Goody Two-Shoos

“We just know we’re not cool, and that’s fine,” drummer Scott Maher shrugs. “Even our image is very simple. Black leather jackets, y’know? That’s what we are, we’re not trying to be cool, ‘cause we’re not cool.”

Guitarist Barry Plunkett interrupts, “We don’t want to be a ten-minute band.”
“And we’re never going to be an 18-year-old London band,” singer Texas agrees, “because I can’t fit into skinny jeans!”
They may not have the hippest haircuts in the business, but something about Dublin rockers The Shoos managed to catch the eyes of Stateside producers Michael Beinhorn (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson) and Warren Huart (The Fray), who they recorded with in LA last year.
“It was good to sit down and talk with these people before we actually played a note,” Maher recalls. “We got to know how they worked musically, which actually wasn’t very far away from the way we worked. It was really open-minded.”
“You almost get the feeling over there that anything is possible,” Plunkett gushes.
“For music, LA is like the centre of the world,” Maher agrees, “with all the producers and studios, in a way you feel like everyone is just a phone call away.”
“We played the Viper Rooms and the Whiskey A Go Go, and it’s all steeped in so much history,” Tex adds. “It really doesn’t hit you until you come back.”
As well as rubbing shoulders with all the right people, the foursome reckon their stint on the West Coast helped them connect better as a band.
“When you go away, you think you’re going to learn about the place you’re going to,” Maher explains, “but actually you learn more about the band! You learn more about each other!”
Aside from figuring out that a charming Irishman can fly from LA to NY using a CD sleeve as his only form of ID (don’t ask…), what did America teach The Shoos about The Shoos?
“We learned that writing is not something that is a chore, it’s not difficult for us,” Maher says. “For whatever reason, it just kind of happens.”
That’s not to say that the giddy foursome don’t have their fair share of problem tunes. In fact, their new seven-track mini-album Rescue Room is inspired by just that.
“Songs that are suffering, sometimes we need to rescue them,” Maher says, “so we take them into a different atmosphere, a different rehearsal studio or maybe the back of the car or somewhere that’s not we were. That became the rescue room. That’s the idea behind it, to rescue a song from...”
Plunkett chirps in; “…imminent death!”
One track that seems to have come particularly easily is unstoppable feel-good anthem ‘Yeah’, which was written the day after the Rolling Stones played Slane Castle in 2007.
“I spent most of the gig in a ditch,” Texas remembers, “I kind of came to on a bus heading to Belfast and I was like “Oh fuck! I’m supposed to be heading to Dublin!” so I got off in Dunshaughlin had to walk to Navan or somewhere to get a bus back. I got back at about six o’clock in the morning and we wrote ‘Yeah’ that day.”
I wouldn’t feel too sorry for the gravel-voiced front man, though. The Shoos have already nabbed some stellar support slots, both at home and in the US of A, opening for One Republic, Lifehouse and Maroon 5.
“The ratio of musicians in Ireland is so much better than American musicians,” Maher says. “In America, the shit bands are really shit, but then you get a band like One Republic who are writing pop songs that you’d imagine are easy enough to play. Then you see them and they’re actually really good individual musicians. Same with the lads from Maroon 5, they’re honestly brilliant musicians and we didn’t think so beforehand.”
Did seeing these chart-busting acts give The Shoos ideas for a flashy stage show of their own in the not-too-distant future?
“Well, even now we try to put together as much a visual show as we can within the budget, the €64 that we have!” Maher laughs.
Plunkett, on the other hand, is taking the question that little bit more literally.
“Camels!” he exclaims. “Camels and elephants!”
Now there’s a show we want to see.

Rescue Room is out now on Universal.