It’s been a busy 12 months for Maynooth-based three-piece Shadowplay, who’ve been consolidating their position as one of the hardest working live outfits on the circuit. Over the past year, the band (whose moniker was inspired by the Rory Gallagher classic of the same name,) have performed with Bobby Kimball of Toto fame, and shared bills with The Coronas, Mundy, The Stunning, The Undertones and The Saw Doctors. Last summer, they headlined the Buncrana Music Festival, playing to a crowd of over 5,000 while they were selected by Today FM’s Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show to be taken to Austria as the “Ski Trip” band for a week, playing to audiences of 500 over five nights.

Last December the band, who comprise Andy Dempsey (vocals, bass, guitar, keys), Eoghan Johnston (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Emmet Farrell (drums, percussion) beat 48 other acts to come out on top of the Summit Bandslam Music Awards at the Howth venue. Their prize included an EP produced at Phonic Studios by Conor O’Farrell-Brady (The Commitments, Jerry Fish, Partisans etc.) with EP cover artwork by Steve Averill of U2 fame. Their win also guarantees them slots at Vantastival and Indiependence this summer. The treadmill continues into 2012 for Shadowplay – just last week they teamed up for a Dublin date with former AC/DC drummer Chris Slade who was in town for The Music Show, and as winners of Hot Press’ Lift Off initiative also got to grace the Live Stage at the RDS.
“Yeah, it’s been non-stop for us,” agrees Eoghan Johnston, taking a break from mixing their new single ‘Go’ at Phonic studios as part of that competition prize. “Winning Bandslam was the icing on the cake for us at the end of a brilliant year – we didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t even watch any of the other bands on the night in case it would throw us. Sometimes it’s best not to know what the competition is – it keeps you focused on your own performance.” (laughs)
Working at Phonic, run by ex-In Tua Nua, Gravedigger and current Shane MacGowan drummer Paul Byrne, has been “amazing” he says.
“From a guitarist’s perspective, that studio is a dream come true and the sessions have gone really well. The single ‘Go’ has been in our live set for a while but it isn’t one of our oldest songs. It’s fairly young and fresh out of the barrel.”
With a sound rooted in the classic melodic rock of the ’70s, Shadowplay started out in 2010 as a covers band when they came together in their final year as music students at Maynooth. They have since switched to performing original material. With influences as diverse as Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Biffy Clyro, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Bowie, Coldplay and Pink Floyd the new single is a blend of those influences – with a particular nod to ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ in the piano riff.
One of the highlights of 2011 for the band included a five-date Irish tour with Bobby Kimball, vocalist with LA session supergroup Toto, who scored massive hits in the ’70s with songs such as ‘Rosanna’, ‘Africa’ and ‘Hold The Line’. The band got together with the American legend after meeting up at the launch of the i-tab electronic song and chord book.
Bass-player Andy Dempsey says it was a dream match: “We’d been playing ‘Hold The Line’ for years anyway but to perform it with the guy who originally sang it was great. We did a few other covers including ZZ Top’s ‘Tush’ and a version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed Delivered’. We even did ‘Stairway To Heaven’ with him which we were a bit nervous about but it ended up brilliantly.
“He has incredible energy,” Dempsey adds. “We were expecting him to conserve his energy on the first few days of the tour. He got straight into it. He outdrank us and outperformed us every night. We’re reuniting with him in a few weeks time at the Frankfurt Music Fair so we’re looking forward to that.”
Meanwhile an album, distributed by Universal Records, is in the planning stages. Explains Johnson: “We’re probably looking at mid-autumn but we’re still fresh from winning the prize and working on the single so we’ll see how that goes first. We’ll be busy gigging through the year but the album’s definitely a priority.
Finally, given their fast increasing workrate, are there any plans to expand the line-up to relieve the pressure?
“We definitely want to keep it as a three-piece. It’s always been just the three of us and the chemistry between us seems to work well.”

The single ‘In Drive’ is launched at Academy 2, Dublin March 10.