The smartest guys in the vroom

In an industry where the velocity of a band’s success is just as important as the quality of their records, it’s refreshing to come across a band that – after their initial breakthrough – resisted the temptation to hit Argos and snap up every badge-making machine in stock. Nope, patience – and good songwriting – is the name of the game for 79 Cortinaz.

Just under four years ago, this Carlow quartet had an unexpected hit with their single, ‘Deirdre’s Song’, which, after a month in the Irish charts reached No. 18: an impressive feat for a largely unheard of and completely independent outfit.
“We do everything ourselves,” explains Cormac, bass and backing vocals. “We did our own distribution for the single. How? Legwork! Ringing up every shop around the place and asking would they take some CDs, then driving down and delivering them! We had a bit of a tour going on around then too that we booked ourselves, while the single was still in the charts. It was a lot of work.”
“You get into music to get away from work,” chips in Gala, lead vocals and guitars, “and then you realise it’s way too much graft! If you’re trying to be a waster, this is not a good career choice.”
The legwork paid off. The song’s success brought them to the attention of the national media and the next two years were spent gigging relentlessly, with dates across the country including the IMRO Showcase Tour, Hard Working Class Heroes, Music Ireland Live and the 2FM 2moro 2our, as well as support slots with the likes of The Walls, Future Kings Of Spain and The Frank And Walters.
“Once we had the single out and we’d gotten a bit of airplay and publicity, we weren’t ready to release more material,” says Cormac. “We hadn’t expected the single to do anything, so it was a bit of a shock.”
After the madness had died down and touring had reached a more manageable pace, 79 Cortinaz went to ground to focus on the songwriting process: clearly one of the most enjoyable aspects of being in the band for its members.
“We rehearse in my garage,” Cormac proffers. “Well, it’s more of a little shed, and we have it set up with everything wired through headphones, which means we can rehearse at all hours of the night and nobody can hear us except for ourselves.”
“It’s a great thing to be able to get together in somebody’s garage and make a racket,” says Gala, of the songwriting process. “It’s a creative little band as well, we just pull stuff out of the air. We don’t have any problems coming up with material. It’s very freeform, there’s no boss, there’s nobody telling you what to play, and it’s enjoyable. That’s the main criteria. I’d rather go jamming with the lads on a Saturday night than go to the pub.”
After carving, chiselling and buffing the new songs on stage and in rehearsal, the band went into the studio for a 12-day stint, with Rat Scabies from The Damned on production duties.
“I’ve known Rat on the web for a while,” Cormac resumes. “He used to run this hotline server, which was a predecessor to Kazaa and torrents, so he had this little server where you could upload music and there was a chat feature on it, so we’d put our stuff up there and he really liked it. When I mentioned it to him that we were making an album, I was messing and said ‘Do you fancy coming over and producing it?’ and he did! He’s really sound, a very cool fella.”
“He’s a hard taskmaster, he’s old school. And the record does sound like that,” adds Gala. “It was just, get it done, get it out there.”
The result is Hopioki, the band’s long-awaited debut album, which was released in January 2008 to heaps of critical acclaim including a glowing review in your very own Hot Press.
“Because I’d had some of the songs for a long time, it says a lot that I’m still not bored with the album,” concludes Gala. “I’ve been listening to it pretty constantly, and it still stands up. I’m really proud of it.”
And with good reason, say we.