LA women

Southern California is a growing source of inspiration for some of the best new Irish music these days – what with The Thrills soaking up West Coast melodies and textures, even naming their debut single, ‘Santa Cruz’ after one of the Golden State’s more exotically named towns.

The latest Californian/Irish tie-up comes in the shape of Saucy Monky, an LA based but soon to be Dublin-bound indie-pop quartet. Featuring co-lead singers/guitarists Annmarie Cullen and Cynthia Catania, drummer Danny Hannon and bassist Carson Cohen, they’ve been described as The Pretenders meets U2, with echoes of The Breeders, The Vines, Coldplay and even the Beatles in their appealing repertoire.

Cullen and Hannon make up the Irish contingent of the band, who have been making waves in their home base with their debut albumCelebrity Trash, which has seen them described by LA’s New Times, as “the most alluring and exciting band to have emerged out of California in years.”

Originally from Terenure in Dublin, Cullen has been based in the US for around five years where she has been combining a music career with a day job. “I got the Green Card and decided to travel,” she says. “I had my own solo project going for quite a while out here. I even had a publishing deal with Warner-Chappel but I wasn’t having much luck with it. I ran into Cynthia and the others through a songwriters/musicians night in a local bar. We linked up with Danny and Carson and before we knew it, we had a band. It’s worked out surprisingly well, with the two of us girls fronting the band. To be honest our respective egos wouldn’t have let us do this a few years ago. But now we’re both quite happy to share the limelight.”

Constant gigging over the past year has clearly honed the band’s sound as well as enhancing their reputation as a force to be reckoned with.

“We’ve done a lot of college gigs since we’ve started – we’re actually pretty big in the college market right now,” Cullen explains. “It’s a hard circuit to get into initially, but there are so many colleges out here and they pay pretty well too.”

According to Cynthia Catania the American half of the band’s frontline, they are unquestionably a Californian band but with a distinctively Irish feel to the sound.
“It’s definitely harmony-driven music but our drummer Danny Hannon is Irish – Irish drummers have a Celtic feel no matter what kind of music they’re playing. There is just something about the Irish drumming style that is distinctive – you can hear it in Larry Mullen’s playing.”

Irish fans will get a chance to experience the Saucy’s for themselves during March when they jet over for short Irish/UK tour. “Ireland was always part of the plan for us,” says Cullen. “When I was at home at Christmas, I dropped CDs off all over the place and we got quite a bit of airplay. People in the industry in Ireland seem to have got behind us. Tom Dunne has been praising us on Pet Sounds and that did a lot for our reputation.”

In the meantime, songs penned and performed by the band can be heard in the several upcoming movie soundtracks, including the forthcoming Lisa Kudrow movie Bark, as well as In The Shadows (Cuba Gooding Jnr) and the indie film release, Monkey Love.