New Secret Weapon talk work with Steve Albini

Steve Albini’s musical history reads like a who’s who of the industry – everyone from Nirvana and Pixies to PJ Harvey and the Manics have linked up with the legendary studio whizz. It makes sense, then, that as soon as New Secret Weapon landed back on Irish soil following a French sojourn with the knob-twiddler extraordinaire, HP were knocking on their door looking for all the goss.

“We got a few war stories alright, and plenty of stuff that I wouldn’t fancy sharing,” laughs David Griffin, frontman of the hard-rocking Dublin trio. “He’s an amazing guy, and he appreciates dry humour and quick wit. It’s like a game of Catchphrase, he’ll say what he sees!”
The boys had lined up a trip to Chicago to work with Albini, but he decided to fast track things and bring them down for his ‘Mix with the Masters’ seminar.
“He was digging the tunes from our previous work,” Griff explains. “The whole thing was a bit of a fairytale romance, straight off the bat. He’s in an alternative, progressive garage rock three-piece as well, so we shared a lot of those characteristics. We clicked from the outset.”
Indeed, it’s just as well there was awkwardness early doors. “There was no power on the night we arrived – we had a weird candlelit dinner with him to kick things off.”
The mutual love affair will resume in a matter of weeks as the boys jet Stateside to finish off the recording of LP No. 2, for which an October release is currently on the cards. But Albini’s not the only big name in the New Secret Weapon diary.
“The night we were in Rosslare, we were confirmed for Patti Smith,” Griff grins, looking forward to their Kilmainham date with the Godmother of Punk. “And that arrived about two days after we landed a show with Slayer’s Dave Lombardo. That’s quite the set of events – gigs with two legends, and recording with a legend to match. We were like three Cheshire cats on the boat across!”