Triple Your Pleasure

Despite their attention-grabbing moniker, the nudity and the sleaze quotient is decidedly absent when I meet Triple X Nudes vocalist Steve Hamm and drummer Anthony Darcy, two very personable (and fully-clothed) young men, prior to their Garage Gig performance in Eamonn Dorans. "We chose the name because it would stop people in their tracks and get us noticed," Steve tells me. "But we also made a conscious decision not to play up the connotations . I mean, there are things we could do design-wise, with posters and so on, but we just choose not to."

Triple X Nudes are not quite all sweetness and light, however. Their songs, which Steve describes as alternative pop with big choruses, are not quite that innocuous, but are brimful of dark, biting lyrics, that tend to satirise and berate the kind of media archetypes the band have had the inevitable misfortune to encounter in their travails through the music biz.
Although Triple X Nudes, featuring Tom Aron on bass and keyboards, Dave McLoughlin on guitars and Paul Gaffney on guitars and samplers, is a relatively recent incarnation, all of its members have been through the mill in bands including Dry Season, Joys and Former Gods. Their debut CD, 'Turn It Off', the product of a bout of sitting-room recording, is a spiky pop rant at the shallow music industry.
"We've all seen them, the 'I am a rock star' type, completely devoid of any talent. We've been around and it's fair to say we've become extremely disillusioned with the business," Steve admits ruefully.
He expects some controversy over the high level of punk aggression on their song 'Slut'. "We worry about how people will react to that one, if they'll take it the wrong way," he says, hastening to point out that it's not meant to be in any way misogynistic. "It's not intended toward women - it's a general thing, about the type of people who'll do anything to get where they want to go, using other people and feeding off them."
In an opposite vein is 'Contender', a song tellingly performed with a rather personal poignancy. "It's about the little guy, who gets punched in the face over and over, but just keeps taking the knocks and getting back up."
Although Triple X Nudes have a commercial sound, they eschew the idea of massive chart success.
"Our dream is not to make it big at this stage," confesses the singer. "We just want to be able to survive, and keep going with the music. At the moment, our equipment is not the Mae West, but our bassist Tom has a studio set-up in his house that we've been working on, so our plan is to just release our own stuff or maybe go via a small independent label."
The band is a fairly volatile organism, according to Steve.
"There are a lot of fights. A LOT of fights. We argue about the music all the time, but it's just because we all care so much. It's been tough, and we've come close to splitting up numerous times, Just last week we were on the verge of calling it a day, but then Dermot asked us to do this gig, so we changed our minds." The 'Dermot' in question is Dermot Lambert from Blink, one of the men behind the Garage Gigs band showcases, to whom the band are very grateful for previous support slots, not to mention arranging the gig that prevented the band's demise. Whatever the fate of Triple X Nudes, the music will go on, the singer assures. "We've still got day jobs to hold down, but we're addicted. It would be impossible for us to stop being involved with music in some shape or form." And no, they won't be getting their kit off onstage.