Cereal Thrillers

"If our ancestors had known the joys of rock 'n' roll then perhaps the great blood feud of human history might have been very different. It separates the hipsters from the squares. It brings women and men together. Long live rock 'n' roll. And God bless the free market." — Sleevenotes for "Popsong" by The National Prayer Breakfast

The National Prayer Breakfast have survived several previous incarnations as College bands. Two years ago when the last band they were in split up, a core group of Patrick Freyne, Daire Keogh and Paul Clancy remained. Rather than bring more people on board they decided to press ahead as a trio. They all became involved in various Dublin pirate stations, getting to know each other better and gel as an outfit.

Daire recalls those days as "two nights a week on top of a roof with an aerial and three nights a week rehearsing as a band."

The influence of their pirate days can be heard on their debut single "Feeding Frenzy".

"It was really cool when Phantom FM picked up on that. It became an anthem of sorts for them. The DJs were getting pissed off being asked to play it so much and we nearly got sick of playing it," says Daire.

The Prayer Breakfast's underground appeal gradually filtered into the mainstream media. The Sunday Tribune, not usually noted for its promotion of young Irish talent, awarded "Feeding Frenzy" CD of the week.

"Yeah, we beat the Beastie Boys that week! We're bigger than the Beasties!" Daire recalls. "We talked to them on the phone the other day and they said they didn't mind. That was certainly great for us and broke the ice. For ages we didn't approach anyone or send out any copies of our stuff, because the challenge any Irish band has to face is to smash the perception that if you are unsigned you are instantly shite. Now we are beginning to approach people. Up until six weeks ago, we never sent stuff out to anyone."

Why do the Prayer Breakfast believe such a negative perception of the quality of young Irish acts exists?

"Sometimes when you look at that evidence it is a fair assumption. Essentially, there are huge production differences. If you are signed, you can afford to have very high production standards. If you are not, you have to be extremely talented for your songs to come across well without any backup."

"Feeding Frenzy" was ingeniously packaged with a fold-out National Prayer Breakfast Gazette crammed with comic book tabloid-style stories. Will the Prayer Breakfast continue this tradition?

"It was a bit excessive," Daire says. "That was because one of the things all of us have in common is that we grew up on comics. Also, all the music we listened to growing up was either copied to tapes or came with 'pay no more than £2.50' or something like Crass, where when you bought an LP you got 250 square feet of text. When you are used to that, you become really against buying a CD single for £5.99 with one song and two dance remixes. We want to make our stuff worth buying."

The essence of National Prayer Breakfast is a fun and surreal spin on life, love and just about anything you care to mention.

"Our lyrics are just instant carelessness. We just throw them out there. It's when we come back to them we get surprised by the significance of them! There is one song which we probably won't record but love playing live where the only lyrics are 'Sugar she burnt/she-bop Chopin/you're shitting on my head'. We conceptualised it afterwards in terms of literary theory as the anxiety of influence!

We are getting more and more into dancing music, purely as a pop music aspect, not a retro band that just steals swing or steals psychobilly. Our ambition is to go back and steal all those dance riffs, from rag right up to rockabilly, and make indie Jon Spencer/Fatboy Slim stuff. 'Popsong' is almost like our manifesto. This is what it's going to be; pop song after pop song after pop song, riff after riff after riff. It started with ragtime and ended—well, I don't know where it'll end. That's where we'll take it."

The National Prayer Breakfast launch "Popsong" with a launch party in the Funnel Bar, City Quay on Wednesday 7th April. At a mere £5 entrance fans will get to see the band and acquire their own copy of "Popsong". Support is provided by Palomine and Bobby Pulls A Wilson.