Overhead, The Albatross

We are chuffed to be playing the Meteor Camden Crawl on Sunday, May 5th alongside some amazing acts like Le Galaxie, Croupier, The black Lips, and Fionn Regan. More details to be announced soon but you can get your tickets at the link below!

http://www.camdencrawldublin.com/tickets

Having drank copious amounts of wine the night before with my parents and loved ones (it was the last time i’d be seeing them for months), I still managed to pack my bag and make it to the studio, feeling in decent enough shape and very excited about the trip at hand. I tried to run through the invisible check list I had in my head as I paced through the studio, sneaking away from my folks out front for a quick smoke when I could. I got my drum stuff together. Drum inside a drum inside a drum inside a drum. Drumception.

The amount of stuff in the driveway was scary as none of us knew if all of it would fit in the van. We started trying to fit everything in, the most important game of tetris any of us had ever played. Many beads of sweat were shed, the odd finger was scraped but for the most part we fitted it all in quite well with zero casualties. We had a spot of food thanks to Cherry Prendergast and then we said our last goodbyes to our families and hopped in the van.

As Dave started the engine and pulled outside the driveway, all I can remember is the silence. No one said a word for at least 3-4 minutes which to me felt like an eternity. Everyone seemed to be taking it all in, thinking about what we were embarking upon. What we we’re going to encounter just getting there? How we would get on living with each other for the next three months and most importantly, what material were we going to come back with? Could we actually write a full album together?

We headed to Dublin Port, each of us reminiscing about the good and bad times we’ve had in the the city. Before we knew it we had encountered our first problem, the blasted radio! Having reached the port, parked the van in our lane for the boat, we managed to get the code for the radio to great relief. Straight away, p.g lost’s latest album is blaring through our speakers. A lot of air drumming and head banging ensued. We all must answer the call of nature from time to time, but when your van is called to board the boat and you’re missing one of your guitarists (Mr Daly), you can’t help but curse this natural process. With Luke panting in the back seat having run flat out to catch up with the van, Overhead were on the boat and on the way to Holyhead.

After we settled into our seats, we tucked into some excellent grub that Joe’s grandmother had made for us. I think we all knew in the back of our heads that this was going to be the last bit of home cooked food we’d be having for a long time. Dave had a cunty look on his face.

Ben

So, when we were talking about leaving Ireland for three months to record an album, I was excited, as much as everyone else, but in the back of my head there was a little voice saying ‘Ah sure, would you stop going on about it, it’s not actually going to go ahead, sure you’re all broke and can’t even organise a single day in which every band member is in the same room, let alone a three month trip across europe.”

We started with buying a van, a seven seater crew cab. We brought it back to the studio and looked her up and down. ‘Yep, it’s definitely a van’, and this means we are definitely going. Shit… Okay…. We should maybe figure out where in Europe we are going and how much we are going to need. Also, should we be like normal people and fork out on tax and insurance and maybe even a spare tire? We are driving a few thousand kilometers, we should at least talk about that sort of stuff!

So we google “South of France”. The only place we can afford is a two bed apartment. Then we Google “Italy”, love the food, fingers crossed! We couldn’t find a landlord willing to let a house to six Irish lads with noisy things! We found a place in Bulgaria owned by Liam Neeson’s nephew or something. It sounded perfect. It was meant to be! We made contact. It included a chef. Yes! We waited several days. I was telling my family we are off to Bulgaria. They never got back to us. Pretty deflated. Then out of nowhere comes this house in a forest beside a lake, an hour outside Prague, and, the landlord, a lovely woman, is willing to let us borrow the house for a few months for a price we think we can maybe afford. Deposit paid the next day. DONE!

Okay, so there is a van in my driveway. There is a house in Czech Republic that we have paid a deposit for. Balls….This means we’re definitely going!

We have a few more weeks before we leave. Let’s start saving, let’s sell toys we don’t need. Thank you Adverts.ie, real sound! We played a fundraiser gig in the Workman’s club, deadly crowd, couldn’t be more thankful to everyone who came and helped us.

