While 2016 isn't short of musical hopes, the year kicks off with one of the most anticipated debuts in Irish music, as Walking On Cars release their first LP, Everything This Way.
The group open the year on the cover of Hot Press, but, as they tell Colm O'Regan, less than five years ago when their musical journey was just kicking off, things were altogether different.
"We had played at home in Dingle," says frontman Patrick Sheehy, "to a crowd of about 60 people - made up of our own friends and family. The place was hopping, just absolutely mental. So when this guy walks in with his girlfriend, he thought 'Who on earth are these guys?! I've got to get them to Limerick'. He thought there'd be the same buzz - but nobody knew us in Limerick!"
An empty room might have awaited them on that occasion, but the venues and crowds have been growing inexorably since then. The band can now sell out The Olympia with ease - they repeated the trick three times in 2015 - but a trip to SXSW last spring brought them back down to earth.
"It makes you realise just how many young bands are out there," says keyboardist Sorcha Durham, "and how hard it's going to be to make yourself heard."
"You begin to make sense of it," Patrick adds. "You see that a radio station is probably going to have a couple of hundred songs thrown at them every week, and so you can't turn around and get in a huff if yours isn't played. It just doesn't work like that."
To read the massive interview with one of the hottest properties in Irish music - covering everything from long nights in broken vans to the impossibility of replacing wild dolphins - pick up the new issue of Hot Press, on shelves now!
To purchase the new issue Hot Press with Walking On Cars and David Bowie on our special flip cover, simply click here.
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