Here's The Beef

Of all the things I expected to be listening to in 2010, a breathy Irish synth-pop take on AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ was not one of them. Angus & Co.’s electro makeover has come courtesy of Babybeef, the one-woman Kildare band also known as Sarah Carroll Kelly, whose eponymous debut album is very much in the Little Boots and La Roux mould – only better!

“I’ve always thought of my music as being quite indie and leftfield, but a lot of people have been saying, ‘That sounds like a hit single!’” reflects Carroll Kelly, who teaches six form students for a proper living. “I have to say I was thrilled when I was driving to Liffey Valley one day with my brother and he went, ‘Hang on, that’s you coming out of the radio!’ I pulled over and, sure enough, Phantom were playing ‘Thunderstruck’. That was a huge deal for me.”
Has she received any feedback from the AC/DC camp?
“Well, AC/DC heard and approved it before it went on the record,” she resumes. “Technically I didn’t need their permission, but because they’re not on iTunes I thought, ‘Perhaps they’re like Prince and really protective of their songs.’ I was yo-yoing around labels – one of them said I’d have to pay five grand or something – but then I got on to the new people they’re with and they went, ‘We’ve had a listen and that’s fine, just credit the band.’ The assumption is that I was being kitsch by covering it, but I’m actually a huge rock fan. I was trying to decide what to listen to yesterday for instance, and System Of A Down won out over Blur! The good news for AC/DC fans who are upset about it – and there are quite a few! – is that every time it’s played they get the money, not me!”
It mightn’t sound like it, but Babybeef is a totally DIY affair with Carroll Kelly playing all the instruments and setting up her own After The Quake label to release it. She was however able to call on the wise counsel of Stephen Shannon, the man behind the Experimental Audio studio where the non-bedroom parts of the album were assembled.
“I call Stephen my fairy godmother, although I ought to point out that physically he’s a real blokey ex-punk guy,” she laughs. “I couldn’t have hoped for a better mentor and quality control man – he told me when things worked and when they didn’t, which being so close to the songs I needed. It’d definitely be a very different record if I hadn’t worked with Stephen.”
Sarah’s only dalliance with bandom – “We had three or four of our own songs, the rest were shouty rock covers” – ended when she went off to Art College in Limerick.
“Part of the campus was in this old convent that used to have a Magdalene laundry attached to it,” she recalls. “We were told not to go up to the attic, so we did and discovered all these partitioned little rooms where these poor women were forced to live. There were bits of knitting and other personal effects lying around – it was very sad.”
While a firm believer in the music coming first – “You can’t dress up a bad song” – Ms. Beef also has a very strong sense of personal style.
“One of my friends from college is Joanne Hynes, the designer, who’s super nice and lets me take what I want. She’s back from Shanghai Fashion Week on Thursday, so I’ll be able to catch up on all the gossip then.”
There was a time when the Dublin indie scene was riven with bitchiness and infighting but not, says Sarah, any more.
“I think it’s a wonderful city to make music in,” she asserts. “Apart from Stephen, I’ve been helped out on numerous different levels by Ciaran Smith, otherwise known as Crayonsmith, Hipster Youth, Joanne, Fernando who does video loops and Sam Boyd who does the graphics. It’s all friends working together, which I think is the only way to go with the music industry disintegrating.”

Babybeef’s self-titled debut album is out now on After The Quake Records.