Once touted by NME, in the midst of the Brit Pop era, as the next big thing, you could be forgiven for thinking the return of SACK in 2024 – 30 years after their storming debut album ‘You Are What You Eat’ – is a bit of a nostalgia fest. You’d be wrong. The Dubliners are back not to relive, but instead rejuvenated, with fourth album ‘Wake Up People’ earning glittering reviews across the board.

Guitarist John Brereton hasn’t strayed far from his roots. Now a well established music and culture journalist, alongside his band, he edits Dubliner magazine and music-focused freesheet The Goo. SACK are squeezed in the middle of the day job, but by no means an afterthought. 

“For a while we were doing the odd gig here and there, but I got a job managing the Grand Social venue as a booker, which was very all encompassing, and then my wife and I had kids,” Brereton says. “The other lads were similar. Things happened, it was busy personally, and we kind of put the band aside. It was only during the pandemic, when no one could do anything, that I started picking up the guitar again and writing songs.” 

“We recorded the first new track because our guitarist at the time was teaching recording work online in Windmill Lane, so we got three days free and they practised on us. I recorded a song I’d just written, after we jammed it in the studio while they were setting up. That was ‘What A Way To Live’, and it came out so well we released it as a single. It did well, and so we made an album. And here we are.” Not so much a plan, as a series of outcomes, then.

“Our songs are always melodic, big choruses, that kind of classic songwriting thing, but there are a few things that are very percussion heavy, with keyboards, that took us in slightly different directions,” Brereton says of the new album. “When you have a writer like me and a singer like Martin [McCann], you’re never going to end up sounding like a techno band. We have a vibe, and we kept with that vibe, mainly.”

“Our earlier stuff from the early 90s has a bit of a Fontaines DC feel, and people have joked with us that they’ve heard it. But things are very different now, the music industry has changed so much. Now it’s straining with social media. I was at Ireland Music Week the other day, and there’s way more support now, but when we were young, it was easier to get your head out of the water.”

“Nowadays people make music in their attics and garden sheds, so the traditional routes to releasing music are not as important. We lived in Camden back then and found ourselves in that NME scene. We shared an office with Blur’s management. One Tuesday in particular, Top of the Pops was recording, and Pulp, Elastica and Suede, were all in the local pub. It was good craic. Though we never made Top of the Pops, unfortunately.”

“The cool Britannia thing made it tough, the English press were very much promoting the Brit pop thing and of course we were Irish, but it was great times. Today, we know we’ve made a really good album and that’s all that matters. The reviews have started to come in and they’re excellent.” 

“It’s different now, we’re not young. We’re not looking for A&R guys at gigs or anything like that. We’re just enjoying being in a band, playing together and releasing stuff. Who knows, we might even do another one.”

‘Wake Up People’ by SACK is out now.