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ON THE COUCH WITH: The Walls

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

With albums by Irish artists, including major label acts like Sinead O’Connor, Andrea Corr and Van Morrison, lasting around two weeks in the local top forty why would anyone want to be an independent music act in Ireland?

Although at risk of biting the hand that feeds, Steve Wall of The Walls has become ‘unofficially’ responsible for the recent attention focused on the discrepancy in radio airplay received by American import acts in preference to the local crop.

While doing so he does recognise the fine line between criticising the radio promoters and what's best for his band, in a nation with a relatively small listening population, like Ireland, there aren't too many willing to speak out in the music business for risk of being blacklisted 'if you speak out against radio airplay, the likelihood is that when the next Wall's CD arrives on their desk you're in the shit'.

It’s amazing the impact the ‘forward’ button can have, as this all began with Steve emailing a poignant article on the topic to all those listed in his address book. A week later, Hot Press, the Dublin music magazine, had printed his email and the article, suggesting he'd begun a campaign to encourage more Irish content on local radio. 'It caused all kinds of shit, but in a good way'.

During Music Ireland 2007, a conference and trade show held in October; Steve was invited to participate in a panel discussion on local music content alongside radio heavies and one of Ireland's most prominent music managers, Louis Walsh who brought us the likes of Westlife and Boyzone. To Steve’s surprise, Walsh went against expectation and sided with the many independent and musicians in the room calling for greater access to Irish radio.

'I started this whole kafuffle, just by circulating an email...and I haven't really had any time to do any work on it...[but] there's nothing to be gained by keeping your head in the sand'.

While there is always a band playing a pub somewhere in Dublin, and indeed in most major towns in Ireland, the lack of radio airplay has had a negative effect on the industry, at least in the opinion of the other Wall, Joe. 'It causes the break up of a lot of bands…they don't seem to be able to get to a level in Ireland where they can sustain a living' he said. 'If the bands don't get the airplay people think they're second class bands and think twice about going to their gigs, or they don't know their music so they don't go'.

The benefit for The Walls is that they have achieved success through radio play in Ireland, enough to fund continued recording opportunities and tours.

In 2007 The Walls undertook a mixed bag of a world tour, playing shows in Dubai, the Bahamas, the Czech Republic, taking each opportunity for travel as it arose. 'There are all these little the grape vine, connections we've made with people [resulting in] guerrilla touring' explains Joe. They also managed to score the highly coveted position of supporting hometown heroes Crowded House while in Australia. 'The Australian connection was through the bass player with Crowded House, Nick Seymour, who lives in Dublin and who we know'.

While the brother’s note the shame of such a space between Ireland and Australia, they do note that the internet has assisted them in bridging that gap. Steve comments that 'every day after a Crowded House gig there'd be three or four pages of 'Add Friends' on the MySpace page. All from Australia'. 'We got great feedback from people [in Australia]' adds Joe.

What’s unfortunate is that The Walls struggled to get patrons along to their solo gigs in Sydney and Melbourne, something they partly attribute to the lack of airplay received while in Australia. A shame, given the guitar based sounds of their last album, New Dawn Breaking, would have fit nicely into the recent musical landscape. ' We were aware that we weren't getting airplay and we were worried about ticket sales for the gigs, so on the nights off we were going out with a guitar and our friend who knows a lot of the bar owners over there, whenever he saw an opportunity or a band taking a break we would commandeer their gig and plug the hell out of our gig', laughs Joe.

'Initially we wanted to do a load of gigs in Sydney and Melbourne because we were basically in Sydney for a week and we were on pretty early with Crowded House [so] we still could have gone off and done a gig' Steve reflects. They ended up with one 'big' gig in each Sydney and Melbourne. That said The Walls did manage a crowd of around 300 at the Metro in Sydney, which would be seen as an achievement for a foreign band on a virgin tour in Ireland.

Although it may be some time before they return to our shores with the boys have been working hard in the studio preparing their next album 'we've been working for over a year on an album, with various interruptions of the live stuff. We don't want to repeat ourselves and we want to move on from what we've done before, so we're experimenting quite a lot and revisiting a lot of songs and turning them on their head' says Joe.

'Some of the songs that we were writing a year ago were probably slightly in the vein of New Dawn Breaking, guitar based stuff, and in the space of a year we're all kind of getting tired of guitar music, there's just so much of it around' adds Steve 'let's not make music that we wouldn't want to listen to ourselves'. 'The one thing that we do want to do is put out music that is not derivative and is original and is something that we can actually stand by in years to come...to me that's more important than having an album out every year'.

