Wonder Villains Interview- Rocky Road To Adulthood

The Wonder Villains have been waiting to happen for much too long. For a band whose sound was often (correctly) compared to the froth-burst of freshly-opened lemonade, the three years it has taken to release their debut album has been a long time to run the risk of going flat.

Thankfully for the Derry band and their hard-won fan-base (picked up after an inventive promotional campaign that has seen them support the likes of They Might Be Giants and provide the theme tune to the CBBC show Danny’s Castle), Rocky is now here. But still: what kept you?
“Well," says bass-player and main songwriter Eimear Coyle, “by the time we even started thinking about recording an album, we’d already been playing for a few years and had a whole bunch of songs we really liked. We didn’t want to rush into it so we kept writing new tunes until we felt we had a nice mix of some oldies and some newbies. Hopefully we’ve picked the right ones.”
Rocky is packed with exactly the type of over-caffeinated buzz pop that could/should only be produced by people in their teens. Eimear describes it perfectly as “capturing that time before we discovered skinny jeans and cool haircuts.” For all its perky, day-glo moments, there are a smattering of tracks that hint at the darkening of the dream. Well, kind of.
“We have a song from the early days about how sad I was when my favourite TV show became shite,” she explains. ”I thought that that was as much heartbreak as I could ever write about. Now we’ve got songs about moving away from home, being drunk and experiencing real things. Things I couldn’t even imagine at 15. I’m 21 now and I’ve recently experienced my first two-day hangover. It’s the worst. I’ve also become so much better on the bass, so that’s opened a whole can of worms. I’ve started getting some complaints from the band about excessive basslines. When we started I think I could play four notes.”
Now that the debut album has been  successfully decanted, the band’s thoughts are turning to what comes next.
“We have no idea what you’re meant to do once an album is released,” Eimear laughs. “We love the songs on the first album so much but it’s also nice to draw a line and say that’s that. We’ve already had a few late nights up talking about the plans for the second album: we can’t wait to get going. We’ve got some festivals for the rest of the summer. Then I guess we’ll get started on Rocky 2 and do it all over again. And getting matching Wonder Villains tattoos. That will be a fun day.”

Rocky is out now on No Dancing.