The Hot Press Cover Story: The Riptide Movement

Few contemporary Irish rock acts can claim to have as much street cred as Lucan quartet The Riptide Movement. More specifically, fewer still can claim as much Grafton Street cred.

“We busked for about two years between the release of our first and second albums,” explains singer and guitarist Mal Tuohy. “Not just on Grafton Street, but that was always one of our main haunts.”

After seven years together, the spirited and enterprising Dubliners have just signed an international licensing deal with Universal Music that will hopefully see their third album, Getting Through, released in multiple territories. It’s the first official record contract of their career, but the truth is that they’ve already achieved an impressive amount under their own steam.

“It’s been like a marriage without the kids,” quips guitarist JPR Dalton of their time together.

Over the last couple of years, The Riptide Movement’s impressive DIY approach has allowed them to make multiple incursions into the Irish top 10; gig their way from Dublin to Delhi (with stop offs in Glasto, Germany, Russia, the Czech Republic and the US); take to the UK airwaves with a live performance backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra (“Yeah, one live take; we were going ‘we can’t screw this up because it’s going out to about 10 million people!’”); collaborate with filmmaker Jim Sheridan on an update of Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments and, last summer, support The Rolling Stones at their Hyde Park homecoming.

To top it all, on this glorious midweek afternoon in a Dublin city centre bar, they’re meeting Hot Press to be interviewed for their second cover story. Well, at least Mal and JPR are. Bassist Gerry McGarry and drummer Gar Byrne are elsewhere today.

A lot has happened to these four childhood friends – all now in their late twenties (JPR: “Just the right side of 30!”) – since they first officially got together in 2006, through their mutual love of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Ryan Adams, Rory Gallagher and, of course, their new pals The Rolling Stones. “We didn’t get to meet Mick and Keith on the day we supported them," Mal says, "but Charlie Watts was in the canteen having dinner beside us.”

What makes their CV to date so impressive is the fact that they’ve done it all themselves. There’s been no managers, no record company – just a hell of a lot of self-belief, enthusiasm and willingness to do whatever has to be done.

“We manage ourselves,” says Mal. “So far, it’s kind of been grand. When we’re really busy, it’s been difficult on occasion. It has served us well so far, but I’m sure – the way things are shaping up – we’ll need to get a manager soon.”

Despite their heavy gigging schedule, both nationally and internationally, they don’t have a tour manager. Yet.

“No, we pretty much do it all ourselves. We bring our sound engineer, Gerry Brady, and so far it’s worked well that way. But if we get any bigger – and we're planning to – we definitely will need a tour manager.”

Have they taken this DIY ethic from any other band’s business model?

“Not really,” Mal says, scratching his beard. “We kind of fell into the way we’ve been doing it. We set out to get a deal with the first album, and didn’t get it. None of the labels were interested. The second album was a kind of similar thing. So we released it ourselves. We learnt a lot about the industry by doing that. Like all aspects of it – promoting it, manufacturing CDs, getting best prices and all that. For this album, the Universal thing is great, because now we can focus on the music more than the business end of it.”

We’ll get to the new album in a pint or so. Before that, I'm curious about their busking period, which happened between the 2009 release of their debut, What About The Tip Jars? and 2012’s Keep On Keepin’ On.

“That paid for everything,” Mal reflects. “We used to go out every Saturday to Grafton Street, get our spot around 6 in the morning. Start up around midday, and then play until about 2pm. The aim was to sell 100 albums, and we’d normally do that within the two hours.”

Ignoring the preliminary costs, that’s pretty much €1,000 cash in the bag.

“Pretty much yeah, and we’d usually be doing our gigs as well on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights.”

Needless to say, their highly coveted and lucrative Grafton Street spot had to be protected from other bands and buskers. The lads had to get there at 6am sharp to ensure they’d retain it.

“Yeah, it was that competitive,” he laughs. “There’s only really two spots on Grafton Street where a band could play and everyone wanted them.”

JPR nods: “It was tough. Especially if you had a hangover, and you had to play, you’d be sitting there for about six hours before playing for two or three.”

Mal: “That’s the thing; you could be playing a gig in Clonmel or Cork or wherever – you don’t get home until three in the morning, and you could put your head down for a few hours, then someone would have to get up at half-five to get the spot for six.”

