Dawn of the dead

We Should Be Dead? Nonsense – this is the first day of the rest of your life, particularly if you’re a certain Meteor-nominated pop-punk four-piece from Limerick about to launch a debut album entitled Forget Romance, Let’s Dance!

For WSBD, the first day of February starts with promo duties in Phantom FM, swiftly followed by an instore set at Tower. Straight after meeting Hot Press, the band will mooch on over to Crawdaddy to soundcheck for tonight’s launch party. So did they rise this morning with armour donned and loins girded, prepared to meet their manifest destiny? Not a bit of it.
“It was more like, ‘What time is it? – Let’s run!” quips drummer Stephen, in a manner as direct and unpretentious as his band’s music.
We would expect no less. WSBD announced themselves before Christmas with the download single ‘Forget Romance, Let’s Dance!’, an effervescent hybrid of early Blondie, End Of The Century era Ramones, a smidgeon of L7 and maybe even a hint of Plastic Bertrand. Here was a band from Limerick, a city maligned as grim and grey, producing an exuberant fuzzpop fizz. Goodbye to rainy realism and acoustic blues. Goodbye Angela’s Ashes. Hello brave new pop world.
“Everyone knows Limerick for being a wet, rainy city, so to have a sparkly pop song brightens up the day a bit,” says singer Tara, she of the French waif looks and husky speaking voice. “And lyrically, so much of it is based on relationships, but making it a little bit more tongue in cheek.”
If you concur that a good pop song is the apex of any branch of the arts, you’ll dig where this band are coming from. One suspects there’s a copy of the Phil Spector box-set lying around their rehearsal room.
“You’ve actually hit the nail on the head there,” Tara says, indicating her bandmate. “Obsessed. In a good way.”
“Yeah, I am obsessed,” Stephen admits. “Although I don’t think we’re as influenced as someone like The Pipettes. It’s more the songwriting, structure wise, than the sound. We didn’t go too overkill with the big production, we didn’t go layering drums upon drums, but it’s very live.”
“That was the aim,” Tara reflects. “Everything on the album, we had to be able to pull it off live. From day one, if we couldn’t do it live, forget about it. ’Cos if you don’t, people feel cheated.”
The important thing, the band stress, is not to xerox the classic girl-group bouffants and bubblegum sound, but capture the feeling behind it – and then buff it up with buzzsaw guitars.
“The innocence,” says Stephen. “Like when you’re a kid, going back and writing about certain times when you’re 15 or 16.”
“I think you lose your innocence,” adds Tara, “but as you go on through life it comes back. I honestly see my mother as innocent: she probably developed into a strong woman over her life, but now it’s like she’s innocent again.”
Stephen: “She listens to Belle & Sebastian now!”

Forget Romance, Let’s Dance! is out now on Pop4Pop