The band forming their own movement despite the lockdown
Backroad Smokers Club are battling the odds to release their debut
TIMES are touigh for all in the arts world but what if you’d just been about to release your debut album when the Covid-19 crisis happened?
That is exactly what has happened for Backroad Smokers Club, a collection of some of the South East’s most talented young musicians who are now trying to negotiate the stormy waters of what lockdown and venue closures mean for them.
Undeterred, they have just released Music is a Movement, the first single from the long-awaited debut album.
Guitarist and founding member Darragh McDonald says Backroad Smokers Club is now a line-up with full and part time members but he, Freddy Quinlan, Cathal Kirwan, Killian Browne and Conor Walsh now make up its core.
The Waterford funksters are set to finally release their first full length, but the health crisis has left the album ’95 per cent finished’, causing chaos, but also some silver linings despite having the change plans drastically; even with their debut single.
‘We had intended to release a different song, we have a video finished — but the track isn’t,’ says McDonald, who is known as Chez. ‘We have two more days in the studio, just general housekeeping and final touches, and we were due to go in on dates in the first week of the lockdown.
‘We have 11 people on the album, we had aimed to get it finished and released by June/July and do a launch gig.’
These plans have, of course, changed dramatically now, thanks to Covid-19 but needless to say, the band won’t be beaten.
‘There were dates booked and tonnes of organisation,’ says McDonald. It’s been a massive spanner in the works but we tend not to focus on the negative; on the other end of things it’s given us a lot of time to go back over the songs and critique things when we would have rushed it.’
THE album has been a big undertaking for the band, and one that has been a long time coming.
‘We started recording in June last year, it was a big undertaking to get the brass and backing vocalists together,’ McDonald says.
‘But I think it’s almost a little blessing in disguise, but also the fact that everyone is online and looking for something new. If we can try and use that to our advantage and release this track, it will hopefully get a bit more of a platform.
‘I suppose we’ll just have to see what way the ban on live events goes, to do a launch with a gig is kind of a given — it would be very strange to release the album without a gig, we could look at doing something online but the atmosphere isn’t really there with live streams or to pre-record it.’
‘Our studio is in Kilkenny and we can’t get there at the moment, we can’t even rehearse, should the restrictions be lifted the first thing we would do is finish off the two days,’ he added.
‘Would we release it without possibility of a gig? I suppose we probably would, but we might release a fourth single and hold off, it’s a very unusual situation.’
As the custody battle between Cork-based band full of Waterford men — O Emperor — ended when the quintet signed off with their brilliant swansong Jason in 2018, the next batch of acts is ready to step up, and although they wouldn’t say it themselves; BSC were probably the band that kicked off the new wave. If you want proof, they crowdfunded over €5,500 towards their album. ‘It was unbelievable, when we started it a couple of weeks went by and there wasn’t a sausage in the account,’ McDonald laughs. ‘We hoped for it to not only be a fundraiser but also a bit of a PR stunt, and we thought at one point it was going to work against us. ‘But people really came out and gave their money, and a lot of it was very substantial. There were a lot of years of us playing absolutely everywhere and never really saying no; we played nearly every county in the country — every corner of the country anyway, the support was definitely a result of our stamina and meeting people and then the online thing as well.’
BSC’s social media is something that sets them apart, their unique content is something they’ve developed over years of promoting music nights around the country, McDonald takes charge over most of it.
‘Instagram and Facebook kind of suppress posts,’ he says. ‘You’re always trying to think of something that will grab attention, we’re always up against that battle of trying to get it out there and push it.
‘You can put money into it and you’ll need to from time to time, but if you make the content good — the rest will go forward itself.
‘For the single release we were trying to think of a funny idea, and we’re trying to record this video of a Zoom-esque call, and it’s going to seem like we just dropped in, and be like “oh well since you’re here, we’re releasing this song”, but based around us playing the song
Bamboleo by the Gypsy Kings.’
The blossoming Waterford scene has a lot of overlapping parts, and one of the most exciting new acts to emerge was TOUCAN, led by singer-songwriter Conor Clancy, whose first single We Fell For Miles has now surpassed more than a million plays on Spotify
Clancy is the only non-band member to appear on the album, who Chez describes as the ‘special guest’, but he is quick to recognise a number of brilliant rising artists and bands in the county.
‘It is fantastic now, Conor’s (Clancy) music is such a high standard, there’s Crome Yellow — who I don’t believe get the recognition that they should — and obviously Alex Gough is pretty much a mega-star, he started off in a band called Central Hall and his brother was the frontman, he was the drummer! I’m really looking forward to what’s coming.’
Music is a Movement is out now via Spotify and the band’s Facebook and Instagram sites.