Music
02 Apr 09

Emerald bile

They were Ireland’s original of the punk species, and thirty years on from their debut, Paranoid visions are still fizzling with anti-establishment fury. The difference, they say, is that nowadays they are more likely to channel their rage through music rather than chuck a bottle through a shop window

Midway through the anarchic new Paranoid Visions album, Beware Of The God, there’s an unpleasant blast from Ireland’s troubled past when the sombre voice of a BBC newscaster opens the track ‘From Dublin With Love’: “There’s been serious rioting in Dublin. The worst trouble came this afternoon when the police intervened to prevent the protestors marching on the British Embassy. A pitched battle developed with stones and petrol bombs...”

It’s just one of many old samples used on the Dublin outfit’s latest release on their own FOAD label – the first album which features new members Aoife Destruction and Steo Pain (bringing the PV line-up to eight). The latter is responsible for all radio-outtakes.
“Steo built up a bank of 142 different samples and soundbites, and then collectively we chose what we were going to use on various songs,” explains vocalist and founder member Deko Dachau. “They’re all basically YouTube downloads. But the next stage of evolution with that is we’re gonna have visuals to go with them as well for our gigs.”
For the uninitiated, Paranoid Visions – who first formed in 1982 – are one of Dublin’s most legendary underground acts.
“We’re the last proper punk rock band in Dublin,” Deko says. “There are other punk bands but, of the people who were connected to the punk rock movement, we would be the last.”
Although they disbanded in the early ‘90s, the band reformed to play on the Sex Pistols reunion tour in 1996. Deko maintains that the split was mostly down to the difficulties of getting any shows.
“We had a horrible time in the ‘80s. We were the most outlawed group in the country. We were like the Pistols of Ireland. We couldn’t get gigs. We hadn’t been anywhere and we hadn’t done anything, but we had a name that went before us.
“It’s only since we reformed that we’re getting asked to play places – we’re turning down gigs. It’s funny cos we would’ve been at the opening of an envelope years ago. Now we’re getting gigs. For the first time we feel like a proper band.”
As an old-school punk, what does Deko make of Johnny Lydon advertising butter in a TV commercial?
“It’s fuckin’ great!” he laughs. “He’s just trying to piss everyone off. That was what was great about the Pistols. They pissed everybody off, including other punks and the whole system that followed them. They broke every rule in the book – and every cliché. So Johnny Rotten doing an ad for butter is brilliant. I’d rather see him on it than some fuckin’ clown celebrity chef.”
The album opens with the track ‘High Cost Of Living’, and features others with titles like ‘New Dark Ages’ and ‘Shell To Sea’.
“The songs are about the way the rights of the Irish people have been eroded and sold off. Multinationals having the rights over the people. It’s the government selling out the land from under people’s feet. You’ve got your land that you own, you’ve paid your money for, and you live on, and your children are there. And Shell is just one of many instances. Look at Tara!”
It’s obvious that Deko’s anger and disgust at the establishment hasn’t dimmed since the early ‘80s.
“I’m not angrier, I’m just the same,” he states. “But now I can articulate the anger better. Years ago, I would’ve just fucked a bottle through a shop window and let go. I was really angry then, but I didn’t have any direction and discipline about it. But now, after almost 30 years, I know what to do with it.”
With the recession kicking in, our business and political ‘leaders’ being exposed as corrupt parasites, and revolution in the air, it could well be that Paranoid Visions’ time has finally come.
“This time around the audience for our music and our message is potentially much bigger. There’s an awful lot more young people now than there was in the ‘70s. And most of them are on the dole, going fucking mad.”