The Emptor Strikes Back

Walk down any town or city centre in the country and you would come to the opinion that rock is the dominant musical form in Ireland these days, such is the proliferation of black-clad, skateboard-carrying teenagers proclaiming their loyalty to a variety of bands, almost all of whom play some kind of rock or metal. Why then, you must wonder, are there so few Irish bands of that ilk making a breakthrough? In fact, Mike Got Spiked are starting to dominate a very small scene, a state of affairs that looks set to be consolidated by the release of their debut album, Caveat Emptor.

“I guess so,” agrees singer Gavin McGuire. “That’s just the music we play, it’s very influenced by American bands. We’re a rock band who do different bits and pieces, we do some jazz, some ska, some funk but first and foremost we are a rock band. We’re all in our mid-twenties and have been playing in different incarnations of bands for years, but as Mike Got Spiked we’ve been together just a little over two years. From the very first song that we wrote there was a mixture of ska and rock. I’d like to think that our songs are based on melody and harmonies, but we do like to rock it up with plenty of screaming and heavy guitar riffs.”
Despite the continued growth of the domestic music industry, there are an increasing number of bands who still feel left on the outside. Mike Got Spiked are one such example. “The Irish music scene’s all good and well but there are very few bands that I could say that I’ve ever been fond of,” reckons Gavin. “Kerbdog and Therapy? would be the only two that really spring to mind. The rest, without being disparaging to any Irish acts, just don’t do anything for me. While we’re not trying to distance ourselves from being Irish in any way, the music we write will always be received better in America.”
Does that then become a battle to keep your own identity? “Of course and I’d like to think we do that,” responds Gavin. “We’re not just a punk band, we wouldn’t even consider ourselves a punk band. We do a bit of everything, there’s a lot of genre splicing. Without trying to sound too pretentious we do try and write songs that have something original to them, you can see the influences but our own voices are coming through. Maybe we’re still learning to do that but hopefully in the future we’ll create our own sound 100%.”
Part of that sound is the band’s lyrical approach, which aims to do more than simply string together a few vague lines about rebellion and living your own life. “We’re very proud of the lyrical content of our songs,” states Gavin. “The album isn’t a concept piece but it is strung together from the title and artwork onwards to feel like a catalogue of life improving products. All the songs are basically discourses on the state of modern life in Ireland and the world in general. Our lyrics are quite complex and we take songwriting seriously, we’re not the kind of band that churns out fifty songs a year. There’s no point writing a song if you can’t stand by the lyrics. A lot of even the established rock bands have very little to say. Our stuff means something.”
Our discussion turns to a recent piece in these pages on the band Primordial and their inability to make much headway at home despite a fair degree of success abroad.
“Thankfully we’re not in that sort of quandary,” says Gavin, “we seem to have quite a large following and most of our gigs around the country are really well attended. Without blowing one’s trumpet too much, even though we are very much a hard rock band, we don’t seem to have problems getting gigs. We have a proven track record as a live band; we played a hundred gigs last year and only a handful of them were poorly attended. It’s through constant gigging, four shows every weekend of the year, that we’ve created a fan base across the entire country and now we’re starting to venture abroad – we’ve been asked to play the Warped Tour in Canada.”
On the home front, Mike Got Spiked remain acutely aware of the importance of playing to audiences all over the country and not just the capital.
“That’s very much the case,” acknowledges Gavin. “We are part of the Dublin scene but we’re one of the few bands who do embrace the national scene.
“It’s come to the point that we’re playing more outside of Dublin than in it because the audiences are more appreciative and we can make money, play to big crowds and sell albums and T shirts, and not have to deal with the bullshit of the venues in Dublin.”

Caveat Emptor is out now on Conflict Of Interests. Visit www.mikegotspiked.com for details of the band’s extensive national tour.