Another Crack of the Whip

Photograph: Darren O'Beirne

With the recent release and success of their latest album "Heartworm", Whipping Boy look set for bigger things. Radio stations nationwide latched onto the album to such an extent it's a regular player on the Larry Gogan's 2FM slot. The band have suddenly made the transition from fringe to mainstream. Earlier this year they played the fresher's ball and in the words of ENT.s officer Joni Mitchell, "nobody wanted to know". Three weeks ago they headlined the HeinekenRollercoaster Gig in the bar. The tickets sold out in twenty minutes and they literally raised the roof.

WHY HAVE WHIPPING BOY TAKEN OFF SO SUDDENLY AND WHY NOW?: "well....this is probably going to sound like a very simplistic answer but I'd put it down to the fact that we have come up with a very good album. There's obviously a learning process which goes on in whatever you choose to do with your life. We chose music and we've been together now for eight and a half years so we're obviously better now than we were in the early days. When we started out we were picking up guitars for the very first time and we just wanted to make a lot of noise, we had different priorities then. We were listening to people like Sonic Youth and we were certainly influenced by the whole grunge thing and our earlier recordings reflected that"

HEARTWARM SEEMS A LOT MORE MELODIC THAN YOUR FIRST ALBUM SUBMARINE. WAS THAT CHANGE A CONSCIOUS ONE OR A MORE RESULTANT FROM THE NATURAL PROGRESSION OF THE BAND. DID YOU GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE THE HEARTWORM A MORE MARKETABLE ENTITY, MORE RADIO FRIENDLY EVEN? "When we recorded submarine the whole situation was different. Back then we were into the assault but as time went by the band changed. We had a couple of contractual hiccups with record companies and for a while it didn't look good. Submarine came out and it didn't do well commercially because basically the record company left it dead in the water. In hindsight that was a good thing because if we had got the exposure then that we have now we wouldn't have been good enough to back it up. After Submarine it did look for a while as if we were going to split up and at that stage it became important to write some good songs. Because even if we did split up at least we'd have some good songs that meant something to us and that we could stand behind and talk about to people. Song writing then became important from that point on and the power of lyrics became more important. Almost overnight song writing became a different thing, it became easier and it became much better".

"You talk about the album being more radio friendly but what is a radio friendly album? We don't know. We can't write songs for a radio. No band does that, no guitar band anyway because essentially there are no guarantees in this business . You can only write from the heart and write about what you feel comfortable with. At the end of the day when you record an album you have to talk to a lot of different people about the songs and if they mean nothing to you well then that's going to be hard".

MUCH OF THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE SONGS SEEMS TO RELATE TO SOME FORM OR OTHER OF INNATE SADNESS. WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THEIR IS A CERTAIN SORROW ABOUT WHIPPING BOY?: "There's certainly a sadness about our songs yes, but I mean, there's a certain sadness to everybody at some stage in their lives. I don't think those feelings are ones which was a band have a monopoly on. There is a great honesty to the album you know?, it's very open. The whole sorrow aspect is just one we seem to be drawn to when we are writing songs. It's probably the way we exorcising our demons, we're uninhibited and I suppose there might be a little bit of naivete about that but there's also a certain charm there too".

ONE OF THE TRACKS FROM THE ALBUM "WE DON'T NEED NOBODY ELSE" A REFERNCE IS MADE TO BONO. YOU SAY "THEY BUILT PORTHOLES FOR BONO SO WE CAN GAZE ACROSS THE BAY AND SING ABOUT MOUNTAINS MAYBE" AND THEN YOU MAKE THE OBSERVATION "YOU ARE WHAT YOU OWN IN THIS LAND \ YOU CAN BE KING AND IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE VIEW". COULD YOU EXPLAIN THIS REFERENCE TO BONO AND ALSO IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN THE TWO LYRICS?: The story behind the reference to Bono is that U2 have a house for their crew at Dalkey and they go there quite often. We had a roadie who was the son of U2's sound man and one weekend himself and Fergal(vocalist) went up there for a drinking weekend. Fergal was in the jacks taking a piss and when he looked to his side he noticed a porthole really low down on the wall which looked across the bay. He thought it was gas the way they built a porthole for Bono in such a place so that even when he was taking a piss he could get inspiration. People thought it was a jibe at U2 but it wasn't." AND THE LYRIC?: "well maybe there is an underlying current in the whole thing. It is a simple observation about building portholes for Bono but at the end of the day it seems that the more wealth you have and the more flash you are the more respect you get. U2 though are an easy target to get at though and I really think that for 4 Dublin blokes who have done so well they have kept their heads together pretty well".
POST GIG BACKSTAGE FERGAL IS LESS FORGIVING ABOUT THE WHOLE BONO REFERENCE. HE STATES ADAMANTLY: "They (U2) were always so far out there y'know. I mean I grew up at the same time as U2 and they had to grow up in public so how can they speak for the average person? That cunt Bono certainly never spoke for me. They've just been completely swallowed up by the states and that whole culture".

SO WHAT OF THE MUCH WRITTEN VOCALIST FERGAL MCKEE? HOW DO THE REST OF THE BAND FEEL ABOUT LIVING IN HIS SHADOW. COULD THE BAND'S CURRENT POPULARITY BE PUT DOWN TO THE HYPE WHICH FERGALS ANTICS HAVE RESULTED IN (WHICH INCLUDE STRIPPING NAKED ON STAGE AND CUTTING HIMSELF WITH BROKEN BOTTLES IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE)?: "people always talk about the hype but there hasn't really been any. Sometimes Fergal does great things, sometimes he does stupid things but that's it. This band is a democracy. It's not a case of "Fergal and Whipping Boy". We're not the type of band that you can push down peoples throats, we're not BOYZONE. People actually write about Whipping boy. That kind of thing might add to the profile but it's not hype. If people understand what we're pedalling then they are not going to be disappointed. Our music is a bit of a bitter pill but it's very addictive if you give it a chance".

IN THE PAST DECADE A WHOLE GENERATION OF IRISH BANDS WHO HAVE BEEN TIPPED TO BE THE NEXT BIG THING HAVE ALL COME AND GONE AND NEVER REALLY MADE IT. IF THAT HAPPENS TO WHIPPING BOY WHAT WILL YOU DO?: "Well I suppose there's every possibility it could happen and it's certainly something that you think about. I mean we're a band, a vocalist, a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer. How does a bass player get work? If it all ends tomorrow what will we do? Who knows?

darren@ollamh.ucd.ie

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