So, Enemies release their debut album, ‘We’ve Been Talking’ Friday the 11th June. We’ve been talking, and consensus is that it’s one of the best Irish guitar records of an already stellar year – a proggy post-rock album with more personality than the niche usually allows. We’ve been talking to guitarist Lewis too. He said stuff like this.
So could you give a potted history of your band?
We’ve been going for roughly the last three years. We’ve basically just been playing small Dublin gigs and gigs around Ireland for the last while. We released an EP in 2008 and we’ve been writing music since then for this album.
Would you say you came from the Dublin hardcore scene?
Well, the other guitarist, Eoin, used to play guitar in a band called Kidd Blunt, who would have come out of that whole hardcore scene. But I wouldn’t say it came out of it, Eoin just wanted to do something a bit different. We all have generally the same interests in music and wanted to start something different.
How did you get involved with the Richter Collective?
Mick used to run a label before Richter Collective called Popular, and they released our EP. We’ve actually known him for a while. Eoin recorded his band, Terrordactyl, and he listened to the EP and wanted to release it, and we’ve just been friends with him since.
Where did you record?
Eoin owns a studio in Wicklow so he basically recorded all the music, and then we got it mastered by TJ Lipple in America, and Richter put it out.
TJ Lipple?
He’s in a band called Aloha on Polyvinyl. He mastered it for us, he’s brilliant.
Do you ever get the sense that you’re a bit more chill than most of the bands on Richter Collective?
Haha, yeah definitely. That was a very apparent thing when we first started. I think we’ve been trying a little bit harder to make it have a pulse to it. Because it is a little scary, BATS and Adebisi Shank and stuff are on the label.
Somebody told me you were ‘tropical prog’, when they were trying to explain what you sound like to me. That’s an unusual word to use, ‘tropical’.
Tropical rock was the way it was described. The other lads actually killed me for saying that, cos it’s in our bio. The reason we said that I guess is because it’s really different to the EP we released. It’s a lot happier I guess, and seriously the only word I could think of was “tropical”.
It’s interesting.
Obviously the album does have its darker elements, but yeah, tropical is the closest thing to describe it.
Why do you think Dublin is producing so many good, technical post-hardcore bands at the moment?
I dunno, I guess it sort of seems like it’s been growing for a lot of years. There was obviously a lot of punk stuff in Dublin for a long time, and it just kind of progressed, it seemed. I don’t know.
It seems almost disproportionate.
Yeah Dublin does seem to be popping now.
I’m interested in how you write. Is it improvised?
Some of it is, definitely. The format is usually that one of us comes to practice with one riff, and we jam it out, and dissect it in a way we like, and we bicker and make sure we all end up being happy enough with the song.
So what’s something about Enemies you’d like people to know?
We’re not just this slow mood-piece band. We have a little bit more to us. I guess we’re not exactly what we used to be. There’s not these nine minute songs. You can’t sleep to every song on the record.
And why not 4/4?
Why 4/4? Why change?
But everyone’s used 4/4 forever.
I think that’s the best question I’ve ever been asked. Yeah, I guess people are just too afraid, it’s been so done. It’s been used so much. I’m not opposed to it, to be honest. I think there’s some great 4/4 rhythms.
Yeah, in the canon somewhere there are a few alright.
Yeah, there’s obviously definitely some there. But I guess people just need a break.
So what kind of bands would you say are doing something similar to you at the moment.
Tristeza is one, a band from America who are pretty cool. Tortoise I guess is another one. We all collectively really like those guys.
Words Karl McDonald