You only needed to send one person in to get the spot?

“No – at least two,” JPR laughs. “Because what would happen is that one person would fall asleep and the other could keep their senses in the van. We would get a lot of guys who just throw their guitar case down when you weren’t looking. You’d be staring out the other window and then it would be like, (shouts) ‘Hey buddy, get lost!’”

It took them a while to realise that they could actually park a van there.

“We didn’t cop that one for a while,” Mal smiles. “So we used to unload everything at six in the morning, and sit there freezing.”

What if it rained?

“We had a plastic sheet to cover everything!”

Well, that’s suffering for your art...

“It had to be done,” he shrugs. “I suppose, in a way, it was great because we got to know the songs inside out.”

Rather than desperately striving to keep the crowd, The Riptides quickly worked out how to use a three-song cycle to maximise profitability.

“We had it down to a science,” he smiles. “We used to play three songs – ‘Thieves In The Gallery’, ‘Keep On Keepin’ On’ and ‘Hot Tramp’ in that order. After the first song the crowd would start building, and then by the second there’d be a nice big crowd, and by the third song people would be crazy dancing, almost like a festival atmosphere. It was brilliant. The idea was to just give them a taste and leave them wanting more.”

JPR laughs. “The kids used to drag their mothers along to listen, and that was great, because once a kid starts dancing everyone is like ‘ahhh’ and they all start coming around and dancing in front of us.”

Mal: “We only played three songs because we noticed if you played for an hour, the crowd would stay for an hour, but with three songs you’d turn a new crowd every fifteen minutes. And sell a box of albums every time.”

That’s very efficient!

“It’s how good we got at it, I suppose,” he shrugs again. “This is what we had to do. We didn’t want to be out there all day, either, because we had been there since six in the morning and we might have a gig somewhere else that night, so you had to be efficient.”

What was your worst experience on the street?

Mal grimaces: “I had some fella spit in my face one day. He was a drunk and there was a big crowd there and he just came up and spat in my face. It was hard to restrain myself.”

JPR interjects, “Yeah, but you didn’t lay him out or anything! You just looked like ‘what the hell is going on?’”

Mal nods grimly. “That was one of the worst. You would also have stuff with the guards that could be very annoying. Like the one guard who didn’t particularly like you or whatever – not even that, he was just throwing his weight around – you’d be there from 6am, setup at 12 and five minutes into the show he’d come over and go, ‘That’s it, lads, show’s over!’”

Ireland being Ireland, the band soon worked out how to deal with that particular problem.

“Yeah, then that stopped because the Guards were doing a fundraiser one day, and they weren’t raising much. So we thought, ‘Why don’t we give half the money from each album we sell to the charity?’ So we helped them out that day, they made a few bob, and so they left us alone after that.”

Although they stopped busking upon the 2012 release of Keep On Keepin’ On, the band have no regrets about their time on the street.

“None at all,” says Mal, shaking his head. “It was a great experience, we learnt a lot from doing it. It was good for us as well, because we all did it together. It was the last thing you wanted to do on a Saturday, coming home from a gig, to go out and do that.”

JPR: “It’s a bonding thing, we’re all in this together, you know?”

Directly or indirectly, their busking sometimes led to some much more lucrative gigs.

“We weren’t really getting radio play, and no one really knew us, but we were still playing all the festivals,” Mal points out. “Oxegen, Electric Picnic and stuff like that. And it helped us tour a bit, we toured around France and Germany, India and Russia.”

Their tours of Russia and India both began with someone spotting them jamming on the street, taking a CD back to their home country, and then deciding to invite them over.

“Yeah, both of those came from people who bought the album and brought it back,” says Mal. “That’s the great thing about anybody who comes through Ireland. They’re going to spend a day in Dublin and walk up through Grafton Street. If they buy an album and bring it back to whatever country with them, word spreads from there. That’s how we got to Russia and how we got to India.

