imBau - On Our Radar Q&A: "It's the instruments that come first"

What’s the story behind the band’s name?

Eóin: Well, it came from my dad. It happened two years ago when we started. I was just making some demos in my room in college and I sent him one. I said it’s not really finished – it’s like there’s just a few parts there, it’s not really a full song. He said, it’s imBau, it’s under construction. So it represents the process of building something.

Having formed in Dundalk and played gigs there, how does it compare to playing in Dublin?

Eóin: They’re kind of similar. It’s obviously different playing in a bigger city, but a lot of Dundalk carries over to Dublin, because all the bigger Dundalk bands will play Dublin too. I feel there’s a lot more of a community in Dundalk though, it’s closer knit. When we started out, we just wanted to play in Dublin, and we didn’t really know that many people in music in Dundalk. But recently we’ve got to know a lot more people.

Are you planning on releasing any songs in the near future?

Skye: We’ve been recording recently with David Noonan of Just Mustard, and are planning to release next year or the end of this year. We recorded two songs.

What inspires your lyrics?

Ferdia: Ranier comes up with the melody and then adds words. It’s more about the sound than what he’s actually saying; it’s the instruments that come first. We have one song that’s just an instrumental – it’s on the demo. We usually have an instrumental on the setlist.