Galway band Adore, a feisty garage-punk act growing from the ashes of former act GIF, are diving in the deep end this summer with a couple fo single releases that follow from their signing with local label Blowtorch.
Debut single ‘Postcards’, an experimental take inspired by the likes of Breeders and Sleeper, is followed by this month’s new release ‘Stay Free’.
I spoke to Lachlann about the band’s early days…
I understand while releases are fairly new, you’ve been gigging for some time. Can you tell me a bit about how you’ve progressed?
Well we started in the early part of last year and since then we’ve just been gigging as much as we can around the country in different places to new audiences. From that I think you get a good idea of what your sound is, it forces you to play to your strengths and puts you outside your comfort zone. Also you always want something new so it motivates you to write more.
Sometimes if we’re trying to figure out a song we’ll play the half finished version and hope we can come up with something on the night. So in terms of what we’ve learned in the last year I’d say we’ve gained a lot of resilience and we’re a lot more ourselves.
You recently signed to Blowtorch. How has that been?
Richard has been amazing. We couldn’t have asked for a better guy to work with for these two releases. He’s so on the ball, and kind and patient with us. Without him we’d have either nothing recorded or something bad recorded, and I think he maybe knew that and intercepted the possibility. We’re genuinely forever grateful, he’s the man of the match for us.
Can you tell me a bit about what to expect from your album?
Well, the album is but a dream at the minute, but we do have two singles coming out this summer that are being sold on vinyl at the end of the month. From that I’d say you can expect two songs, both in the realm of punk and pop with some garage in there, that the three of us love to pieces. They’re fun to play and they were even more fun to record and see them develop.
Do you find your live experience plays into producing a better record?
I’d say we do, it was the main reason we wanted to record them live. Also recording live is far more fun. Everyone has a better time, even though sometimes it feels like you’ll never get it right and you’ll just be there forever, but trust me it was fun.
If there’s a single song that best represents, you what would it be?
We’ve got a song called Supermum, it’s about not being taught that you can say no. Lara’s lyrics are genius, Naoise’s drums are crazy, I’m having a very hard time keeping up on bass, and it’s over in three minutes. Bish bash bosh back of the net
Can you tell me a band story so far…
Well The story of the band so far is that me and Lara are cousins and that’s how we know each other. Lara was in a band with Naoise called GIF, that band broke up and Lara started this new band called Adore. I (Lachlann) wasn’t originally intended to be on bass but I’m very very glad that I got the call.We all started writing in Galway in Naoise’s studio, and it really just clicked.
Since then we’ve tried to write and gig as much as we can, taking it one gig at a time as a general mindset. It’s been amazing to see the word spread over the last while, it’s still as fun as it ever was and we think it’ll stay that way.
What’s the story behind the band name – it nicely jars with the sound!
Sounds cool looks cool!
How do you set up your vocals? I understand two of you are involved and Naoise wouldn’t mind chipping in, too…
Naoise just needs 13 more points on the leader board to unlock vocal mic permission, we haven’t told him how to collect these 13 points but he is getting closer!
The vocals are very much Lara’s expertise. She knows how to make things sound good, I (Locky) try my best to harmonise and then ask Lara for help. Most of the backing vocals are decided in a spur of the moment style process, we try let as many things happen without forcing them as we can.
What are your plans for once the record is out?
We can’t wait to share the songs, and we’re really looking forward to the release gigs and to see where the songs end up, but after it’s out we’re just gonna try write more and gig more. Gigging to new faces, and writing songs that are fun to play and challenging. We’ll always work as efficiently as we can on what we can control. We’ve all learned a lot from other bands we’ve been in, I think we’ve all been gigging and releasing stuff since we were 14 or 15. Even with that it’s still as exciting as it ever was, but there’s a few risks of becoming reliant on that external validation. In everything, if we’re happy with how we play and we’re writing the right songs, that’s all that matters.