To avoid becoming stagnant in the studio, the brothers have embarked on a tour together, without the band, to bounce new tracks off a live audience. 'We’re doing a solo tour, just the two of us, and we're gonna try and use that as a means to reapproach songs in a different way' said Joe. Hopefully the end result will be a new and fresh sound, and a new album for The Walls in 2008.

By Stephanie Fargher

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

There are some people for whom making music is a vocation and the ups and downs that go with the business are just part of a necessary journey. Previously the main-men in one of the most successful Irish bands ever - The Stunning – Steve and Joe Wall know all about going from multi-platinum success to re-inventing themselves and starting all over again. They’ve weathered the storms of the dance craze, the unplugged phase and now in the do-it-youself days they’re still writing hits. ‘Brewing up a Storm’, a massive hit in the nineties for The Stunning, is almost an unofficial Irish national anthem. Every Irish person in the world knows it and even the Irish International Rugby team walk onto the pitch to it’s rousing chorus. The Walls ‘To the Bright and Shining Sun’ was one of the most played songs on radio by an Irish band in the summer of 2003 and brought them to the attention of U2 who offered them a support slot on their second sold-out show in Slane Castle. Always a hit with radio, recent singles from their 2005 album New Dawn Breaking include: Passing Through; Drowning Pool and Black and Blue and have helped the album reach Gold status in Ireland. The band are currently recording material for their third album.

The Walls played their first gig in Dublin in 1998 having returned a few months earlier from a two-year label stint in London. The band included new members Carl Harms and Rory Doyle.

They set up their own label, Earshot Records (later changing it to Dirtbird Records) and recorded and released a string of singles. A remix of one of the album tracks, Bone Deep, finally clicked with radio and put the band on the map.

Their debut album Hi-Lo was released in May 2000 to brilliant reviews and has since outsold Gold status in Ireland. Many of the songs have featured on a number of TV series and feature films such as Dead Bodies, Goldfish Memory and On the Edge (starring Cillian Murphy). In the summer of 2001 a rare occurrence happened. The band sent four copies of the album to U2. Bono loved it and offered The Walls a slot at their second sold-out concert in Slane Castle.

To the Bright and Shining Sun was the band’s next single and the most-played track by any Irish act that summer, reaching No. 11 in the Irish charts. That June the band were also invited to support the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Landsdowne Rd. stadium in Dublin.

In February 2004 original member Carl Harms left the band. They recruited bassist Jon O’Connell just before a two week tour of the new EU accession states.

For the next album they went to Studio Black Box in France to record with producer and ex-The Frames guitarist David Odlum. The band loved the sound of recent albums by Wilco and Kings of Leon and they concentrated on capturing the magic of a great live performance - four guys in a room doing take after take and trying not to lose the soul of the music in the process.

In Oct 2004 they released a taster, The Drowning Pool EP. Drowning Pool, a blistering, spleen-venting, blues explosion, two minutes fifty two seconds in length, took people by surprise and divided opinion - exactly what the band wanted.

They supported Bob Dylan to a capacity crowd in Galway that summer and played a storming set that showed there were changes afoot in The Walls sound.

By March 2005 the album was finally finished. They called it New Dawn Breaking after the final and longest track on the record. The album went straight into the Irish charts at No.5 in the first week of June 2005 and has since reached Gold status in Ireland.

In March 2006 The Walls visited the US where they played to full houses in New York, Los Angeles and at SXSW in Austin Texas. Nic Harcourt invited the band to perform a live session on Morning Becomes Eclectic, his flagship radio show on KCRW in LA.

Since then they have gigged in the Czech Republic, Dubai and even the Bahamas. In Nov 2007 the band made their first trip to Australia where they supported Crowded House and promoted the release of New Dawn Breaking on MGM records.

The band are currently in the studio recording material for a third album.

New Dawn Breaking is now available as a digital download from I-Tunes, Napster and a host of others.

www.thewalls.ie

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As a band we played the Pyramid Rock Festival at Phillip Island last year, that was a very awesome thing to be a part of. Was so hot you felt like you were going to die but was worth every second.

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Pace yourself, try not to one of those people passed out next to a porta-loo before the sun has even had a chance to go down. All the good stuff happens at night and you’re gonna want to remember most of it. Bands like us love to play festivals because the vibe can be incredible, so yeah… get on it and have a great time, just don’t make an arse of yourself.