Route 66

After toiling as a foursome for a number of years, British band Keane shed a member, reinvented their sound, and made one of the best-selling albums of last year.

Dublin band 66E, previously known as the 66 Electric, have taken a leaf out of Keane’s book. Having started life as a five-piece in January 2003, 66E were one member down after six months, yet managed to finally find their feet.
After the interpersonal squabbles, the 66E headed down to Cavan to put the finishing touches on the album, Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight.
“We decided to simply make these into the recordings we want,” states Pope. “We immersed ourselves down in a cottage there, we grew beards and didn’t shower, you know how it is!”
The ensuing album, Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight, which evokes the likes of Mercury Rev, Doves and Radiohead, is quite unlike anything in Dublin’s current musical climate. Correspondingly, 66E have found it a struggle to get themselves heard within the music industry.
“The album has been finished since September and we’ve been putting feelers out there for publishing, distribution and stuff like that,” explains Pope. “It’s tricky, as there are long instrumental parts within a lot of the songs. In no way are we trying to be uncompromising for the sake of it. We open with two instrumentals because we kind of wanted to confound any expectations without building the band around Ed’s voice. So, from an airplay point of view, it is kind of tricky.”
Of course, the band are more than aware of the adverse conditions that all up-and-coming Irish acts have to weather.
“It’s unbelievably hard for musicians to sustain themelves,” he maintains. “I mean, the name of our album says it all. There was a time we had so much bad news, it was like, ‘we just need a break’! Even getting venues to listen to your CD is impossible, or you’ll be told you’re gigging somewhere, then you speak to them again and you’re double booked. You’re nothing to these people and it’s sadly exactly what we now expect. The thing is, ‘pay to play’ has sapped the excitement and the goodwill out of gigging.”
Though a neat buzz is surrounding their live shows, the band are back in the studio preparing the follow up to their debut album. Pope has strong ideas of what he would like the band to achieve in the coming months.
“The plan is to release the album and do everything we dreamt of doing,” he says simply. “It’s pretty low-key, but we didn’t want to do it half-heartedly, which is why it took so long. We want to get out of Dublin and get it into shops outside Ireland. Ideally, we’d love to get our heads inside the Oxegen door too.”
So is fame on an international level what the 66E are currently aspiring to?
“Well, we don’t want to be Coldplay,” laughs Pope. “The band we look up to who don’t necessarily compromise their sound is Elbow. You know they’re not writing for anybody, but they still have 7000 people sing along with them when they play live. We use them as a point of reference, and we aspire to that level of success. They’re pretty much laughing, if you think about it.
“Hopefully the second album will be out at the end of the year,” he concludes. “You can quote me on that…I’ll probably read it at the end of the year and laugh my head off. It’ll be like, ‘Look what I said, the cheek of me!’”