This mogul coil

It’s interesting to ponder how a bunch of Dun Laoghaire-based youngsters ended up writing and performing a rootsy, mournful-but-rousing, Band-style lamentation about prohibition, and hooch-stills exploding (current single, ‘The Dry Law’).

“Well, I quit drinking there for a while,” explains singer-songwriter Steve.
“For a month,” corrects multi-instrumentalist Dan with a weary sigh. “You stopped drinking for a month.”
Was that tough?
“Well he was tough to be around,” Dan cuts in.
Steve just nods sombrely.
“Ah, you know the way,” he says. “I wanted to save money and I thought I’d drive to gigs. So I quit drinking and started to write a song about it. I was reading a biography of Dean Martin at the time and there was all this stuff about him working in speakeasies and casinos as a kid, surrounded by all these gangsters. So I just put the two things together and made up this story about it. The rest of the album [which is already recorded but not to be released until September] isn’t about prohibition. It’s not a concept album or anything.”
So a month without drink inspires you to write a song about prohibition?
“It was some month,” Dan says shaking his head sadly.
Steve and Dan have the kind of easy camaraderie that flows from years on the road. They’re like a young Frances Rossi and Rick Parfitt really, which is strange given that they’re only in their early 20s. But these young whippersnappers first hit the boards aged 11 or 12.
“Actually me and Steve began playing together when we were about ten,” corrects Dan. “Playing Chuck Berry songs.”
“Yeah,” adds Steve. “We were really into early Beatles and ‘50s rock n roll and all that stuff. We started with Oasis and heard they were really into The Beatles, then heard early Beatles and then Chuck Berry and started listening to that. We were always really curious about people’s influences, so soon we ended up back with Hank Williams and Jimmy Rogers and all that kind of stuff.”
“And that’s what rock and roll is,” Dan avers. “It’s gospel, country and blues. We love all that old stuff.”
“I know we should have been listening to hip hop or something, but we’re kind of working through the decades,” says Steve.
“And we’ll get to the ‘90s soon,” adds Dan apologetically. “In a decade or so we’ll be into Blur and it will have come full circle.”
And thus, the first gig Steve and Dan performed was at the age of 11 or 12, playing Chuck Berry covers in a Sligo pub.
“Steve’s uncle lived in Sligo and could get us gigs up there,” Dan explains. “We were all underage at that stage and couldn’t play in pubs, so we’d get gigs up in Sligo where the guards didn’t really care.”
They first put together a “proper” band when they hit their middle teens, and met their bass-player and drummer. It was time to get serious. So they called themselves Porn Trauma.
“We got the name out of that comic Viz,” Dan explains. “It was from the ‘Profanosaurus’.”
“We changed the name when we started writing some new songs,” says Steve. “And we got an extra member into the band [multi-instrumentalist, Aoife]. We met her jamming one night on the 46N. A lot of people liked the name Porn Trauma. Some people really disliked it. We just thought it was funny.”
“And now our bass-player wants to change it back,” says Dan. “He was like: ‘lads, you’re not going to like this, but I really think we should go back to Porn Trauma.’ We’re not going back to Porn Trauma!”
Steve, Dan and their drummer ‘The Hog’, may also be familiar to scenesters as part of the Mighty Stef’s backing band. They’ve recently completed a twenty-eight date tour of America with that particular rugged blues-rock maverick.
“Stef would be associated with a lot of people in the Dublin scene,” Dan resumes. “People like the Brothers Movement and The Things, but musically he’d be akin to us more than anyone else, I’d say. Even before we joined his band he’d be the guy I’d have said was most similar to us.”
“We met Stef after playing on a couple of bills with him,” says Steve. “And one night we went back to a flat and ended up staying up till nine in the morning with him jamming old country tunes. We kept saying we should do some music together.”
“So he asked us to do a tour of America with him when a couple of guys in the band weren’t able to do it,” says Dan.
“I hadn’t really played bass before,” notes Steve.
“And he wanted me to play piano rather than guitar,” says Dan.
“But we did 12 or 13 gigs across America with him,” says Steve. “And this year we did close to 30. It was brilliant. I’d love to be out on the road all the time... by that I mean touring America. Not playing in Naas.”
What’s wrong with Naas?
“It’s rubbish,” he admits, frankly.
Despite an irrational hatred of pleasant Kildare shopping hubs, The Last Tycoons are generally pretty realistic about releasing and promoting music as an independent band, and are worldly enough to know that there’s no point in getting signed.
“Nobody’s putting money into anything at the moment,” Dan sighs. “Loads of bands we know who were signed to labels end up sitting around for years waiting to put an album out, until they’re finally told that the label’s got no money and that they’re out on their own again.”
They’re not, however, worldly enough to have orchestrated the release of a single about the Wall Street Crash, poverty and alcoholism in order to cash in on recession chic.
“Actually, most of the songs on the album were written before the country went into recession,” says Steve. “And really we write about these things because we’ve been listening to Woody Guthrie and Jimmy Rogers rather than because we’ve been reading the papers. That’s kind of where we get the news from.”
The duo do seem intent on reliving the past. The list of influences on their MySpace site contains nobody born after the 1950s, and a discussion of production values leads directly into some of their thoughts on the Phil Spector murder trial.
“He should be allowed to shoot who he wants to shoot, really,” says Steve, tongue firmly in cheek (I think). “We’re big Spector fans. The day we heard he was being sent down we played a gig and did nothing but Spector tunes. It was rocking.”
Indeed, the Last Tycoons are determinedly out of time.
“I remember a while ago my brother asked me to play at a friend’s going away party,” says Dan with a chuckle. “He was nervous about it. He said ‘please don’t play all songs from some blind black guy who died fifty years ago.’ I did my best.”

The Last Tycoons’ new single ‘The Dry Law’ is out now. They play Electric Avenue (June 26) and Phil Grimes, Waterford (July 3), as special guests of Floyd Soul And The Wolf, and Kytler’s, Kilkenny (July 4), with The River Valley Band.