Gang Of Flaw
The border counties may not exactly be a hotbed of indie rock but that hasn’t stopped Monaghan hopefuls The Flaws from producing one of the year’s most mesmerising debuts.
Paul Nolan, 08 Oct 2007
Two of the strongest songs on the album are the singles ‘1981’ and ‘Sixteen’, the latter of which kicks off with a very Killers-like synth part.
“We’ve heard that,” nods Paul. “I don’t know if that was a good idea or not. At the heart of it, it’s a quirky pop song, but… we wrote that song before The Killers were even going. Bastards! (Laughs) It’s a song about… I used to have this really weird dream. I had pneumonia, and I would get fevers. I still can get relapses, but when I was younger I was on this medication. When I was in the grip of the fever, I would have this dream about an angry old man, and he was trying to level out this bowl of sand.
“But he can never do it, because when he applies a wee bit of pressure to one part, it pushes up the sand somewhere else. Then he gets so annoyed, he throws it at my face, at which point I’d wake up. So I thought I’d use that in a song. Instead of writing about the dream, I wrote about having the dream. The chorus goes, ‘Even as a boy of sixteen/I had this recurring kind of dream’.”
Speaking of surreal spookiness, to these ears Paul sounds a little like Marilyn Manson on ‘1981’.
“Really?” he replies, sounding vaguely shocked. “That’s mental! Honestly, I have every Marilyn Manson album. Actually, I don’t have the last two, but when I was growing up I had Antichrist Superstar and Portrait Of An American Family. I was a young punk rocker, and I’d listen to anything, and I do have some Marilyn Manson. But for someone to say that, it’s crazy. (Laughs) I’ll take it on board.”
Among the groups Paul and the boys have toured with are, of course, The Thrills, and the singer is quick to credit the band’s guitarist, Daniel Ryan, with playing a key role in The Flaws’ development.
“He was paramount when it came to us even doing demos,” explains Paul. “We met him two years ago, he came to see us at the very start. He really liked us, he knew all the words to ‘Sixteen’ before we even had the song finished. It was his enthusiasm that made us realise that people on a wider scale could like our music. He came to see us loads of times at the start and helped us put the album together.”
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