Young Stuns Go For It

Steve Wall, Joe Wall and Cormac Dunne of The Stunning are laughing their heads off. The night before this interview took place, Mike Allen, administrator of the Peadar O'Donnell Centre in Galway was shown on Today Tonight addressing the ICTU conference. For some obscure reason his name appeared on the screen as Andy Gibb.
Now reincarnation may well be possible but it's highly unlikely that a wealthy rock star would choose to come back as the head of an Unemployment Advice Centre unless, of course, he felt he had to do so for Karma reasons.
"It's the comeback of the century," says Cormac, the drummer. "Maybe we can expect the rest of the Bee Gees to turn up at the next meeting of Galway County Council," says Joe, the bass player.
However, lead vocalist Steve has a more serious perspective.
"It's typical of the national media," he says. "They rarely give coverage to anything or anyone outside Dublin and when they do they get the names wrong. The same goes for bands, no matter how much time, energy and work you put into a gig, you don't get any recognition unless you're from Dublin.
"It really galls me that bands have to go up to the big smoke to do the business. We did a gig in Leisureland recently which attracted 1,500 people and it went totally unmentioned, yet every crappy little band who does ten minutes in The Underground is tipped as the next big thing. And while I'm at it, the live section in Hot Press is too small. It should be at least three pages long."
Phew!
All gripes aside, The Stunning are proud and a little relieved to be based in Galway.
"It's an advantage in many ways," says Joe, "in that we're not thrown in at the deep end with a whole load of other bands so it's easier for us to stand out. Not only that, but Galway is a really crazy place. You have people like Ollie Jennings and the Machnas Group who are just stark raving mad - they have all these off the wall ideas and they actually put them into action. Absolutely anything could happen there. It must have something to do with the west wind and the permanent smell of fish."
"Oh, and there's an awful lot of drinking going on too, real honest-to-God serious drinking at that," interjects Steve.
The city also seems to provide a very convivial atmosphere for rock bands.
"There's loads of venues in Galway," says Steve, "especially late-night ones with a bar and all facilities are really accessible. There's also a great interest in rock music of late because Galway has always had a traditional/folk sort of reputation and now you've bands coming along like The Saw Doctors, Too Much For The White Man, The Swinging Swine, Little Fish etc. and because there's no music scene as such there's no backstabbing or bitchiness. We're all a bit fresh and naive and there's something really beautiful about that." (laughs)

To the naked ear (and mine wear less than most), The Stunning supply a uniquely Irish draught of soulful country and funk - sort like Dwight Yoakam meets Prince and decides to start distilling Poitin. However, a definite line of enquiry reveals that the band are determined to brew up a distinctive sound of their own and will add any ingredients to the mix in order to do so.
"Some people hold it against you if you try to be too unusual," protests Steve. "The press and that like to categorise bands and doing a variety of stuff doesn't go down well. I mean we've decided to use the brass section as a regular part of our act and not just every now and again, but some people say 'oh my gawd, a country band shouldn't use brass'."
"We used to have a trombone player as well," adds Joe, "but unfortunately he just disappeared like the guy in 'Spinal Tap'."
The songwriting credits are shared by Steve and Joe and Cormac, and while they insist that their songs have "something to say", they would prefer not to look at the world through the keyhole of politics when they could open the door on the full story instead.
"There are lots of political things which rub me up the wrong way," explains Steve, "but to go writing about them is a bit pointless. People can read all that stuff in the newspapers and singing about 'big issues' doesn't come naturally to me. I prefer to write from a more personal point of view."
After a few early gigs in the Galway area, The Stunning had earned themselves a reputation as a very exciting band to watch on stage. Is the visual element still important to them?
"We didn't want to just do boring old gigs," says Steve. "I used to live in Dublin for years and I got so annoyed with bands. I mean you could go along to the Baggot and sit with your back to the stage because there was nothing going on up there worth looking at."
"When we started off we used to have a street-entertainer called Little John as our MC. He'd dress up as an Italian nightclub owner - hat, cigar, gaudy suit, hair greased-back, the whole thing, and he'd really got the crowd worked up. Another time we did a gig in Leisureland and we split the stage into different levels like in the old Hollywood musical days. We also had a group of backing singers called The Stunnettes, one of whom was a transvestite. It's something which we'd like to continue doing but of course it depends on the venues and on what kind of audiences we get."
Despite the emphasis which the band place on looking well, they insist that they are not trying to convey any particular "image".
"If you're going up on stage," says Steve, "you have to make an effort appearance-wise. Obviously we don't wear yellow shirts and polka dot ties but it's not something which we worry about excessively. I always feel that bands who try to streamline their image too early are only trying to impress record companies and they usually end up as if they're all dressed up but with no place to go. All the guys in our band do look relatively neat but now and again we have to drop a hint especially to Jimmy, the sax player, and we'd say 'Jaysus, Jimmy will you take off those corduroys for God's sake'."

Together with their manager, local impresario Padraig Boran, The Stunning have made a careful inventory of the managerial 'styles' being adopted by other non-Dublin bands - and by and large they are not impressed.
"We didn't want to just potter around outside the pale for a while," explains Steve, "and then make the odd dash into Dublin. We were very headstrong about that and it obviously worked. Our first gig in Dublin was a showcase in the Baggot, the next was a benefit in the Ierne Ballroom and then we did the two Late 'n' Live dates in the Olympia. Not many bands can end up playing in a theatre that quickly." (laughs)
Their first single, 'Gotta Get Away' was an instant airplay hit and the follow-up, 'Half Past Two' ("a Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin type number") is due for release in August and will be accompanied by The Half Past Tour, which will take them all over the country.
"We look upon this as a long-term career," says Steve, "and we're in no hurry to record an album or anything like that. We just want to play live as often as possible and write more songs. We know it's gonna be a long haul."

The Stunning talk about their musical influences as if they existed in some kind of unkempt botanical garden. Basically they'll plant anything there - shrubs, hedgerows, herbaceous borders, (Hothouse Flowers?) even weeds - then sit back and wait for cross-fertilisation to occur.
Country music is their soil, imagination acts as compost and thickets are available from the usual outlets.