United States of Stand

(1) DECEMBER 9TH, 2003, US IMMIGRATION, DUBLIN AIRPORT

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m afraid I can’t let you onto this flight. We’re going to have to take your luggage off.”
No readers, your hotpress correspondent isn’t drunk (yet, at least), but for unspecified “security reasons” US Immigration at Dublin Airport don’t want to let me onto the New York flight. Initially, I’m secretly thrilled to be considered so notorious as to be refused entry to the US, but then it turns out to be a boringly bureaucratic problem. Unfortunately, it seems it’s still a pretty serious one and, despite the pleas and protestations of myself and my travelling companion, ace publicist Stevo Berube, they’re not letting me fly.
Thankfully, just as it’s looking like Stevo will be making this trip alone (which would rather defeat the whole purpose), the immigration official turns out to have a heart – and to be a music fan. “So, you’re going over to interview a band called Stand, eh?” he says, finally stamping my passport. “I never heard of ’em. Are they any good?” “That’s what I’m going to find out,” I reply. “Enjoy your stay, sir.”
This article is dedicated to that US Immigration official, without whom… it would’ve been written by Stevo Berube.

(2) A BRIEF HISTORY OF STAND
Stevo had given me Stand’s entire back catalogue (two studio albums, one live one and a batch of singles and EPs) and press cuttings the week before, with strict instructions to “treat the albums more like professional demos – their new stuff is a lot different.” A listen to the CDs revealed competent, melodic but fairly unoriginal FM rock – but there were a few songs in amongst the dross that hinted at something more (I guess you could call them Stand-out tracks). The press cuttings – of which there were many – told the following story…
Stand was formed eight years ago in Dublin by four Tallaght school friends – Neil Eurelle (vocals, bass), Alan Doyle (vocals, guitar), David Walsh (guitar, keyboards) and Carl Dowling (drums, vocals). Briefly signed to ZTT towards the end of the ’90s, they released two Pat Donne-produced independent albums (1999’s Correspondent and 2000’s Beautiful Grey) and scored two Irish chart hits. Extensive and exhaustive touring of Europe followed, before the band relocated to New York three-and-a-half years ago.
Concentrating mainly on the lucrative college market, Stand have apparently made quite a name for themselves in the States – with Ed Norton, Billy Joel, Moby, David Bowie, Blondie Chaplin and Winona Ryder amongst their celebrity fans.
February 2004 will see the release of their third album In A Happy Place, which they hope will be their mainstream breakthrough. It would have been out sooner, but apparently Winona lifted the original master tapes.

(3) STAND STAND UP
New York is under three feet of slushy snow and colder than a Simon Cowell critique. So cold that the baggage hold has frozen and it takes ages for the handlers to blow-torch it open. While hanging around waiting, Stevo and I chat to U2 manager Paul McGuinness, who was on the same flight (though, admittedly, in a much more comfortable seat). He’s over for The Rapture’s gig in the Bowery, but says he’ll try and make Stand’s gig in Crash Mansion tomorrow night.
When we finally get our bags, forty or fifty minutes later, and go past Customs, there’s nobody waiting to greet us. True to their name, Stand have stood us up!

(4) SHUGGY AND THE SON OF SAM
But not for long. After about twenty minutes, a flustered Neil Eurelle rushes into the Arrivals Hall, apologising profusely for being so late and blaming the arctic weather conditions. A friendly and down to earth 25-year-old, he’s charm personified, so we forgive him his tardiness. “Shuggy’s just outside,” he tells us. We head towards the exit, wondering what the hell kind of newfangled vehicle a ‘Shuggy’ is. Shuggy actually turns out to be the name of the driver (real name Steve), Stand’s cheerful roadie and unofficial fifth member.
We head out towards the Bronx, where the band have been based for the last year or so. Neil plays tour guide, pointing out areas of interest as we pass them. Only knowing the Bronx from its Hollywood reputation, I ask him if the area is still dangerous. “Nah, not really,” he says. “But that bridge over there is where the Son of Sam shot his first victim.”

