New Kids On The Bloc

It’s not easy being a new band in Ireland these days, with venues seemingly bulging with act after act fighting for attention. For Dublin’s DC Pakt, though, life has got a bit easier with their appearance on the Faction One compilation alongside Republic Of Loose, Cathy Davey, Future Kings of Spain and the rest. Not bad for a band who’ve only been together since the turn of the year. “Yeah,” agrees vocalist Alan Dodds, “we’ve pretty much been doing what we’ve been doing since January. We went in and did a demo that Ken (Allen, Faction) got hold off and ended up on the Faction album. I’ve been knocking about for years but DC Pakt has only been around six months so I suppose it's fast enough”.

Not that DC Pakt are there to simply make up the numbers. Their fiery ‘Departure’ is one of the best tracks on the album, outscoring a few of the more established names. For Dodds, however, the experience hasn’t been about competition. “We got a phone call saying did we want to go on the album so it was all good news. Even the lesser known bands are still fairly well known. There’s a couple of acts on there who have been signed and not started to do much yet and then there’s us. I only got it the other day and gave it a listen but it sounds pretty good. We’ve been touring around with them for the past couple of weeks and they’re all good lads”.
Does he feel that it’s been helpful for them to get out playing around the country so soon in their career? “It’s a good to have some sort of connections to get gigs. It’s not the easiest thing in Ireland, you need to know people. We’d literally done three gigs before the Faction thing and now we’ve done six. It’s good practice”.
One thing that is noticeable about the album is how many of the bands are signed to overseas labels, from EMI to Fierce Panda. Has the DIY music industry culture that was so prevalent of late started to die out? “I suppose it depends. Maybe the days of everybody putting their own records out have passed, I’m not sure. The Mighty Stef just did it the other week. Faction could be as big as it wants to be, I guess they’re after the Fierce Panda thing”.
Whatever the case, Dodds thinks that the capital city is very much on the move. “I get the feeling of something building in Dublin big time. In the past two years you can just feel it. There’s so many more bands there, with the likes of Humanzi and stuff. That shows that something is happening and it will only get bigger. In the next year or two it can only get more interesting”.
For the moment though, DC Pakt are taking their time to establish themselves. “We’ve got a bit more work to do in the rehearsal studio. We have songs there that we need to get together. There’s a few more tunes to come out of us before we do anything proper. We just want to get it right before we go ahead”.

DC Pakt can be heard on the Faction One compilation on Faction Records.