You do the 'math

The phone line from Kildare to a mobile in Mullingar shouldn’t present too much of a challenge but with brothers Johnny and Michael Cronin of the Aftermath both trying to make themselves heard over its speaker phone, we may as well be trying to contact the moon.
All we can make out is ‘Leeds’, ‘JCB’ and ‘Terry Edwards’. Eventually we have to call time on the conference call and Johnny takes over to recount the story so far.
“I left Longford and moved to Leeds when I was 15 and got a job as a JCB driver. I was in a raggle-taggle gypsy band over there, then I was in a rock band, working under my own name. I supported the Frames and Damien Rice.
We became friends with a lot of people, Terry Edwards when we supported Gallon Drunk, the Ukranians, people like that.
Michael went to school with the Kaiser Chiefs and we used to play with them when they were in their old band. It was a bit of a strange time for Leeds when we were there. The Smiths were at an end, so was Madchester and there was this raggle-taggle boom for a while so I went into the singer songwriter thing for a while.”
Although things were going well for him, personal events put matters into perspective. “Our Dad died and I thought to hell with it, I want to go back home, I don’t want to die in England. ”
How would he compare the two music scenes? “I notice that the climate has changed with the whole solo acoustic thing but that’s not just here. I was in Leeds on Monday and everybody wants to be either Dizzee Rascal or Damien Rice, whereas over here we all want to be Franz Ferdinand or the Kaiser Chiefs.”
The Irish music scene is, he says, a great deal less predictable: “I remember supporting the Frames in Leeds and Glen would be rocking out and all the lads in the audience would be obsessed with Oasis and the mod thing, Glen had the grunge look with all the holes in his jumper and the girls all went for him because he had no image.”
And so came The Aftermath, named after the brothers’ favourite Stones album, with Johnny on guitar and vocals, Michael on drums and guitarist Justin McNabb.
Despite enduring the slog of the UK industry, Johnny had no doubts about giving it another go over here.
“It’s very easy to get a band up and running over here, there are great musicians around the country. The hard thing is getting gigs in Dublin but that’s the same in any capital city.”
The contacts that the pair made across the water have proved to be handy, as Johnny agrees. “Helen Turner, who is the keyboard player with Paul Weller and was in The Style Council, came over and did a gig with us in Ballinasloe a few weeks ago. On the album we’ve got Steve Wickham and Vyvienne Long, but they’re just friends helping us out.”
Another old friend has been Chris Moyles, who has launched his own unsigned bands showcase on MySpace. The only Irish band to appear so far, The Aftermath spent eight weeks in his chart. “Chris and I went to sixth form college together,” chuckles Johnny, “and he used to come to our gigs. It’s supposed to be voted for by him so I hope so. MySpace is a funny thing for sure.”
Doors, it would seem, are starting to open for the band, although not always with the desired result.
“I was actually told by a record company a year and a half ago that I was too plump, so I don’t know if I want to deal in that kind of race.”
In the meantime, moving things forward themselves seems to be working fine.
“We were working with Phil Vinyl, who worked with Placebo. We got his number off the Kaiser Chiefs. You’ll be able to hear it all on the album next year.”
Why so long? “There’ll be another single in October, then another in February and then the album and straight into the next record. I’ve got 80 or 90 songs ready to go and I’d like to do the second album in a couple of weeks. For the moment though, I want to build it up with the singles. What’s the point of putting out an album now and selling a few copies here and a few in Leeds? We want to build it a bit more and get a really good foundation.”

The Aftermath’s debut single ‘One Is Fun’ is out now on Live Transmission. They play The Savoy, Cork on Sept 9.