(5) THE BRONX
I’d been worried about the prospect of staying in the band’s house and had half-expected a typical all male rock & roll disaster zone with stale-sock smell. Instead, they live in the clean, tidy and well-ordered ground-floor of a small suburban house. Musical instruments and equipment are all neatly stacked against one wall. Laptops and computer equipment are on every surface. A big map of the US decorates one wall, with pins strategically placed. It looks like the operations room of a manhunt.
Neil introduces me to Alan and David, who’ve been waiting for us, and then excuses himself. Back to work. Stand are shooting a new video tomorrow and he needs to get onto their website (www.standland.com) to post an announcement looking for female extras to appear in it.
“How many do you need?” I ask. “About twenty,” he says. “Will you get them?” “No problem!”

(6) DAVID’S BOW AND ARROW STORY
As we’re getting acquainted, I tell the guys about my problems at Immigration. David turns out to have a much better airport story. Two years ago, shortly after 9/11, he and Alan were flying home to visit their families in Dublin. While the check-in girl weighed their hand-baggage, the guys amused themselves by reading the ridiculously long list of prohibited items posted at the desk. Amongst them was ‘Bow & Arrow’.
“The girl told me that my bags were two kilos overweight,” he says. “I’d been up all night and I was completely wrecked. And I jokingly said, ‘OK, I’ll just take my bow and arrow out’. Next thing I know, she’s hit an alarm and I’m surrounded by this twelve man fucking SWAT team, all pointing guns and screaming ‘GET ON THE FLOOR!!’”
It’s a funny story now but wasn’t so funny at the time. They arrested the guitarist, locked him in a cell for 12 hours and then interrogated him for another 12. When it eventually went to trial, he was very lucky to escape with just a $1,000 fine and a lifetime ban from the airline in question.
“It sounds very rock and roll to be banned for life from an airline,” he says, “but it’s actually a serious pain in the arse.”

(7) FUCKING DIAPERS!!!
A few hours later, Neil takes myself and Stevo into Manhattan to meet the director who’ll be shooting tomorrow’s video. He tells us that the same crew shot another video for the band last week – and did it totally free of charge. “They had special permission to seal this street off for a day,” he says. “We were freezing our asses off, miming this song for ten hours in the snow.”
Stevo and I are expecting some kind of budget student filmmaker set-up but instead Solarium Editorial is obviously a highly professional operation. It looks like a prosperous one too. There’s enough video and computer equipment in their plush West 38th St headquarters to launch a major space probe.
The directors Ronny McCarty and Yvetot Gouin are the presidents of Solarium Editorial, and also serious Stand fans. They mostly make their money from commercials and corporate videos, but they liked the band so much they decided to make a couple of music videos for them. It’s a competitive thing between them. Yvetot is shooting tomorrow’s video and is determined to outdo his partner’s effort. Ronny shot his last week and, as he shows us the raw footage, he’s obviously happy about it.
“I’m fucking psyched!!” he declares, punching his heavily tattooed arm into the air. “Look at this! Look at this!” The camera zooms in on Alan’s (highly photogenic) face. “That’s gonna have those college girls wetting their panties!” Ronny declares. “They’re gonna need to be wearing fucking diapers when they see that!!”

(8) SLEEPING ON OUR FEET
Ronny’s video is for a highly melodic guitar-driven track called ‘Sleeping On Our Feet’, which will feature on the new album and, all going well, almost undoubtedly dominate the Irish daytime airwaves this coming summer.
“It’s kind of about commercialism and letting things pass you by because too many people are distracted with stuff,” Neil explains. “Forgetting about the simple things. You know, are we sleeping on our feet?”

