Never mind the hillocks

Dublin four-piece Large Mound have a song on their new album called 'Rock For Sanity'. It’s a comment about the passion with which the band members undertake their roles.

“Are you trying to tell me you can come home/Broke, even after a full show?” the detractor says. “We were all pissed and you were drinking water/Seems like a pretty shitty night for you/And you didn’t get paid?”
That, says the band’s frontman Anthony Hickey, is the way things have gone since he formed the band in 1998.
“We’re not doing it for money – that’s not the point at all. We almost need to do the band, it’s what keeps us sane.”
Musicians spout this kind of thing all the time. But really, Anthony makes it bloody obvious Large Mound don’t give a flying one about the material gain from music.
“We’re under no delusions,” he states, devoid of bitterness. “We know that we’re not suddenly going to explode. No one’s interested in a Dublin band on their third album. It’s a hard sell.
“We could have easily changed our name and run around saying it was our debut album, and get lots of interest that way, but it’s not what we’re about.”
It shall thus remain that Large Mound are one of Ireland’s most exciting open secrets. Their third album My Whole Life Is Have To (a fab quote from fab flick Parenthood) is brimful of great ideas that, over the course of the album, wander into Redd Kross, Fugazi, Groop Dogrill, Wildhearts and Mogwai territory. Yeah, it’s low budget affair, but the songs are of such a quality that it’s easy to forgive. And live, it has the capacity to mark them out as something really special.
“This time, we went with the idea that less is more,” says Anthony, explaining their new approach. “We’ve stuck to a more traditional structure. All the songs are really short still [the closer ‘Kid House Work Car Band’ is the plodder of the batch at 3 mins 11 seconds], but they all have beginnings, middles and endings.”
Another change they made was that for the first time, Anthony sent his prized possessions to be polished.
“I thought the album might benefit from having other ears on it. So I sent it away to a few people to mix.”
Were the results refreshingly different?
“There were definitely parts that I never would have done,” he agrees. “I had to listen to them a few times to get used to them, but having other people’s input really added to it.”
The group is completed by Mark Jordan, Hugh McCabe and ex-Pet Lamb drummer Eric Stover, a line up solidified in January 2006. Previous to that, there had been five line-up changes, most leaving Anthony and Mark the only constants. At this stage, they’re veterans – but it’s only at this stage that Anthony’s happy with their accomplishments.
“I said when we started that I wanted to be a mix of They Might Be Giants and The Mistfits,” he explains, before elaborating. “They’re both bands with amazing bodies of work. If you tried to put a compilation CD together you’d find it really difficult because they have so many great songs.”
So is it time to put out a Large Mound greatest hits?
“Not yet,” he grins. “Give it another three albums and then we’ll talk.”

Large Mound play the Lantern, Navan (16 November); Lavery’s, Belfast (17); Roisin Dubh, Galway (23); Paris Texas, Kilkenny (30); The Lower Deck, Dublin (15 December)