Let's talk about X, baby

You might well forgive Karen McCartney of Cowboy X if she was starting to feel that the odds were stacked against her and her band mates – at least when it comes to record store appearances.
Earlier today, their gig at Dublin’s Tower Records proved a bit of a disappointment, clashing as it did with a big match at Croke Park. It’s not the first time an in-store has been marred by events beyond their control.
“The last time we were there, the riots were going on. So I think we’re cursed when it comes to Tower,” she laughs, recalling the day a loyalist march was interrupted by local thugs, rather overshadowing Cowboy X’s gig. “We didn’t do too bad during the riots, they had the shutters down, but the doors were open. Tower have been really good to us, considering no-one had heard of us the first time.”
The latter is a state of affairs that is certainly beginning to change. Cowboy X appear to have burst onto the domestic scene in recent months, but in reality they have been working away for a while now, albeit on the quiet.
“We started as a studio band,” says Karen. “I met the lads (John Hanley, David Grealy and Adrian Garry) and they had a lot of the stuff already written and had decided that they wanted a girl to sing with them so they were looking for somebody."
Did being a solely recording orientated project actually give them more freedom?
“I suppose it did, we didn’t have to worry how it would work. We started off trying to play to backing tracks, but we felt it was a bit rigid. You can’t flow with what you feel is right at the time.”
Part of the impact that Cowboy X have made has undoubtedly stemmed from their unique image, which borrows freely from classic film noir (casting McCartney as the femme fatale).
Another part of their success has been the use of MySpace, although again this arrived almost by accident.
“We didn’t really know about it until one of John’s friends told us about it,” says McCartney. “It’s been a great thing, it’s basically free advertising. You get such a much wider audience.”
Although the use of such technology really should be seen as the norm, its effect are still noteworthy.
In Cowboy X’s case, it helped them gauge the audience for 'Gabbi', the track that would eventually be their debut release.
“We’d always decided that it would be the first single, but it was great to see all the reactions to it from My Space before we released it, so we knew that it would do well,” Karen says.
“'Gabbi' has been up there for so long, which is why it’s had so many hits, 30,000 or something. But it’s my favourite song anyway.”
The song was indeed a fine calling card, part rock, part pop, part electronic, all pretty cool. Now follows their first album, Who Are These People?
The record has actually been ready for the best part of two years now, the problem being that, as a live band, Cowboy X felt that they weren’t equally prepared.
“We wanted to practice playing live first because we knew that if we released something people would want to see us,” she says.
“You have to be able play live. That was the reason for the gap. It took us a long time but it was worth it. The album seems to have come out at the right time.”