(9) TAILOR’S HALL
Later that night we head out to Tailor’s Hall (we’ve picked up another of Stevo’s clients, the delightful Dublin singer Sarah Jane Hudson, along the way), an Irish bar in Queens, where Stand regularly host a Tuesday night acoustic session. It’s more of a money-earner than a serious musical proposition but, as Neil points out, it’s a great place to showcase new songs. Because of the snow, tonight’s crowd is apparently smaller than usual but they’re still appreciative.
Neil and Alan play a mix of covers (Neil Young, David Bowie etc.) and Stand originals, alternating the vocals. Their styles couldn’t be more different. Neil sings with his all, contorting body and face in mad rhythm with what he’s playing. Alan is the complete opposite, shyer, lost in music and never really interacting directly with the audience. Still, somehow it works and seriously whets my appetite for tomorrow night’s show.

(10) THE SMOKING BAN
Midway through the Tailor’s session, I forget where I am and light a cigarette. The barman is quick to pounce, but still hugely sympathetic. “The smoking ban has been a fucking disaster for the bar business in New York,” he tells me. “It’s totally killed off the evening business. Nobody’s coming in to unwind with a drink and a smoke after work any more. Bloomberg’s an asshole!”
Then he bashes me on the head with a baseball bat.

(11) THE VIDEO SHOOT
Most of the next day is taken up with the second video shoot, which takes place in ‘Sweet 16’, a small nightclub on West 15th Street in Chelsea. The required twenty female fans have responded to Neil’s website request for extras (they even had to turn some away) and, when Stevo and I breeze in at around midday, everybody’s taking a pizza break.
Although the shoot was scheduled to start at 7.30am, the band themselves didn’t actually make it to the club until after 9. David is mortified, and quick to point out that this is not the Stand way.
“The money and time and effort that they’re putting in is incredible. And to think that we arrived in two hours late! That’s not us! I know it’s the rock & roll way but not when someone is doing it for nothing. . . It was just embarrassing.”

(12) CARL
I meet Carl for the first time at the shoot. Having spent the entire night working in the studio, Stand’s drummer and chief songwriter is looking far from fresh-faced but declares himself highly satisfied with his hard day’s night of programming and experimenting with electronic loops. “I’m going to drag this band kicking and screaming into the 21st century!” he grins.
I ask Carl where the band got their name. Was it the Stephen King novel? The REM song? Or just literally to do with taking a stand?
“Em… yeah,” he responds. “I suppose all of those came into it. But mostly the taking a stand one.”

(13) IN A HAPPY PLACE
Yvetot’s video is for the new album’s title track ‘In A Happy Place’ – a killer tune with a riff vaguely reminiscent of ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’. He’s filming several live sequences in the club (thus the extras), all involving costume and background scenery changes. In a few weeks they’ll go up to the Catskills to shoot the rest of the video. It’s an appropriate location, given that that’s where the song was written.
“We went to the Catskill Mountains for two months to write this record last year,” Neil explains. “We got a lovely little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. We could make as much noise as we wanted. It was basically the happiest time writing that we’ve ever had. That song came out of that – we’re in a happy place, a good space, we’re writing well, we’re playing well. We did rough demos of about 40 songs there. And the song is about that time.”

(14) STAND’S INFLUENTIAL FRIENDS
Also present at the shoot is Sophie K Entertainment representative Brian Harkenrider. An earnest and friendly American in his late-twenties, Brian is the manager of Crash Mansion – the new venue Stand will be playing later tonight – and, conveniently enough, also the band’s main booking agent.
“I met the guys shortly after they arrived,” he tells me. “A friend of mine took me to one of their shows. I enjoyed their music a lot but what I really liked was them. I got to meet them and know them a bit and they really impressed me as the people that they are. So we became friends. And ever since then I’ve been helping them in any way I can.”
Someone else who helps the band whenever he can is Josh Brown. A veteran of the New York music scene, Josh day-jobs in Budweiser’s marketing department. It was through him that the band recorded a live CD at Arlene’s Grocery for Bud’s ‘True Music’ campaign.
“What really impresses me about Stand is that they’re so obviously a real band,” he tells me. “They’re great musically, really passionate and driven, but they’re also like brothers. They really look out for each other. There doesn’t seem to be any out of control egos there. They’re easy to work with, and easy to get along with.”