Next thing I’m spending my last night in bed with my girlfriend for three months. I still didn’t feel as if it was happening. Instead of it being a romantic adventure, I was being given an ear full for not packing my belongings yet. It’s grand, sure I’ve only two pairs of boxers to my name anyway after I sold the rest to a very strange dude on the internet the week before, so its not gonna take long to throw my treasures into a bag before I say goodbye.

Tired. Half dressed. Stressed. Worried. Standing beside our white van. The back doors wide open. About ten tonnes of gear all over the driveway. Cheers Dad for the lend of a wheel brace and jack, if we do get a flat tyre this will come in handy! Sound! Right, lets pack this fucker.

Where’s Luke?

David

We’ve always been pretty democratic in the way we run this band. Everyone gets a say and everyone gets a turn. Since I (Joe) set up most of our online stuff, I published most of the content. This is problematic for a couple of reasons, one obvious one being that we don’t always have the same opinions or memories about certain things. 

To that end, the posts that will follow will be from different band members. Maybe we’ll get one or two up a week from each member and this blog will be more interesting. 

This blog, along with videos we’ll be posting in the future, will be the best port of call for anybody to check in on how our recording is going if you’re into that sort of thing. 

We have a new website under construction.

So we’re back to recording tomorrow. We’re only recording the one song so it shouldn’t be too taxing on poor Vinny. It’s a bit of a departure from the other songs we’ve written, sure we’ll see how it goes.

We recorded the drums in RTE’ big live room the last time and honestly, it was a bit of a rushed job. We’re recording them in Dave’s studio Clique so we’ll have more time to make them sound nice before we track them. Hopefully the extra time will pay off.

Ben is off to Australia for a month next month to work so we’re going to spend that time getting some new music written. We have a lot to do between now and February. I guess I better explain.

Our friend James is producing a documentary about Motor Neuron Disease and attempts to raise funds for it. He has kindly asked us to write the score, something we’re chuffed about so we’re all hoping that everything falls into place so the documentary can happen. All going well, it’ll be done by February.

‘Girls, or whatever’ or ‘Girls’ or *Weird Hand Gesture* are the working titles of the song we’re recording. It’s going to be put up on our Bandcamp and we’re going to charge for it, the proceeds going directly to the Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association. 

Read up on it if you have the time, we think it’s a really great cause. Hopefully we can raise a few quid for them, there are some causes in the world that you’d never think about unless they directly affected you or yours. This was one for me until James told us about it and I’m glad we can do something for them.

I guess how it’ll work is we’ll put it up for a minimum donation of €1 so people can donate upwardly from there. I hope people dig the track and the cause enough to help out.

I guess we better dig in for the winter and get some work done.

Since releasing Mr. Dog, we’ve been doing a few bits and pieces around the city. Last weekend we played our first all ages at Demented Fest. It’s always nice to play to a relatively new crowd. We shared the stage with some of my favourite local bands, namely The Blind and Chewing On Tinfoil. Diverse lineups are always fun.

We played The Workman’s Club’s 1st Birthday gig. Again, a pretty diverse lineup. I think we all really enjoyed House Of Dolls set in particular. The Workman’s is fast becoming one of our favourite places to play, I know some people would disagree but we’ve always had a great time there. It’s a nice enough stage, the sound is always bang on, John and Stef are both a pleasure to work with and the rest of the crew are nothing but nice to us. 

Just last night we played a big Eleven Eleven bash in the Twisted Pepper. Look at this lineup, it’s most of the roster of Eleven Eleven at the moment plus some other friends, Ang Kor Wat and Spies.

The visuals from Le Tissier and Slipdraft were among the best I’ve seen at any show. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to incorporate them into our set in the near future.

We only have two more Dublin gigs to play between now and New Year’s Eve. The second will be announced very soon and we’re very excited about it. The first is our first time to play the Hard Working Class Heroes festival. We’re playing on the 6th of October in the Mercantile. Look, it seems like a lot of money for a gig but the sheer volume of great acts playing justifies it as value for money in my eyes.

Go see what talent there is playing in the city, week in, week out.

I think I’ve saved the best for last here, it’s certainly what I’m looking forward to most. We’ve been invited by our good friends in Croupier to play a showcase of their new material in the Roisín Dubh, Galway. It’s both ours and their first time playing Galway and we’re ridiculously excited about it. Check our the Facebook event page here.

That’s all folks!