"Russia was an experience," he adds. "We flew into Moscow and it was a 12-hour drive from Moscow to Belgorod. It was like being on a horse for 12 hours straight. The roads aren’t the best, you know?“

The police stop you every two hours and the driver bribes them. That’s how they pay their tolls. Then we got down to Belgorod and it was great. There’s a guy called Konstantin who runs an Irish pub over there – he’s actually from the Ukraine. We’d play a gig for him on a Friday night and Saturday night – and the place would be packed full of Russians. They all got it. They all loved it. A great experience.”

As evidenced in the tour diary they wrote for Hot Press, their 2012 excursion to Delhi was even more memorable.

“Man, it’s crazy there,” JPR laughs. “You arrive and it’s six in the morning and it’s noisy... you have to go over, it’s some experience. The people over there, they don’t really drink alcohol so much. At the gigs, they weren’t really drinking. One of the gigs we did at this amphitheatre was for a couple of thousand students. That’s why we got invited over, by the Institute of Technology – for the Rendezvous Festival.

“We were playing and we didn’t know if they’d get our music... different country, different music. So we’re two songs in and the snare drum goes, then Gerry breaks a bass string, then my guitar amp died. So Mal is just playing with his guitar and singing and we’re thinking, ‘Oh man, how is this going to go?’ Everything started working again about a minute later, and people started getting up. They’re all sitting down, and then three or four get up and all of a sudden it’s a massive crowd and they start going nuts. I mean, like apeshit! And they weren’t even drinking!

“It’s three or four in the afternoon and it’s students, but by the end, I was crowd-surfing. I don’t think I’ve crowd-surfed in Ireland! And we went out wearing kurtas, which is a traditional Indian dress, to kind of fit in. We thought it would be a cool thing to do. So when we came on, the crowd were going crazy. Nobody else had done it – there were other acts from abroad playing. It’s a serious experience. You have to go. It’s hard to explain: it all just hits you at once.”

He takes a sip of Guinness and reflects, “I guess when you go somewhere like India or Russia, you’re expecting a completely different culture, and that’s what you get. You expect that maybe they won’t get your music, but the fact that they get it straight away is amazing.”

What would they say is the international appeal of The Riptide Movement’s sound?

“I think it’s the beat,” Mal proffers. “The guitar riffs. It’s definitely quite soulful, as well, lyrically. The energy is the main thing. That really comes across when you play live. When we go out there, we give it all we’ve got, every bit of energy we have. The crowd get that. We give energy and they give energy back to us. It’s like one big cauldron of energy.”

“I think there’s a sense of solid old rock about it,” adds JPR. “You go out and you’re going to a rock show. You hear that sometimes, ‘it’s just a rock and roll band’ and we have that, but there are other elements. That’s cool. People let themselves go at the gigs. That’s great. That gives you energy and drive over time.”

The Riptide Movement have a loyal Irish fanbase at this stage, but have also made small but significant inroads into the UK and US.

“Yeah, we always fill places like Cyprus Avenue, we fill the Róisín Dubh in Galway, Dolan’s in Limerick. Our last UK gig was in November in The Garage in London and we sold it out. It’s a small room, about 200 people, but it was a Tuesday night and we sold it out, which is encouraging. When we were in New York, we sold out The Cutting Room, another 200 people – a lot of Irish, but some Americans too. Our Facebook page is what, 13,000 ‘likes’ or whatever and we’re doing well on Twitter. It’s a decent fanbase, but for us, we’re only starting, really. We haven’t hit the big stage yet.”

Their soon to be released third album was actually recorded a year ago.

“We recorded Getting Through this time last year,” Mal explains. “April last year, down in Grouse Lodge. With Ted Hutt – he's the Gaslight Anthem man – who's done the Dropkick Murphys and that. Old Crow Medicine Show. He’s a founding member of Flogging Molly. Day one in Grouse Lodge, we knew we’d got our man because he was so enthusiastic and keen to try different things. He had this brilliant way of taking you to one side and saying, ‘That’s good... but I know you can do even better!’ Plus, he brought two of his Flogging Molly guitars with him, so we were able to play with those!“

He came over for four weeks last year, recorded the album, and had the mix done by the end of May. We’ve been sitting on it ever since.”

It’s a long time to be sitting on an album...