(15) A BRIEF MUSICAL INTERLUDE WITH DAMIEN RICE
Later that evening, while Stand are rushing from their video shoot to their Crash Mansion sound check, Solas’s Sammy O’Connor takes me to Damien Rice’s last American gig of 2003 in NYU’s small but prestigious venue Joe’s Pub. Rice is superb. But this article’s not about him.

(16) KENNY GORKA’S CRASH MANSION
Crash Mansion is the 350-capacity downstairs area of a brand new Lower East side venue on Spring and Bowery. In fact, it’s so new that the upstairs section (which will be called Boulevard) isn’t even finished yet. Still, it’s already creating a buzz. Joan Jett opened the place two nights ago and Norah Jones played last night. Tonight it’s Stand’s turn.
The venue is owned by Allen Ginsberg-lookalike Kenny Gorka – legendary promoter and founder of The Bitter End (which will celebrates its 44th year in business in 2004). A hardened veteran of the American music scene, Gorka is a massive Stand fan and predicts a seriously bright future for the band.
“Bands like Stand may end up being the future of the music business,” he tells me. “They’re a great band, they have a cohesiveness that you don’t forget. They have material that you don’t forget. They rock. They’re not just a visual band – although they are visual. When you come away from a Stand gig, you remember the songs.”
Gorka’s right. Stand are being supported by Simon Kirk – formerly of Free and Bad Company. However, Kirk doesn’t really do the business tonight and it takes the four Dubliners to really get the place hotted up. They play a good hour-and-a-half set in front of 300 obviously ardent fans (most of the crowd seem to know all the lyrics). It’s pointless me describing their takes on songs you’re unfamiliar with but, live and in full-flow, they’re reminiscent of everyone from REM to The Strokes to Radiohead. I mean that as a criticism but, as an undeniably commercial band, they won’t take it that way. However, at certain key moments they really take off, meld, and create a sound that’s uniquely their own. United they Stand.
(No sign of McGuinness though).

(17) A WORD FROM YVETOT (EVE-TOE)
After the show I meet Yvetot in the band’s dressing room. He tells me he really enjoyed the gig, and is also very happy with the way the shoot went earlier. “Today went great,” he tells me. “We had a really short amount of time to do a whole lot more than we had planned on doing. The band was great.”
When I ask him why he and Ronny are making the band two videos for nothing, he tells me that really it’s a post 9/11 thing. They already have loads of money – doing Stand a favour is just their way of spreading the love.
“We heard the music and the music just kind of touched us. And we’re lovers of music, this is the first thing. We responded to that on a pure level. We didn’t know the band but we heard their music and responded to it. Essentially, we did it for love. And the joke is that we stood for love!”

(18) JIMMY RYAN’S BAR, BRONX
The following day myself and Neil head to Jimmy Ryan’s Bar in the Bronx, just around the corner from the house. In the absence of a proper manager (they’ve had numerous offers, but are happy enough to look after themselves right now), Neil is the guy who mostly looks after the day-to-day running of Stand. His commitment to the band he’s spent the last eight years of his life playing with – and the friends he’s known for most of his life – is touchingly obvious. This is his life. This is their lives.
He tells me that when Stand first arrived in New York, they had nowhere to stay, no real money and absolutely no idea of how things worked over here. “We had Correspondent and Beautiful Grey, we had a little bit of biography – press and good feedback and stuff – and we just started spreading everything out as much as we could. Knocking on doors.”
At first they survived playing covers gigs in bars. Gradually, however, they began to meet people like Kenny at The Bitter End, and Brian and Kate at Sophie K, who were impressed enough to help them get some decent college gigs.
“The college market is really the market that we’re aiming for,” he says, before explaining that college gigs constitute most of their income – though selling almost 20,000 copies of their albums has helped balance the books. They’ve had some other bits of luck along the way. Harp used one of their songs in a radio ad about 18 months ago, which paid the rent for a while. Then there was Josh’s Budweiser thing, which guaranteed them gigs at any promo events in the Tri-State area.
“It’s been a slow and gradual build to bring us to this point,” he says. “But now we’re ready to properly go for it. We’ve worked our arses off, we’re tighter live than we’ve ever been and I really believe that the new album is the one that will break us. We’re gonna launch it in Ireland next February, do our thing there and then come back over here. We’re hoping to spend 2004 bouncing between the two.”

