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Without George

Interview: Check out this SpunOut.ie exclusive with this rocking band.

Article by : SpunOut.ie

Without George are from Cong, in County Mayo. Their self-titled debut album has just been released. I met with members Mark Spellman, Johnny Holleran and Stephen Monaghan, for a SpunOut.ie exclusive interview.

Ciarán Leinster: For people who don’t know Without George, tell me about your style, influences, and how you started as a band.

Mark Spellman: It started after school I think.  We’re all from the same location, so we were all hanging around as friends; nothing to do but play music. Influences then, are any good musical band, as opposed to DJs and Pop.

Stephen Monaghan: You’d have a lot of the older influences...

Johnny Holleran: Yeah, all kinds of stuff. From Hendrix, and Cream, and Skynyrd, Zeppelin, Beatles, all that kind of stuff.

CL: You mentioned location. Growing up in Cong, I thought you’d be exposed to more Country music, but there’s a lot of rock ‘n’ roll, and American style on the album.

MS: Well, it’s a wild spot where we’re from. A bit mad, actually.

JH: But there’s a lot of country, folk, trad; all different kinds of stuff going on. When we were younger, we’d get to hear a lot of it.

CL: Tell me about the title of the band. I think Debbie Harry made a reference to it, when you were supporting Blondie (at the Galway Arts Festival), and its possible political meaning...

MS: Well, that’s what she reckons.

JH: That’s her interpretation.

MS: We let people take their own interpretation.

CL: Can’t really tell Debbie Harry what to do, can you?

MS: No, no. Wouldn’t mind telling her what to do!

CL: How was it to support people like Blondie, The Saw Doctors, The Stunning and Bell X1?

MS: Ah, it was great craic. The bigger crowds, and bigger venues, better sound systems, it’s all a plus.

CL: What about Pearse (Doherty) as a manager?

SM: What a guy, what a guy. He’s an unreal guy.

MS: He’s the man. The tin whistle man. He’s a good man on board, he’s got a lot of contacts. Hopefully he’ll do right by us, anyway.

CL: How long did it take you to get a record deal?

MS: We don’t have any record deal!

JH: This is our own release.

MS: It’s all our own stuff. A self-funded, self-inflicted album.

CL: You were a long time (11 months) releasing the album. Why was this?

MS: We had all kinds of problems! Funding was one.

JH: We missed loads of self-imposed deadlines and we had to find the tracks, because the studio closed up and the guy moved abroad with all our tracks, without notifying us. We took one week off to record a video and when we got back, we couldn’t track him down.  We sorted that out eventually and then we got our album sleeve.

CL: Have you had any festivals, or bigger gigs?

SM: We played all three days at Electric Picnic.

CL: Have you any big gigs lined up?

MS: We supported The Saw Doctors on Thursday night. Then, The Stunning on the 27th of December in The Black Box (in Galway). That’s all to date.

SM: Things like the Saw Doctors gig are coming up all the time. We’re playing The Shelbourne up in Dublin in December. We do a lot of private parties, too.

Read Part two of the interview.

Without George online:

Interview by Ciaran Leinster

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