Heavy drinking and constant touring threatened to derail Republic of Loose, but a productive spell in Baltimore has helped Mick Pyro to rejuvenate his band, writes JIM CARROLL
IT'S TIME to renew the Republic. There's a new album, Bounce at the Devil, on the table and new angles for frontman Mick Pyro (otherwise known as Mick Tierney) to discuss. The country's intergalactic pop combo seem to have a new lust for life.
There are some new kinks in the fabric this time around. The Republic Of Loose have always gone against the grain of Irish rock and pop – they’ve always been more Jonzun Crew than Jeff Buckley – and you can bet that there’s few others who’d have headed off to Baltimore to dig a new groove.
It was a desire for change, not to gawk at locations for The Wire, that drew the band to Charm City. "The last two albums had loads of Irish radio hits, which was fantastic because we wouldn't be able to keep going without that. But there's a certain sense that if you keep thinking about that, you're just going to mimic what you've done before.
“Because people had left and we had new members, we wanted to get out of where we were. We didn’t want to record in Sun Studios or Grouse Lodge or Dublin because we’d be just retracing our steps. We made up our minds to get out of Dublin and then Baltimore came along.”
It was the Baltimore club sound that first caught their ears. “I’ve been listening to so much club stuff and dance music in the last while that I’ve been drawn away from the cocaine-rap I used to listen to,” explains Pyro.
“Then I got this Diamond K compilation of Baltimore club stuff and it was so exciting and modern and beautiful. It was using repetition in a way I hadn’t come across in pop music or hip-hop before, it was almost like John Cage. And it had this really playful and fun swing too.”
They bought their plane tickets and headed to Maryland. “We did a bit of research and we found this guy, Steve Wright, who recorded Black Star, metal, crazy art-rock and Baltimore club stuff, so he sounded good. He’d a great studio with loads of old gear and it was pretty economical compared to studios here. We said we’d go and have an adventure.
“I liked the city. It’s grimier than you’d see on the TV. There’s huge racial tension, conservation and crime, but the people have this ferocious, perverse pride in their city.”
A few times in the interview, Pyro talks about how the past few years have been “difficult” for the band. He’s alluding not just to some line-up changes, but also to his decision to quit drinking.
“I stopped drinking two years ago because it had become a problem for me and, yeah, it has been traumatic getting through that,” he explains. “It really affected my health at the time, I was very close to dying at the time if I hadn’t stopped drinking. That was the effect of me drinking alcohol every day for at least 15 years.
“It was a real genetic thing with me, but I had to stop because it was a nightmare. An awful lot of people came out of woodwork and rallied round me and were supportive when I stopped.”
When Pyro takes to the stage now, there are some subtle differences in how he operates as a frontman.
“I can relax a bit more and concentrate on my singing. My vocals were suffering before this because of the drinking and that carry-on. Also I don’t have to do all that yelling and shouting and roaring I did before to get the crowd going. It took me a while to get into the groove and get the swagger I wanted, like Poison’s Bret Michaels! But I didn’t want to take it too seriously, we’re not singing Leonard Cohen songs. The audience are supposed to enjoy it, so we have to enjoy it too.”
Gigging is the bread and butter of the band’s existence. “The gigging keeps the thing afloat and we’ve been in the black pretty much for eight years because of it. We get a good bit from radio because we still own our own publishing. We can pay for the albums, we can pay people, we can pay our rent, we’re surviving.”
However, Pyro wonders if the band may have over-reached when it comes to the number of live shows in Ireland. “I think the gigging has probably been detrimental in some ways to the band. When you’re around all the time, there’s no mystique. People know they can see you in a few weeks or next month. Other bands will wait until the album comes out, but we have to gig all the time because that’s what pays our bills.”
Going abroad hasn’t turned out to be as successful as they might have hoped.
“We’ve been trying to push outside of Ireland but it’s difficult because we’re not polished and we’re not easily marketable. When people think of R’n’B, they think of someone spruced up and polished like Justin Timberlake. With us, it’s more grimey and it’s not properly executed, which is actually the great joy of it.”
It will be interesting to gauge the reaction of long-time fans to the sound of the new album. It may not contain, as Pyro acknowledges, such instant radio-friendly songs as Comeback Girlor I Like Music, but it certainly has one hell of a bounce.
“When we came out with the first album, there weren’t that many bands in Ireland doing the same stuff and the album sounded very naive. On the second album, we got into more of a pop groove. I’ve always wished we could marry the finesse and musicianship of the later stuff with the songs we had on the first album. I think we’ve done that this time around. Now, we’ve a great rhythm section, there’s jazzers in the band and we’ve that swing which we always wanted.”
Bounce at the Devilis out now. See republicofloose.com for upcoming tour dates