(19) LAST STANDS
Back in the house, I do a series of quick interviews with the rest of the band, though as Alan laughingly points out, “You’ve been off talking to Neil for the last two hours so you’ve probably heard it all by now.” He turns out to be right but, for what it’s worth, here’s a last word from each of them…
Alan: “The whole back-stabbing thing that happens between bands in Dublin just doesn’t seem to exist here. The amount of help we’ve had over here has been scary. People have literally given us their living room floor to sleep on for three months, somebody else gave us a room in their house for another three months. And even finding us this place. You don’t get that kind of goodwill at home.”
David: “The beauty of being here is that we can afford to be here existing just as a band. I’m sure there’s a couple of bands at home – like The Frames or Aslan – and I’m sure they’re making plenty of money. But there’s not many bands that can afford to be at home all the time. There’s only so many times you can play Vicar Street or Whelan’s. Whereas over here you can play a different venue every night for the rest of your life. America is just so vast. It’s fucking great!”
Karl: “Initially it was weird having other people singing my lyrics but the other guys can sing better than me anyway. The songs are very personal. This is essentially our third album and we’re together a long time now, so they’ve gone through various stages. I wrote all the shitty little lovey-dovey songs when I was 16 – when you’re supposed to write them. The first album, and maybe the second one too, was very introspective. But now there’s an ‘us’ factor rather than a ‘me’ factor. But the new record’s strong – the strongest we’ve done.”

(20) SHUGGY
Onstage in Crash Mansion last night, Neil dedicated a song to the band’s unofficial fifth member. “Shuggy gave up a career, gave up a steady wage, gave up a beautiful girlfriend and a loving family to come on the road with us four fucking wankers!!”
Today, the Blanchardstown 25-year-old tells me that he doesn’t regret a thing. He is literally their greatest fan “It breaks my heart sometimes when things don’t work out, because I know how good Stand can be. They’re unbelievably talented. I’m there watching these things coming together and I can’t believe it sometimes. It’s a band of brothers thing, a 24/7 thing, busting our balls. We haven’t had a day off in months. But that’s a good problem.”
Every band should have a Shuggy.

(21) THE SILVIO CONNECTION
Before myself and Stevo have to head for the airport after this all too brief visit, the band treat us to lunch in a local Italian restaurant. The location brings on another story from Neil.
“When we came over here first, we kind of hooked up with this manager slash agent. He was a bit shady, hooked up with all the wrong people. But he shared an office with Steven Van Zandt, who plays with Bruce Springsteen and who was running a small little record label at the time.
“He’s a really sound guy and he was interested in helping us out. He was gonna introduce us to Bruce and get him to come to one of our shows, and he was even thinking of managing us, but then one day he came into the office and said, ‘I’ve been offered this part by HBO. They’re doing some Mafia thing and they want me to play a part. It’s called The Sopranos’. And he actually said, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna fucking do it’.”
Sadly for Stand, Van Zandt’s agent convinced him that the show was worth doing. “He was really nice about it,” says Neil, “but he just said, ‘Sorry guys, but I won’t have the time’.”
I guess they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

(22) A LAST WORD FROM NEIL (AT THE AIRPORT)
“Ultimately we just wanna make music that we like and that sends a shiver down our spines every time we hear it. And then hope that a couple of million people around the planet get the same shiver. I think we’ve done it with In A Happy Place. See you back in Dublin!”
Looking forward to it!