The Riptide Is High

It’s pint number three on a Holy Thursday afternoon in the Library Bar, and Gar Byrne (he bangs the drums) and Mal Tuohy (he sings the songs) are letting me in on a secret. “There’s this little festival,” Mal winks conspiratorially. “A hidden thing. They’re picking people up in a bus in Dublin, all the windows are blacked out. You don’t know where you’re going. It’s called The Barn Dance.”

The Barn Dance. So that’s where The Riptide Movement will spend Good Friday. Having a gargle in a barn: what else would any self-respecting rockers with a Rolling Stones fixation do? Of course there’s a lot more to the Lucan blues rockers oeuvre than copious references to the Stones, The Doors, Free and any number of other seminal outfits could even hint at. The two grin knowingly.
“I think people sometimes mistake our music for a ‘60s or ’70s rehash,” Mal admits. “But it’s not, it’s a certain type of music. It’s a genre of music that’s timeless. And I think it can keep evolving. The sounds from back then are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago. But yeah, we mostly get it from reviewers. ‘One banjo short of a Klan rally’ – we get all that sort of stuff!”
Gar laughs. “‘We do! ‘Rootin’, tootin’ and barn dancing’!’”
Clearly The Riptide Movement don’t give a damn. They’ll stick to their guns no matter what. “What’s good is good,” Mal reasons. “The thing is, everyone is influenced by everyone else. Dylan had Woody Guthrie. Look at Led Zeppelin. Once it’s not a blatant rip-off of someone else, who cares?”
In truth, rock’n’roll is a continuum of influences. Some bands dig deeper into the roots. Others focus on what’s fashionable now. There is no right way: whatever gets you through the night is alright. The crucial thing, however, is that the band have struck a chord: their second album Keep On Keepin’ On entered the Irish charts at No.6 in its first week of release and now they are digging in for the long haul. This journey is just starting: it could turn out to be an epic one.
I first heard of The Riptide Movement from a friend who had been thoroughly captivated by their Sea Sessions performance a couple of years back. His feverish recounting of the gig included a plathora of superlatives, focussing mainly on the quality of the riffs, the band’s innate swagger and remarkable antics of the apparently unhinged drummer Gar Byrne – who reportedly spent the set banging his face against his kit! I was impressed.
The message was that the Riptides know how to put on a show, an ability they have honed through the hard graft of busking and gigging – and more busking and more gigging. Since their formation in 2006, the band have learnt their lessons step-by-step, done the gigs, and solidified their fanbase. Their debut album What About The Tip Jars? summed up their approach perfectly: from the outset, they were willing to put in the graft and had the confidence to rely on people coughing up voluntarily. Progress has been steady: they headlined The Academy in Dublin recently and packed it impressively. But the lads still love to busk.
“We were trying to plug The Academy gig, so we were out busking recently,” Mal nods. “There were two or three young lads out as well, and Jay [guitarist John Dalton] promised them they could have the spot after we finished. By the time we came down, they’d already started playing, so we left them to it for a while. Jay was going, ‘them little bastards are only here a week or two!’ When we came back, we saw this guy who’d annoyed us before. He was living on the street, necking naggins of vodka, in a bad way. But he’d successfully taken the guitar off the fellas, and was singing... well, I won’t call it ‘singing’ but he was gargling away! They didn’t know what to do. We just shook our heads and said, ‘those lads have a lot to learn!’ On the streets, if there’s any lunatic about, or if someone doesn’t like you, you’re a sitting duck. That’s part of what makes it interesting.”
They cite an appearance in HP’s Oxegen tent last summer as a real indicator of where they’re at. “That was an absolute highlight,” Gar beams. “The Hot Press Signing Tent was our first time doing a signing and we didn’t really know what to expect. Roisin Dwyer [HP’s commissioning editor] said, ‘don’t worry, if there’s not much of a crowd we can do a video interview or something’ but we arrived five minutes late to see a queue snaking all the way out the door. We were there for an hour and a half!”
It’s commonplace these days for homegrown hopefuls to flood social media in order to garner some early attention and cultivate a relationship with their fans. The Riptide Movement do their bit but they recognise that it is just a means to an end – and have no intention of overdoing it. “Gar does most of it, he’s the Communications Wing of the enterprise!” Tuohy says.
“But we don’t really want to be one of those bands annoying people on Facebook,” the drummer chips in. “Irritating status updates. We’ll stick up what’s important, we don’t want to pressure people. People will come because they want to.”
So for the most part, they’ve built up a following by getting out there and working the turf. Playing directly to the people. Looking them in the eye. It makes for a deeper connection, and fosters a genuine sense of loyalty. “There’s a super great fanbase behind us,” says Gar. “They’d do anything.” Mal takes up the thread. “Even in Germany (laughs). When we gig there we get people coming up with albums to be signed that they bought on Grafton Street two years ago!”
Gar: “Travelling down on the train to sleep on someone’s couch that they met online the
previous day.”
Mal: “Couch surfing just to see us.”

