Shanks for the Energies

Phone buzzes. “Outside the guitar shop. Red hat!”

And so it comes to pass that I truly see Adebisi Shank bassist Vinny McCreith for the first time. The red’s a nod to the mask he wears on stage and in ‘band promo’ mode, you forgive him for not donning it today. It’s sweltering in Dublin. And, quite frankly, it would freak the Central Hotel staff out. His band of lauded Wexford math-rockers ready to re-enter the fray with the helpfully titled This Is The Third Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank, promo is underway. Always an act looking to do something a bit different, this meant McCreith recently followed the lead of Barack Obama, Bill Murray and Snoop Dogg by taking to Reddit for an Adebisi-themed AMA. The mask came up, of course.
“People find it interesting,” he muses. “I find it interesting, that’s why I still wear it!”
Has it ever been problematic on stage from a practical point of view?
“From gig one, it was a bad idea; it’s not practical at all. I wear glasses so I can’t see at all when I’m wearing it. I can’t breathe, it gets very smelly.”
Luckily, the band don’t have the kind of fanbase that will get drunk and attempt to rip the thing off – “we don’t have any fanbase!” he quips – but the odd heckle has been uttered.
“Our first gig in Belfast, when we came out it was that weird silent moment before the set and someone asked ‘why are your mam’s knickers on your head?!’”
With two beloved albums under their belt, Adebisi Shank’s position at the top of Ireland’s post-rock ladder means the questions have changed. For the last few of years, it’s been a desperate ‘when will the next album be out?’.
We’re four years on from This Is The Second Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank. Joining Sargent House and then touring the US accounted for plenty of
that time. Surprisingly, however, the end of Richter Collective – the brainchild of Shank guitarist Mick Roe – in late 2012 wasn’t an issue for them.
“We’re all still around and Mick is basically doing the exact same thing that he was doing. I see him the same amount, and he’s still as stressed as he was before. It’s just in a different guise.”
So all those “end of an era” sentiments in the press were misplaced?
“You could sit around and say ‘do you remember when we were doing this thing?’ It’s that famous thing of a shark that will die if it stops swimming. If in doubt, move forward.”
Moving forwards, for the first time ever, tracks were written and road-tested before the trio even entered the studio. “We put them in a casserole pot,” McCreith smiles. “Slow-cooking.”
There have been side-steps, as well. McCreith has his Speed Of Snakes project with Rupert Morris from BATS, while guitarist Lar Kaye seems the most adulterous (music-wise) of the lot. When the trio reconvened in a Wicklow house, there must have been plenty of ‘those other bands mean nothing to me, babe’ wooing.
“It adds spice to it, that we can go off… It is like a relationship – if all you’re focused on is the relationship, you won’t bring anything new to the table. It will wither. That’s one of the things that has kept us able to surprise each other – still thinking sex here! I don’t know how bands are ever in one band. I won’t name Irish rock’s ‘big voice’… What would you call them, the Irish rock aristocracy? One’s a letter, one’s a number? I don’t know how they do it. When they were at their best was when they actually went off and did other stuff. Remember they did Passengers and stuff like that?”
With no idea who he could be talking about, let’s return to the Shank. Their third album takes their inherent optimism to new levels of euphoria. The cover features a muscleman flexing as his lightbulb head shatters. They are bursting with light and confidence.
“As people we can be quite cynical, but our cynical nature actually frees us up. We don’t puncture ourselves. If we took ourselves really seriously it would be impossible to make an album. It feels like we made a mountain and we live to climb the mountain. It’s like planting a flag on the moon, and then going ‘we know we did it, and we know we can feel like that’. Maybe it is unrealistically optimistic, but if you call a song ‘World In Harmony’, it’s going to have to sound like the world in harmony! I remember when we were recording it, we said stuff like ‘does this sound like the world’s in harmony?’ No? Just keep going!”
There are moments when things feel seconds away from breaking into ‘Danger Zone’. A triumphal, Moroder in the ‘80s, blizzard-of-coke-in-the-studio aura of invincibility.
“We’re far too cheap for coke!” McCreith laughs. “There’s a lot of coffee. What’s the Tesco version of Red Bull? Kick? Boost? They’re all very aggressive sounding. It’s a euro for a litre. We had these huge glasses full of ice and that would be our ‘keep you going’ fuel for the day. No actual cocaine though.”
Bono, if you’re reading this in the studio, get the energy drinks in. There is shade as well as light on the record – Adebisi Shank aren’t trying to usher in a summer of love among Irish post-rock outfits.
“Everyone should do what they want! If I was president of IMRO I’d make all of the bands play all of our songs and be exactly the same as us? No, that’s impossible. There’s some bittersweet moments on it. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns.”

This Is The Third Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank is out on August 12