Faithful returned

It’s been a long time coming but Irish punk legends The Radiators finally return to live action this month with a Bloomsday performance at The Village in Dublin, followed by a slot at this year’s Oxegen festival. Now styled as The Radiators (Plan 9), original members Phil Chevron, Pete Holidai and Steve Rapid are joined by bassist (and former Pogue) Cait O Riordan and drummer Johnnie Bonnie.

Apart from a one-off gig in 1987 this will be the first time in 24 years that The Radiators have functioned as a live band. But according to guitarist Pete Holidai, they never formally split up.
“We just stopped doing things together,” he says. “But we’ve always maintained a close relationship and we’ve exchanged ideas over the years. The opportunity came along for us to play again and we’re going for it.”
The Radiators From Space, as they were originally called, are acknowledged as one of the most influential Irish bands of all time. Their debut single ‘Television Screen’ is a punk classic and they were one of the first bands of the era to put out an album – 1977’s TV Tube Heart.
But it was their second album, the Tony Visconti-produced Ghostown, which drew the most praise from the critics. A concept album of sorts about a midnight walk around Dublin, it contained classics such as ‘Kitty Rickets’ and ‘Ballad Of The Faithful Departed’. On its release this very organ described it as a “monumental achievement in rock, possibly the most significant Irish rock album ever.”
However by the time it came out in 1979, business problems ensured that the band had lost momentum and Ghostown failed to take off commercially. The Radiators went their separate ways with Phil Chevron going on to join The Pogues, Steve Rapid (Averill) becoming a design consultant to U2 (and hotpress contributor) and Pete Holidai making a successful move to music management and production.
“If Ghostown hadn’t been delayed in the way it was, it could have been a huge album,” says Rapid. “But luck and timing plays a huge part in the success of any band and you need things to fall into place. When we started there were two young labels that emerged out of the scene, Chiswick and Stiff. We made the choice to go with Chiswick – if we’d gone with Stiff things might have been a little different as they were more promotion-oriented.”
This latest incarnation of the band isn’t the first time they’ve attempted a comeback, as Rapid explains: “There’ve been numerous attempts to do it over the last ten years. We were close to doing some gigs two years ago in the Dublin Theatre Festival when Phil was going to do a theatrical production of the Ghostown album. But no-one was prepared to put money on the table and we let it slide in the end. This time around we knew we needed a key gig to pin the situation on. Pete got an offer from a promoter, everybody looked at the dates they had free and Cait O’Riordan suggested Bloomsday, which made perfect sense to us.”
According to Pete Holidai, playing the old Radiators songs after all these years has been the most enjoyable aspect of the re-union.
“We rehearsed over Easter and most of the songs sounded fresh and exciting,” he says. “Some from the first album were very much of their time and you’d have to re-do them – Philip has a new set of lyrics for ‘TV Screen’ to bring it bang up to date. But the vast majority of the subject matter is still relevant. ‘Faithful Departed’ for example has been done in so many different versions that the song has a life of its own.”
The band’s amended moniker is a reference to the 1959 sci-fi B-movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space (reckoned to be one of the worst films ever made!).
“It appealed to our trash aesthetic,” Rapid explains. “When we started the band our influences were pre-punk – the New York Dolls, The MC5 and The Stooges and there was an Andy Warhol B-movie feel to it. We thought about calling the new band something completely different but then you’re disregarding your heritage. We decided it would be the Radiators with Plan 9 as an addendum. It would be almost like a new beginning, and that everybody would bring together what they’d learned in the past, which is part of the reason there are new people involved. It’s The Radiators 2004 – we’re not The Radiators From Space. We’re doing cover versions of our own songs!”

The Radiators (Plan 9) play The Village, Dublin on June 16 and the Oxegen festival in July