'00s: noughty boy

1998 had been a landmark year on account of myself, Fergal and Hillary doing the Leaving Cert. Despite hardly opening a book, we all did pretty well and left thinking, “If JJ72 goes horribly wrong, we’ve got something to fall back on.”

We gave them such an earbashing about wanting to be in a band and make music that the teachers pretty much left us alone. Not that we didn’t bother with school – that piece of paper proving I’m not thick was important to me! By the same token, there was no way on earth you were going to get me into a 9 to 5. What’s always appealed to me about doing this is that 30 minutes of inspiration is infinitely more valuable than eight hours of grind. I revel in being able to get out of bed at half-past midday and then working for an hour, as a band, on a song I’ve written the night before at two in the morning. It’s the creative process combined with the immediacy and spending long periods in bed that I get off on!

With Whelan’s too singer-songwritery and Slattery’s too pub rock, we gravitated towards places like Behan’s and the 13th Floor which, in our arty little minds, were far cooler. They were in fact more likely to result in you getting beaten up, but nevertheless it was being bottom of a four-band bill at the 13th Floor which more or less got us signed. We were very fortunate that Conor Brooks and Conor Flaherty – alias Lakota Records – took an interest in JJ72 early on. In an encouraging rather than a smothering sort of a way, which allowed us to keep writing and playing our dark, gothy gigs. We got a lot of offers from majors later on but thought, no, let’s go with these guys who’ve known us from an early stage. We didn’t consider it a gamble, although in retrospect it probably was.

What’s great about Lakota is that it’s music first, sales second. I honestly think they’d rather sell 25,000 of something they totally believe in than two million of some by-numbers shite that will be forgotten about in a year’s time. That’s certainly the vibe they gave when we were recording our first album. One of the reasons it turned out as well as it did was that nobody was trying to steer us in spurious directions.

Prior to that we’d spent a year touring round the UK, gradually getting to play bigger gigs and building a following. It was coming up to the single before the album when Hall Or Nothing got involved on the management side. We were really impressed by the fact that Martin Hall and his brother Philip, who has since unfortunately died, went to see the Manics play in a school classroom in Wales somewhere. The boys had sent them a letter saying that they were the best band in the world and, rather than chucking it in the bin like I would’ve, Martin decided to call their bluff. It was very flattering that one half of that partnership came to see us rehearsing in Dublin and straight away said, “Yeah, there’s something here.”

The resentment we get from here – and I know there is some – invariably comes from people who don’t know what being in a band really involves. Believe me, reaching where we are now has been a hard fucking slog. We’ve also been accused of being anti-other Irish artists, which is ridiculous given how I’ve always been into The Frames and love young bands like Melaton. You almost feel like saying, “Sorry, I didn’t realise selling 200,000 records was a crime!”

I’m still sort of amazed that that many people– five full Lansdowne Roads – bought our album. We expected it to drop straight down when it went in at number 13 in Britain but, no, it hung around for a lot of weeks.

In terms of taking it to the next level, the biggest thing we’ve done is probably supporting U2. Bizarrely, we weren’t as excited about Slane as we should’ve been because having been on the road so long, we’d become a tad arrogant and thought it was our right. Thankfully, that arrogance wasn’t there when we opened for them in Copenhagen and had the best night of our lives.

We’re currently finishing up our second album, which is due in September, and without wanting to be immodest I really think it’s a great record. We’ve done small tours in Japan and America that have gone very well, so hopefully we’ll get to work this one globally. Selling records in the States, especially, is a lottery so I’m not going to jump out of a window if it bombs.

What getting this far has done is make me appreciate just what a special place Ireland is. As much as I’ve enjoyed being in the studio in London, I’ve had to fly home every second weekend to keep myself sane. The thought of being on the road non-stop for a year, which could well happen, is therefore a bit scary but, hey, I’m the guy who didn’t want a 9 to 5!