Our Glorious Leaders

Perhaps it was fate? You christen your band ‘Leaders Of Men’ and six months later you’re standing tall, having vanquished all around you. You pause for breath as you’re officially crowned Ireland’s Next Big Thing. Then again, these five Tallaght natives don’t do cute coincidence. As the name suggests, they do not follow the pack, either. Instead, they excel at taking what’s expected and turning it on its head. The result? A compelling fusion of NYC gloom and good old-fashioned Irish vitriol that refuses to be ignored.

We saw their potential when they won the inaugural Play On The Day competition last September. So, they’re good. We know this much. They know it too. After all, it takes some confidence to rock up to your very first Hot Press cover shoot clad in the world’s most beat-up pair of red Converse.
“I knew this was coming!” laughs frontman Brian Ashe. “Would you believe, I actually have them on right now? I was in another band and I played at Oxegen in 2008 and the Cons got rightly fucked up, as they do at a festival. I left them in a wardrobe for about two-and-a-half years. I’ve got about ten pairs. I dug these out, gave them a little wash. I love Cons with character. I hate seeing a fresh pair. I think people look like children’s presenters when they have fresh, bright ones on. It just reminds me of The Den or something.
“For me, mine have to be as scruffy and worn as possible. That’s the way they were designed to be. So, it was very important to me that they got into the photoshoot. I think they were the stars, really. People talked more about my runners more than anything else. ‘Have you seen the fuckin’ state of your runners there, chap?’ Yeah, they’re meant to be that way! I can afford a new pair, I’m not a hobo; I just like them that way.”
It makes sense. Some things just aren’t meant to be pristine. Ashe and his comrades are unlikely to compromise on their rough and ready aesthetic in a bid to impress the company they keep. Speaking of which, how did it feel rubbing shoulders with the stars last Arthur’s Day?
“It was a mad day,” he recalls. “The week before, we played in our local on a Friday, just to a few mates in the upstairs of a restaurant in Tallaght. Arthur’s Day itself, that was the same day that Hot Press was out, so we’re walking to the shop for smokes and there’s your face on the cover and then you’re on the way to soundcheck with Paolo Nutini and Stereophonics, so that was a fuckin’ mad day. Very, very, very mental. Did we freak out? Honestly, no. It felt comfortable. It might be an ego thing but I think because we have our aims set so high that we know all the stages that we have to go through until we get to the big stadiums. Unfortunately, we are that cocky in the sense that this is where we want to go and what we want to do.
“There’s no point in doing something if you don’t want to be the best at it. If you’re going to be a band, try and be the biggest you possibly can and aim for that. Every other step should be a stepping stone. With that mentality, you don’t really get fazed on the way up. The day you walk out in the Aviva in front of 50,000 people? That’s when you’re allowed to get fazed.”
There’s not a hint of doubt or humour in Ashe’s voice as he lists off this lofty ambition in the same tone of voice that you or I would use to order a coffee. Such moments are a case of when, not if. The ‘when’ is interesting, where Leaders Of Men are concerned. Their continuing ascent up the ladder has barely left time to stop and take it all in, yet there is a deliberate slow burn aspect to their music that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Take new EP A Trick On Confidence, for example. First recorded as part of an RTÉ session, the finished product failed to leave the band particularly enamoured.
“It came out really clean, really poppy,” sighs Ashe. “We listened back to it and our cringe bones went on fire, to be honest. We got the masters, deleted everything and started from scratch. It was originally titled The War On Conversation which will never exist again, in that form at least. I felt like Danny from The Coronas listening to Metallica or something. I was burning inside. With the new EP, we did everything our way. It was 100% the kind of thing that we would want to listen to and not necessarily what radio would like. And it worked out better in our favour. It is a slow-burner, purposefully so.
“The background in music that I come from is a lot of three-and-a-half minute gems and hooky choruses. This is the idea with Leaders Of Men – to do whatever the fuck we want to do. That’s why we have 20-bar intros where it’s just drums which are never going to get onto the radio. Slow burners are best in the long run, though. Most of the best music is like that. If you love a song straight away, you’ll hate it a few weeks later. Whereas with us, give it ten or fifteen listens and the more it’ll start to reward you. That’s my theory and I’m fuckin’ sticking to it!”

Leaders Of Men play Arthur's Day on September 27.