Mental Machine Music

They spent a year in a ‘bunker’ before playing their first gigs. But all the preparation proved worthwhile as Before Machine’s eclectic gigs have demonstrated.

Colin Carberry, 04 Sep 2012

If Andy Melville wasn’t in an indie band, he could develop a lucrative sideline holding up banks.

The Before Machine’s frontman cuts an unassuming figure, but settle down for a chat and his analytical method and gift for meticulous planning shines through.

“You have to show initiative,” he says. “Things are up in the air at the moment, so you have to think through your options.”

He’d have the vault cleared before anyone realised he was there. Rewind back to 2008 and Andy’s painstaking nature can be seen in the band’s initial recruitment process. With a CV showing membership of a series of misfiring indie outfits, Andy decided to apply some hard earned lessons during the start up of his new band.

“It was all about the right people,” he admits. “I knew Larkin and I knew Larkin drummed, but he’d never been in a band before. But I also knew he loved bands like Interpol and Death Cab, and they were bands with very creative, subtle drummers. That’s what I wanted for us, so I pestered him.”

His instinct proved spot-on. However, while the young band quickly evolved a sound all its members were excited by – rather than plugging in immediately to the local gigging circuit, Before Machines instead dug ever deeper into their bunker. It was almost a year before they played any gigs.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” smiles Andy. “We were trying to get a set of songs together that we were all happy with. At the very start we were still trying to work one-another out musically, and we all thought it was important that when we did go public that we looked and sounded like a real band. First impressions are important.”

Did he have trouble remaining patient?

“We were going nuts!” he laughs. “We were climbing the walls by the end – just busting to get out there. There was a bit of terror there too – because if people hated it, then it was back to the drawing-board. But we were delighted with how it went down.”

To date, this painstaking strategy has served them well. Their first release, the double A-side ‘Hearts’/‘Runaway’, was an interesting teaser, while last year’s ‘Stalagmites’ proved a further step up in class. The group have also pushed themselves on the live front – not allowing the local grass to grow too comfortably under their feet, they’ve taken to the road – spreading the word across Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe.

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