As we move into the New Year and start the inevitable search for the next big thing, it’s not a bad time to be in a new band. Cork’s Rest may not be exactly new – they’ve been around in some form or another since 1999 – but Graham Lynch certainly agrees that there is a positive in the air.

“We had initially thought about having the album out for December but someone pointed out to us that by that point you’re last year’s band, last year’s album,” he notes. “That was at the back of our minds. It’s not just a good time because it’s January, it’s a good year in general for Irish music. There’ll be some good releases, there’s some good bands from Cork releasing records. Last year was a particularly good year for Irish music and it’s great to be part of it.”
Known in their early days as Wretch and heavily influenced by stoner rockers Kyuss, the band found themselves forced to take their current all-instrumental path by a sudden decision from one of their number.
“Our vocalist at the time got up one morning and said I don’t want to sing anymore,” Graham explains. “Without vocals, a lot of what we used to do was pointless, so we started writing new stuff. All the time we were expanding our own tastes anyway, bringing in new influences. The music just started changing. We actually looked for guest vocalists but they didn’t work out so we decided that the songs stood up on their own and we went for it. We didn’t want to stop gigging.”
Does Graham find that their audience have to work harder when a band doesn’t have a vocalist? “This is the thing. Most people latch onto a vocal melody first of all. For people not to have that, I think they need to pay a bit more attention. You’ve got to look elsewhere for something to latch onto. By no means is a vocal a necessity. Just because you don’t have a vocalist doesn’t mean that you’re lacking in melody or that people can’t understand what you’re doing. It’s a challenge but an enjoyable one.”
Whether the comparisons are valid or not, bands like Rest are always likely to be lumped in with a small circle of artists who move in a similar field. “There are certain bands that you’re always going to be associated with, no matter how you sound,” says Graham. “If you’re an Irish instrumental band everybody talks about Redneck Manifesto. To be completely honest, they were one of the last bands that we heard because we couldn’t get their album in Cork at all, we had to wait for them to come down and play. They’re a fantastic band though”.
If the two track taster for the band’s forthcoming debut album is anything to go by, Rest are going to more than equal anything that the rest of the Irish left-field set can offer. Taking the post-rock sound merely as a kicking off point, they’ve used their time in the studio to develop and expand on it, as Graham explains.
“We had a string quartet, we had a vocalist from Cork called Annette Buckley who took the chance to experiment and do things that she hadn’t done on her own album,” Graham explains. “We added keyboards, harmoniums, any instruments we could find to keep it interesting. If you get the opportunity to try these things in the studio,” he concludes, “you should take it.”