He nods. “It is, but we were shopping for a deal. We went to America in September, and when we got back we got a deal here with Universal. We set out to get a deal and we got it. We released the last two albums ourselves, and the last one did pretty well. But we felt we wanted to do more outside of Ireland as well, and we knew we needed a label to do that. We know how much work goes into that, and the cost involved – I suppose just getting the media behind it and all.”

Although they self-produced their sophomore album, their debut had a producer.

“The first one was produced by Tony Colton,” explains JPR. “He’s from Heads Hands And Feet, a band from the ‘60s and ‘70s. He produced some of Rory Gallagher’s albums in Taste. We bumped into him in the airport, and he came over and did our first album with us. That was some experience.”

As its title suggests, there’s a fair amount of foot-stomping positivity to be heard on Getting Through. However, one of the stand-out tracks, ‘Glór’, features the lyric, “Fuck this town and damn this economy!” Anger and frustration at contemporary Ireland isn’t a big theme, but it’s certainly in there.

“No, but it would be one part of the album, I suppose,” admits Mal. “There are two songs dealing with emigration, as that’s been something that’s happening the last 2-3 years. It's something that has affected us – like half of my friends are in Canada, Australia, London. The effect it’s had on people’s families and their friends – that’s what ‘Glór’ is about. It’s more a frustration thing. It’s not ‘fuck this country’ or anything, it’s more frustration at having to leave, when you’re happy here.”

The other emigration song is ‘Across The Water’, which is apparently Mal’s reinterpretation of an old Percy French standard.

“Yeah, that is basically a play on a Percy French song called ‘The Mountains Of Mourne’,” he explains. “The first line of ‘Across The Water’ is ‘Oh Mary, this place is as good as can be’, and first line of the ‘Mountains Of Mourne’ is ‘Oh Mary, this London’s a beautiful sight’. All my family are from Roscommon, my parents and stuff, and that’s where Percy French is from.

“My uncle actually runs a Percy French school there, and he asked if I would ever do one of his songs for this festival they have every year,” he continues. “So I was looking through his songs and that one stood out to me. I tried to put my own interpretation on it, more modern day Ireland, because I thought it was still very relevant. My interpretation is that it was a series of love letters. So ‘Across The Water’ is a modern interpretation of that. They’re the two songs that deal with emigration on the album.”

How would he sum up the rest of Getting Through?

“I’d say if we were to sum up the album, it’s kind of a personal journey for both me and the band. Some of it is autobiographical, but a lot of it is not. Say you might have five characters in the one song, put into one person. It’s a journey for us because it’s somewhere between youth and manhood, and the realisation that life isn’t just all about parties and stuff.

“There’s a few songs, like ‘Friday To Sunday’, living from Friday to Sunday, that would sum that up. Another called ‘Skin And Bones’, which is an interpretation of being on a three or four day session, and you’re doing it for years and years and sometimes it leads into Monday and you’re part of the Monday Club and you’re in a bar and there’s all these characters. That song has a few different characters in it...”

He takes another sip from his pint. “People are in different places in their lives for different reasons and the characters in that song... it’s kind of played out that way; it’s one person’s life but there’s four or five characters in it. And then we have ‘Animal’ which is a non-conformity song, so that’s like two fingers up to your boss or to your teacher or maybe a bad relationship you’re in, whether it’s with a friend or family or whoever. There’s a lot of different elements on the album.”

Right now, they’re looking forward to getting the album out here, there and, hopefully, everywhere. Have they been resting on their laurels while waiting for a record deal or are there already other new songs in the can?

“Ah yeah, we’re still writing all the time,” says Mal. “The great thing with this album is that we wrote Keep On Keepin’ On in 2010 and we didn’t release that until 2012 and then we gigged through 2013. We love the album and we’re very proud of it – but if you’re playing the same songs through the years, you get bored.

“It’s nice to write a whole new batch of songs for where the band were in April 2013. It’s still fresh, even though we’ve been listening to those songs for a year now. We love playing them. And I suppose most people don’t even know them yet. They haven’t gotten a taste yet and so we’re excited about that.”

“It’s also great having Universal on board,” JPR concludes. “They’re really into the album, and full of ideas as to how working together we can take it to the next level. So it’s going to be a really exciting 2014!”

Getting Through is out on April 4