The indigo boys

Since coming up trumps at the hotpress Bacardi Unsigned Band of the Year competition last April, Fermanagh foursome Indigo Fury have been working tirelessly on their studio tan.

The fruit of their efforts, ‘Stalker’ (a three track single, due for release on January 24), provides a somewhat varied taster of the Fury’s multiple styles: they’ve got the upbeat Revs-ish ska thing down superbly on the title track; a no holds barred epic rock outing on ‘Inebriation’; and a somewhat strange, happy, acoustic number, complete with claps, doo-doo-doo choruses and rolling rrrrrrs, on ‘A Walk In The Sunlight’ (a song the band fondly refer to as their ‘Ballad Of John And Yoko).

“No music moves us or touches us more than ’60s and ’70s music,” admits drummer Marty Jones. “The Who, The Doors, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin... There haven’t been many bands that are able to touch people the way they did, even now. We’re not trying to rip off those bands; we just want to be able to move people as much as they have.

“Our music isn’t a statement – we don’t have anything world-changing to say,” he adds. “I did hear a brilliant quote the other day, though, where somebody said ‘our music’s not a weapon, but if it was, I’d beat Nickelback to death with it’. I wholeheartedly agree with that.”

Marty, bassist Brian “Monty” Monaghan and vocalist Rory Lavelle have been playing together for the guts of five years.

“Rory and Monty were playing in another band when I met them – we call that Indigo Fury Mark I. We’re at about Mark VII by now, we’ve had so many changes!” They came together in the first place in rather curious circumstances.

“I was playing in a crappy covers band and our respective groups were on the bill for this festival,” Marty recalls. “It was an absolute disaster. There had been a massive fight at the gates and the cops landed in and turfed everybody out. We just hammered on anyway even though there were only about five people there. Rory and Monty seemed to be the only band playing any original songs at all. After the gig, the lads approached me and lured me away.”

Having completed the line up with rhythm guitarist Barry Davis, the fledgling Indigo Fury discovered the handiest way to play and earn money is to sell your soul to pub rock and go the covers route.

“We live in a really small place where there’s absolutely nowhere to play, so most of the bands do covers just to get out there,” explains Marty. “We did covers for about two years, trying to get the money together for some decent gear and a van. It was a struggle at the start, but now, especially having won the competition, we’re getting a lot more respect and it’s proving much easier to get gigs since the name is known.”

The quartet declare themselves most at home onstage. However Marty does acknowledge their tendency to get carried away and forget the chords.

“It’s very loud and very live, with a lot of mistakes” he smirks. “We kind of lose it a wee bit and there’s always a bum note or I drop a stick. It’s guaranteed, y’know? It’s gotten to the stage that our regular gig-going fans start laughing too, ’cos they know that we’ve fucked up. But we always seem to recover pretty well. It’s all a bit of a laugh – but that’s rock ’n’ roll, right?”