Amusing Grace

Melodic post-punk outfit New Amusement formed, and promptly fell apart, when its four plucky Dublin musicians were still in secondary school. As luck would have it, after countless games of band member musical chairs, they were able to reform their original line-up a couple of years later and found themselves being swiftly snapped up by local label Any Other City, who you may know as the folks behind releases from Squarehead and Villagers.

“James (Byrne, label head) just heard us in a rehearsal room on Grafton Street” vocalist Brian Molloy recalls. “I think he was downstairs playing drums in another band. He knocked in and was like ‘I’m a DJ on Phantom!’ We closed the door thinking ‘Who’s this mugger?’ but then we Googled him and found out he was a DJ on Phantom!”
Once they’d confirmed that Byrne wasn’t an imposter, they headed straight into the studio to record what would eventually become the critically lauded Any Port In A Storm EP.
“We’d never been in a studio before,” Molloy laughs. “We didn’t know what we were doing. We were impressed to even be in a studio.”
The frontman proudly adds that the EP also got a vinyl release, and that although he doesn’t have access to a record player, he’s got two copies of it at home! He should consider getting one, I suggest, it makes a nice relief from the tinny sounds of laptop speakers and iPods…
“My iPod melted. It went on fire. I dunno what happened, the plug burned the iPod into the ground…”
Hmm. Maybe forget the record player, then.
Whether technophobes or technophiles, New Amusement bagged themselves a slew of big name support slots on the back of Any Port In A Storm, opening for British Sea Power, The Maccabees and Maxïmo Park.
“The last year we’ve kept under the radar,” Molloy notes.
Bassist Frankie Whelan takes the reins; “Support slots are deadly, but they give you a false sense of how good you are. You have to play on your own to get a real idea of where you are.”
I can only imagine the kind of deranged crowds they faced when they opened for indie favourites Vampire Weekend in the Ambassador a few years back.
“It was crazy,” Whelan confirms. “All these crazy kids calling out their names, all covered in neon glow paint.”
“I got mistaken for the singer!” Molloy laughs.
“But they realised after about five seconds! All these girls were like ‘Ezra! Ezra! Oh...’”
Flash forward two years and the mood rockers have finally released their first LP New Captain.
“We’re getting a bit more involved in how things are recorded now,” Molloy says. “We’re able to sit there with Shane (Cullen, K9 Studios) and know what he’s doing and what he’s talking about. We’re just more confident. When we started it was like ‘Whatever you say Mr. Producer Man!’, now it’s like ‘No, No, No. This is how we want it to sound!’”
So, it was their idea to feature the accordion – easily the most hated instrument on the planet?
“I used to play it when I was younger,” Whelan remembers. “We went through a stage of trying out weird instruments and it made its way onto some of the new songs. It’s a bitch to get on though ‘cause it’s only a wee one!”
As well as the bellow of the box, New Captain is blessed with a number of spooky instrumental tracks.
“They break the album up,” Molloy notes.
“We kept calling it the three-piece suite,” Whelan laughs. “‘An Edge Over Water’ ‘Picture On The Wall’ and ‘Headboard’. We thought it’d be nice if they went together. And ‘Volga Tattered Steps’ – that one just happened. It was done live in the studio, there were no edits - it was the first time we’d ever played it!”

My Captain is out now on Any Other City Records. New Amusement play De Barra's, Clonakilty (November 19) Dolan’s, Limerick (24) and the Sky And The Ground, Wexford (26). Listen to their track 'Lights Go Down' at hotpress.com.