Plastic Fantastic

After a year spent building a huge fanbase through prank phone calls, appearances on The Republic Of Telly and frequent gigs, including a set at Electric Picnic, the enigmatic, plastic-bag wearing comedians from Limerick, The Rubberbandits, proved to be 2010’s funniest newcomers. Their single ‘Horse Outside’ achieved nearly six million hits on YouTube and became an international sensation, reaching No. 2 in the Irish charts (daaaamn you X Factor!)

Known only as Blind Boy Boat Club and Mr. Chrome, there have been frequent attempts to reveal the identity of the masked Bandits. In December, when ‘Horse Outside’ was scaling the charts, a few newspapers claimed they were none other than Limerick Masters of Psychology student Dave Chambers and model-maker Bob McGlynn.
“Ah no, sure they were just lads putting windows up in our houses and journalists somehow got confused. They also got photos of two lads who we bring around with us, but they’re just our decoys,” says Blind Boy.
Blind Boy also poo-poos my theory that their penchant for constantly wearing plastic bag masks is a lifelong habit instilled in them by their father, Michael Jackson.
“No, no – we’re the love children of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson.”
Ah, well, good to see Mel Gibson’s got over his racist rants then. But the plastic bags have earned the lads a bit of bad press, especially from that moralistic mouthpiece for the country, the ever reasonable and objective Joe Duffy
“Children can put them on if they want, but we clearly put holes in them, so it’s like wearing nothing. Really if they put them on their heads without holes, it’s Darwinian. People who listen to Joe Duffy are basically the equivalent of the comments section of YouTube – it’s a load of people roaring and shouting down a homophobic well.”
Criticism aside, apparently the free plastic bags are serving The Rubberbandits very well when it comes to the ladies. Yes indeed.
“Oh they love it! Banging the chicks with the plastic bags, they love it. Sure, they can imagine any face they want. Plus, women love shopping, so if they can ride shopping? Riding groceries? I’m sure I’m making you hot just saying it. Come on, you’d love to ride groceries.”
Eh, no comment. But surely they wouldn’t want to attract the kinky shopaholic types. After all, isn’t their smash hit single ‘Horse Outside’ an anti-consumerist rallying cry against the materialistic mindset of spoiled Celtic Tiger Cubs that expresses how greed and superficiality are destroying our core values and making us forget that it’s the powerful, universal force of innocent, carefree love that unites us all?
“No, we just wanted to write a song about a horse, like.”
Alright then, let’s get back to basics: do The Rubberbandits actually have a horse outside?
“We have a few different horses. We’ve three or four we keep out in a field. And you can’t have a horse without a donkey, because they give the horses companionship. Donkeys live longer as well, do you know? Sure, that’s why there are two of us in the band. He’s the donkey to my racehorse. It depends on the mood though: sometimes I’d be his donkey.”
For a simple song about horses, the success they’ve achieved was a surprise even to the Bandits.
“It’s mad you know. We didn’t expect it. We wanted to write a song about horses and thought a couple of people of would have a chuckle and now we’re rolling around in dollars. We don’t mind euros but they always have famous bridges on them and Mr. Chrome’s brother fell off a bridge years ago after taking a load of speed. So we use dollars instead because they’ve got pictures of pyramids and none of his relations fell off a pyramid. Not yet anyway – his uncle is going over to Egypt there, God bless his soul. Plus the thing about dollars as well is that they smell awful. You have this massive stink of cash off ya, which is a good laugh.”
Which, along with the plastic bags, makes for a most powerful aphrodisiac.
“The women can smell the whiff of dollars off us as well, you know what I mean? I mean, half the time we’re washing the smell of dollars off ourselves and the other half we’re washing the smell of women off ourselves. We get the women because of the smell of dollars. It’s hard to know which to wash off first.”
But the women weren’t the only ones who came a-calling after their success. After a fan campaign to make ‘Horse Outside’ the Christmas No. 1 lost out to that other bloke from the telly, Matt Cardle, The Rubberbandits received a call from the one and only Simon Cowell.
“He rang us up and said, ‘Hard luck lads, but in fairness you’re a pair of gas cunts’. He was sound enough. That counts as affection down in Limerick.”
As for future plans, details are vague.
“We’re currently recording three singles and three videos at the same time and we have to flip a coin to see which one to release. It’s really difficult though because a coin only has two sides.”

The Rubberbandits play across the country this month, with a show in Tripod, Dublin on February 19. See the rubberbandits.com for details.