Perfect Timing - The Altered Hours Interview

“If there’s one place you don’t want food poisoning, it’s at a music festival. It was miserable,” says Cathal MacGabhann of his Electric Picnic. “Saturday, I saw Portaloos instead of Portishead.”

As frontman of a band named The Altered Hours, he of all people should appreciate the importance of timing. The band’s set on Friday was, luckily, 12 hours before he fell ill, and had gone off without a hitch.
In fact, the scene in the Body & Soul amphitheatre at dusk could scarcely have been more perfect.
“I did notice the sky at that gig,” he says. “The natural stage lighting, so to speak! It was banging.”
Hot Press was lucky enough to catch that show. The group’s sound – which drifts from the intense fury of April release ‘Dig Early’ to the melancholic reflection of last year’s single ‘Sweet Jelly Roll’ – was showcased beautifully for an enraptured crowd.
A week later and we’re seated at a café in Cork, the city the band now calls home. Not, they point out, that ‘home’ really matters all that much.
“If you’re serious about your music, and you’re honest, it doesn’t matter where you’re from,” proffers guitarist Kevin Terry.
“Some of the best music out there comes from very isolated places.” Cathal agrees: “I don’t like putting a place on music. I don’t understand someone saying, ‘this band is from Cork, and it’s that kind of buzz’. I’m from the countryside, not some city with a ‘scene’; I found music that I liked, not music that was near.”
Recently, the band decamped to Berlin to record their debut album. A change in scenery was an integral part of the decision to head somewhere new.
“When away from familiar surroundings, the familiarity of your own music grows stronger. It becomes closer to you... because everything else is that bit more strange. That, I quite like.”
Now, Altered Hours are heading for unchartered territory, preparing to bring their hypnotic brand of psychedelic rock to the UK for their first extensive tour there.
“We’ve had pretty warm receptions when we’ve played Britain before,” Kevin enthuses. “When you make the effort to go abroad to someone’s country, they’re immediately less jaded.”
In any case, the five-piece aren’t the type to fret about the greeting they’ll receive. In fact, there’s a word which seems to crop up time and again, one that could well define the group: fearless.
“I think you have to be,” Cathal reckons. “That way, you can be more free and truthful with each other, and hopefully see that translate to the music. You have to stand behind your work; you can’t just write a song and hope that people like it.”
Honesty and purity are at the heart of everything the band produce.
“If your music is genuine,” Kevin explains, “you’re already there. You’re doing what you want to do.”
Cathal smiles.
“We do – unfortunately – believe that. We’re happy where we are; we don’t feel the urge to jump through hoops to get somewhere else. There isn’t a plan; only to release good music. After that, it’s pretty much out of our control.”
Indeed, Cathal acknowledges he can’t even be sure what audiences might take from the music.
“I don’t know the sound we have live, because I don’t know what the crowd is hearing. We have a sound we want – from the reaction that we get at gigs I have a feeling it’s not what I thought it was. I really enjoy it... that’s the connection we want. The crowd’s interpretation can’t be wrong. How could they be wrong? Everyone is equal at a gig.”