That Petrol Emotion

For Cormac Breslin, alias Bres, former citizen of the Republic Of Loose, when it comes to your passion in life it’s pretty simple: With no risk, there’s no reward. Having found himself physically and emotionally burnt out by his exploits in the Loose, Bres made the tough decision to walk away from one of the country’s most beloved acts. While such a move might provoke haunting doubts to creep in, he didn’t give it a second thought.

“I was done,” he says, matter-of-factly, his face entirely free of any hint of regret. “I was completely and utterly done with that set-up and that structure. The relationships I had in the band were over, fully over. It was an insanely depressing and stressful time for me personally. I don’t think it manifested itself too badly but I kind of compartmentalised it and said, ‘This is a shit section of my life so let’s try and move away from it’.”
Rather than drown in doom and gloom, Bres opted for a more therapeutic approach, revisiting the sights and sounds of his youth, immersing himself in everything from the rhythmic lustre of New Edition to the bittersweet innocence of the films of the late, great director John Hughes.
The nostalgia trip played a huge part in sculpting the identity of new project Cars Love Girls, but while debut album Skip School is very much informed by a yearning for a time when music was all about gloss and shimmer, its embryonic state was formed some time ago.
“Some of these tracks were ones I’d given to Mik [Pyro, ROL frontman] as instrumentals,” recalls Bres. “That’s how it would work with the pop singles in the Loose. I would write the instrumental to ‘Comeback Girl’ and I’d give it to Mik finished and he’d do the vocal. That was the relationship I had with him for six years. Some of these tunes I had given to Mik and he hadn’t done anything with them. So when I left the band I had a bunch of ideas that I was going to try and finish myself. I just thought it would be unfortunate if those songs didn’t get finished. And once you’ve got two or three you write the rest of it in that vein, to keep that thread going.”
Assisting him in weaving that thread was sister Orla, herself a former Loose backing vocalist. While the two don’t currently share a traditional writing partnership, her input proved essential.
“He had the tracks finished and ready to go and my voice suited them,” she says. “We’d listen to them and see what I thought and then bits and pieces would be changed, things that did or didn’t work and then we demoed them to see how they sounded with my voice.”
“It’s kind of a weird writing collaboration, in that Orla isn’t coming in with ideas and chords and lyrics and melodies,” Bres resumes. “That’s not where we’re at now, but we sat down and decided what worked and what didn’t work and what direction to go in. It’s nice and natural at the moment and I’m sure it will evolve as these things do.”
For now at least, the dynamic appears to be paying creative dividends. When setting out to craft the narrative of Skip School, Bres was adamant that it stand out as a very specific vision. Inspired by the work of English artist Peter Phillips, a noted pioneer of the Pop Art movement, Bres determined that his new project’s debut be an especially vibrant creation, all colour and bombastic vigour.
The result is a record that explodes with energy but also finds room for quiet moments of contemplation. An eclectic mix for sure, but a shot in the arm that we could use as the sun starts to come out to play. John Hughes would be proud.

Skip School is out now.