stuff could definitely be played on the radio. It would be really interesting to see if our single and Britney Spears were played equally on the radio, whether an equal number of people would buy our single!"
"There are just so many people famous for nothing," states Andrew. "You saw that at the MTV Awards with all these people just hanging around outside hotels. There wasn't even anyone good playing at it except The Cardigans and Underworld. Everyone was going on about Puff Daddy coming to town and all this nonsense. The crucial motivation here is to take all this in, but not just moan about it without doing anything. We want to find out the ways the likes of Britney Spears gets so much radio play and beat them at their own game. A bit more ambition and drive is necessary apart from 'Oh, come down and see us play Eamonn Doran's every few weeks. We are really good so why isn't anyone paying attention?'."
You can't really argue with that kind of ambition. Well, you could if you wanted, but that would be dissing the whole point of pop music at its best. Great pop should be fuelled by extreme enthusiasm, steadfast conviction and an undying willingness to accomplish great dreams. After all, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to insipid manufactured drivel.
Patrol are at an embryonic stage with two highly impressive releases, and whether or not they win, lose or draw in the race for the prize - I really don't see them ever being boring. n
* Helena's Star is out now on Warner's. Patrol play Whelan's on Monday 29th November with support from Happy Stack.