So The Riptide Movement have gone international. Europeans in particular seem to have taken to them. In fact some of their German fans have become a tad obsessive. Mal laughs. “There was a German lady who wanted a t-shirt so I said, ‘Grand, yeah, I’ll get you one out of the van now’. But she pointed at me and said, ‘No. I want that one.’ I told her that she couldn’t have it, that it was mine, but she just kept saying that she had to have it. She was insistent.”
So you capitulated? “I had to, yeah!”
While busking might seem like a fall-back position for any band, the Riptides have proven otherwise, using the platform well, to make friends, influence people – and sell lots of albums. Passing tourists are a prime target. “Oh definitely,” says Gar, wide-eyed. “And as a result, we got some radio play in Turkey at the weekend. The programme had something like a million listeners.”
Mal: “Anyone that comes to Dublin, they’re going to pass through Grafton Street at some point, aren’t they? There’s something special about that street as well. It’s got a good vibe.”
While they’ve still got a foot planted at street level, with album number two, Keep On Keepin’ On, starting to make serious waves, the band are aiming now to put their feet up at rock’s higher table. Debuting at No.6 was a good start.
“I think we’ve landed with this one,” Mal says confidently. “The first record was just a collection of songs. Saying that, three or four years on, a few of them are still very relevant – ‘In The Eye Of The Storm’ is our finishing number for most gigs, ‘Tip Jars’ is always in the set... But now we feel more comfortable in our own skins.”
Gar nods in agreement. “Through the sheer amount of playing over the last number of years, we’ve really found our sound.”
“Yeah and it’s definitely a relief to have it out,” Tuohy adds. “We were supposed to release it in 2010, but we weren’t ready. We were still learning about the songs.” 
They headed for the south of France to finish writing the album. While the expedition didn’t quite end in an Exile On Main Street-style crazed drug scenario, it was an intense five weeks.
“We were down in the south of France in Carcossonne. We drove straight over in two small vans,” explains Mal. “It’s like a ghost town in the winter, most of the places are holiday homes. A real sleepy old little French town. We were taking bets on who would break first, simply because it’s that quiet. You could hear your heart beat.” Who was the first to fall?
They both shout the name of bassist Ger McCarry in unison. Mal looks to his drummer. “He broke after about two days, didn’t he?!” Byrne laughs. “Yeah, he was cracking up pretty quickly! We went for a walk and came back to find him sitting at the keyboard going [mimics playing some bizarre, atonal piece on the keys] ‘Aw, oh, uh, OH!’. Wolf Creek stuff man!”
Mal grins. “We basically sat in the house, writing, and drinking the local produce. And I think, if it wasn’t for the wine, we could have had another Shining on our hands!”
Instead, they navigated the fraught psychological waters and ended up with a cracker of an album. “We realised pretty quickly that things were going well,” Mal confides. “A lot of the time I‘ll come in with the bones of songs, and then we flesh it out as a group. When we went to France initially, we had a few riffs and melodies. You throw them out there and the beauty of it is they become something else. Then the likes of ‘Roll On Train’ just happened. They wrote themselves. I find it pretty easy. Generally it would be Gar putting down a beat, Gerry coming up with a bassline, and then just taking it from there. We just let it happen.”

