They have lift-off

When Tunic called it quits early last year there was never really any doubt that Jonathan Wallace, Brian White and Mark Gordon, the boys in the outfit, would eventually re-emerge under a new guise.

After all, it s not as if they huffed off and took their ball from the Northern music scene. Mark, alongside former bandmate Tanya Mellotte, got busy running the award-winning Ski Bunny club and promoting shows by everyone from the Handsome Family to Fridge. Brian and Jonathan saddled up with would-be wastrel mega-stars The Desert Hearts, threatening to go huge, then deciding not to bother.
But, overall, you could tell they were all biding their time. Thinking it through. Plotting their next move. Keeping their new band, Olympic Lifts, under wraps until they felt the time was just right.
Considering that Tunic were renowned for their unabashed love of all things schmindey (there are bound to be Pastels t-shirts hidden in a few closets), it would have been difficult to predict that their new direction would take the trio off to the merry land of Decks and MCs. That, after years of tugging fringes and hanging with the Chemikal Underground/Jeepster indie aristocracy, they d come back throwing moves like a North Down Beastie Boys.
Confused? Originally, lots of people were. Dubious? You d have to be really, wouldn t you?
But then, as they sit around a table, talking about their progress so far, it s clear that these concerns are nothing that the band haven t felt themselves.
I ve tried to think about why we ve gone where we have but it s just happened, says Jonathan. That sounds weak, but it s just the way it is.
If you are sane, you ll treat every Irish band flirting with hip-hop with as much caution as a George Best temperance pledge. You d love to believe it but
It s obviously a big clichi where an indie band discovers technology and becomes something else, Mark admits. But I genuinely, genuinely, genuinely, do not feel remotely like that. I can see so many similarities in the vocals, and lyrics and music with what we used to do. It s just that we re using different apparatus and have a different notion of what we want to do. It s hard to explain how right everything feels at the minute.
It s pop music, he continues. The breaks aren t hip hop, the lyrics aren t. I don t think, in anything we ve ever said, have we ever claimed to be from da street. In general terms it s upbeat, intelligent, we would like to think, well-crafted pop music.
But it s taken a while for the band to get to this stage, where they re confident enough to take the jump once more across the Irish Sea. Much of this reticence stems from a determination to learn the lessons dished out during Tunic s six-year lifespan. Although championed by John Peel and certain sections of the British inklies, they increasingly felt painted into a lo-fi indie corner.
At first, because there s a whole community and everybody is really nice and supportive, getting you gigs and whatever, it s brilliant, says Mark. You get to meet all these bands and promoters and people in places like Brighton, and Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester. And it s really great and stimulating. But that culture has no money in it. That may sound cynical but it s the reality of the situation. The only way financially to survive would be to play a gig every night. That became very clear about a year or two in. We had Peel Sessions, records of the week, lots of really encouraging press. Everything was brilliant. But we were all skint. We didn t even have money to buy new gear.
We weren t prepared to put up any boundaries for ourselves, claims Jonathan. We were all prepared to let it reach its potential, and I don t think it ever came anywhere close.
Commercially speaking, Tunic were stranded. Creatively speaking, though, Brian, Mark and Jonathan all feel that, in many ways, their ramshackle attitude towards the minutiae of band life had an equally scuppering effect on their career.
When we toured with Gorky s for the first time, we shouldn t have done it, says Brian. I heard a tape of it and we were a big pile of shit. They would go on and be just amazing. Every night, they were amazing. We d be great maybe one night, maybe two; they were great every night. But that showed us the level you have to aspire towards.
It s very easy at the start just to get carried away by the fact that you re actually doing something, claims Mark. It s sad but true that you re just not ready. If you do it too early, it fucks you up. But to get interest you have to be 120% amazing. You ve just got to be so good. Because the competition these days is frightening. Which is a lot to do with what we re doing now. We ve waited well over a year doing stuff over here, rehearsing and writing like mad, just so we know we re ready. And I think we re ready now.
So, after a year in the shadows (well the Newtownards Road), the Tunic togs have been left in a telephone box, and our heroes, finally, are preparing for Lifts off.
Up, up and away.

The Olympic Lifts Achieve Maximun Devestation EP will be released on (I m A Strobe) in September. They play Belfast s Auntie Annies on August 16th.