Gentlemen, Relish

Racism has emerged as one of Irelands most pressing social issues in recent years. The recent hotpress anti-racism CD, Go Move Shift attempts to raise awareness around the issue, and includes the track ‘Wildflowers’ by Irish band Relish. The band include brothers Ken and Carl Papenfus who come from a South African backgraound. The Belfast natives took time out of their busy schedule – namely a UK tour with Wheatus – to talk to us about their experiences of colour prejudice.

“I encountered racism more as I got older,” says Ken. “As a kid you’re seen as being cute and interesting, but it’s not until you get to dating age that you start to realise that you’re black. I can remember on one occasion, I took a girl to the cinema and a brother of a guy that was in my class at school said ‘I can’t believe Ken was going out with a white girl, I just assumed he’d be going out with a black girl’. That was the first time I realised that maybe I was different.”

However, he is quick to hi-light the differences between intrinsic racism and the habitual Saturday night violence we have become accustomed to.

“I think that as long as black people are being seen in a positive light, there’s not going to be much problem,” he says. “I can walk out on the street tonight, get full, stagger out of the pub, bump into someone and end up in a fight. That’s not racism. That’s just life. I come from a background that is originally South African. That’s racism in its most extreme – it’s part of the culture and part of the political system. But that’s not the case here.”

As far as their music goes, Relish are responsible for introducing an element of soul to the often monotonous Irish rock scene. “Soul and R’n’B are seen as black music, but we prefer to be seen as a rock band who are going against the grain. We often get that thing where we pull up to venues and the people are like, ‘Oh, are you guys a reggae band then?’ We just say, ‘Yeah’. It’s still fairly uncomfortable for a band to be deemed black and still rock. Black music and rock is something that should be liberated; and I think we’re on that mission as well.”