The songs in shape, the next stop was Grouse Lodge Studios, in Westmeath. “When we hit there in September it was a welcome change,” Mal recalls. “We had a great time. And there’s a deadly bar there where the Guinness is pretty good! You’re taken out of your environment. You’re away from family and friends so there’s no distractions.”
“Not only that,” Gar interjects, “But it wasn’t regimented. Wake up at 12, work till four in the morning. Whatever. Our own engineer was with us and his thing was, ‘Listen lads, I’m just going to push the button’. We had a cut-off point of Christmas. And we more or less did it by then. The orchestra, the strings, the didgeridoo... Putting all of that stuff on it took a little longer, naturally. It cost us 40 grand to make it.”
It’s a big investment, but they did it all under their own steam, funded by gigging, busking and selling their own records.
“Who else is gigging Thursday night, Friday night, busking Saturday?” Gar asks. “And then managing the band Monday to Wednesday. That’s what it’s been like for the last two years. It does be knackering of course. You get home at five in the morning, have to go somewhere at eight, and you’re in bits. Until you get up and start playing – and then you get this energy again, as if from nowhere. You’re brand new. It’s amazing. Also, the buzz between the bands in Ireland is deadly and there’s some amount of talent out there at the moment. Which drives you on.
“You go to England and play on a bill as the only Paddies with five other bands,” he adds. “You’re the underdog immediately but you go on to smoke every single one of them. They’re up to nothing. But then you play Sweeney’s or The Mercantile with a group of Irish acts and every other band is jaw-droppingly good. We get on really well with the likes of The Hot Sprockets, Ham Sandwich... they’re really down to earth.” 
There’s clearly nothing else they’d rather be doing. When pressed, Tuohy reveals that he was studying law and previously worked as a plumber, whilst Gar opted out of life as a chef. “No offence to anyone doing it, my dad’s a chef as well, but it’s a fucking nightmare of a job! It really is. It’s endless.” Tuohy glances sideways with a grin. “It’s a pressure
cooker alright.”
Not that life as a touring musician is all giggles, groupies and TVs being flung out hotel windows. It hasn’t been the easiest of rides and their experiences as a young band – good, bad and ugly – inform their latest work.
“We’re all easy-going so we don’t hold grudges against anybody,” says Tuohy. “Which helps, because we’ve had more than a few bad experiences. With the first album we were naive about the industry. We thought we could just bring it out and the radio would immediately love it. In reality, that doesn’t happen. There’s a lot of politics involved, whereas I had always thought it was just about the music.”

For The Riptide Movement, that is what it’s all about. They are musicians first, musicians second and musicians later. They have committed themselves to the life. And that commitment is beginning to repay itself. Mal’s mood brightens. “It’s made us grow as a band,” he says. “We’re comfortable within ourselves now and set up nicely for our future. Sure, it’s difficult. No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s music or working the tills in McDonald’s with the aim of getting to the main office in New York, if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it. Where there’s a will there’s a way. And we’ve learnt a lot along the way so, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.” 
Nothing at all? My mind immediately goes back to the first piece about the band in Hot Press over half a decade ago, dealing with their harrowing experience in the grip of US immigration control officials.
“Maybe in a few years, if we get signed, we’ll go over,” said a fresh-faced Gar Byrne at the time. “But the first thing we’d say on the mic is, ‘Fuck the US immigration!”
He laughs now. “That interview happened in this very room!” he says, surveying the familiar surroundings of Dublin’s Library Bar. “That was a dark day! We haven’t been over there since, but it’s something we’re going to correct next year.”
And you’ll have the visas sorted this time around?
“We’re not risking that again!” Mal guffaws. “But we need to play over there. We need to conquer America. We’re drawn to their music. Our music is American music. So I think there’s will be a huge audience there for us, if we can reach out successfully. It feels great, that sound. I adore Americana. Southern music. Dylan is my hero. The Allman Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival,
The Doors...”
So has he ever been tempted to whip his todger out on stage like a modern day Morrison? “Hahaha! No, not as yet. Come back to me in a year’s time.” Seems a logical next step along the career path. “Yeah!” Gar laughs, “And then he’ll die in a bath tub!”
A tragic chemical end seems unlikely. They didn’t come down in the last shower. For all that their music resonates of classic rock, The Riptide Movement are keen to blaze their own trail. And they have done it to date with an impressive combination of passion and persistence – through incendiary live displays and a fiercely honest love of the music they make.