Band of Gypsies hit road with debut LP
Upcoming Dublin outfit reveal the story behind their catchy name
Gypsies On The Autobahn
With a provocative name and an evocative debut album, Gypsies On The Autobahn are set to make a big impact this year. The Dublin band saddled themselves with the name 10 years ago not long after they met while studying at St Declan’s College in Cabra. Lead singer James Smith says: ‘People remember it. It causes a bit of controversy but so what? Good publicity, bad publicity, it’s all publicity.’ In the beginning we had no idea what to call ourselves,’ he says.
‘We asked this friend of ours to come up with one for us and he just started reeling off all these names. Gypsies On The Autobahn was about the only usable one. We always thought about changing it but it just stuck.’
That’s the story of their name but it’s their album, Born Brief, that will really get people talking about the quartet.
James, whose younger brother Dan plays drums in the band, has written a strong collection of songs that deal primarily with the death by suicide of their father when James and Dan were just young children.
‘I was seven when it happened. I went to counselling for a while but for the most part I counselled myself,’ he says.
‘These songs are my therapy. Writing them wasn’t difficult, it was when I decided I was going to play the first couple of songs I’d written to the rest of the band that I became a bit nervous. But the guys were very supportive and that made it easy for me to communicate what I felt to them.’
James says that, though unsure of what he wanted to do in life, he knew that he needed a job that would allow him to express his emotions.
‘If it hadn’t have been music it would have been something where I could do that,’ he says.
James is the oldest of four brothers. That position in the family was one where he became used to people listening to what he said and relying on him.
‘There is only 11 months difference between me and Dan,’ he says. ‘We were both going through the same emotions the whole time. On the song The Strength Of Two, I was speaking directly to him and to my other brothers. I had this complex that I needed to be the father figure within the family.’
James is keen to stress that their mother is the rock of the family and the song Home, which closes the album, is for and about her.
‘It needed to be on the album, otherwise the album wouldn’t have been complete,’ he adds.
I wondered what James’s feelings were about people such as Bressie who have been vocal about suicide awareness. Did James feel, conversely, that the more we talk about it, the more it puts it in people’s heads as an option?
‘I don’t think talking about suicide increases the chances that people are going to kill themselves. If a young person, anyone for that matter, is going through a terrible time for whatever the reason the thoughts of doing that are there. If they don’t feel they can talk about their feelings then suicide becomes the only option. If they can talk then they know there are other options.’
James says the band was formed in what he terms ‘the Oxegen era’, when he was listening to bands like Kings Of Leon and Fleet Foxes.
‘In the Oxegen era,’ he explains, ‘when these massive bands would play, regardless of what the words were about, you still wanted to get up and dance or just jump around the place. We want to strike that balance with Gypsies On The Autobahn.’
Gypsies On The Autobahn’s album Born Brief is on Universal Music Ireland. The band play Whelan’s in Dublin on March 11.
‘I was seven when my dad died. For the most part, I counselled myself’