"A Band Member May Even Flirt With You" New Band Interview: Pocket Promise

By londonist_mark Last edited 216 months ago
"A Band Member May Even Flirt With You" New Band Interview: Pocket Promise
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Anyone wishing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with an evening of the best new Irish bands could do a great deal worse than head down to The Metro tomorrow (Friday). Four of the Emerald Isle's finest exports will be taking to the stage, in what's likely to be a pretty frenetic night out. Ideamotion, Pocket Promise, Pilotlight and Dead Metaphors are all doing the honours, and we managed to catch up with Pocket Promise and subject them to our new bands interview.

Pocket Promise hail originally from County Tyrone, but after 6 years playing together hotfooted it across to the big smoke last October to spread the word. From building epic numbers such as Somethign Unreal to jazzier jagged bursts of indie pop like Music For The 12th to the zippy Latino acoustic Tin Violin, the guys are certainly a welcome addition to the Capital's concert stages, thankfully sounding nothing at all like U2. So what do they have to say about themselves?

Where does the name come from? A band called Cable, once upon a time had a song called Pocket Promise. Unfortunately they split up… but we liked them!

Who's in the band? Cormac Fee Sings, Dominic Coyle plays guitar, Ciaran McKenna plays bass and sings too, Joe Laverty plays the drums

What do you do in the real world? Mmmm in the real world we get up between 7and 8.30am and miserably tramp into boring office jobs, just to use the internet and to send emails though.

Describe your sound to us: Jazzy, happy, jagged, tuneful. You can dance to most of it too!

How did you all get together? We were all friends at school, who just gradually formed a band over the space of a year, and then a couple of gigs convinced us that we were decent enough to hang about.

Who are your influences? The ever changing list look something like this currently: Cable, Pavement, Radiohead, Beatles, Ben Folds, Elbow, Postal Service, Incubus, Elliot Smith, The Strokes etc etc

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What's the greatest lyric you've ever written: ‘I’m guilty of a million things and one is my own innocence’

What's the state of play with the band at the moment? We have recently moved to London (Oct ’05) from Ireland, to give music a proper chance. We’d been playing for a few years, but never giving ourselves the chance to fully throw ourselves into it. Since we’ve been in London, things have really shifted up a few gears and we’ve been getting interest from the likes of Club Fandango/Fierce Panda, Polydor, Parlophone, and even Los Angeles mad man, Kim Fowley.

Where can we hear / see you next? At the moment we’re preparing for a big gig on St. Patrick’s Day (Friday 17th March) in the Metro Club in Oxford Street. We set the gig up along with a few other Irish bands based over here, and the line-up will be fantastic.

What's the big game plan for the band? To keep playing live as much as we can, to get all of our new songs recorded and for as many people as possible to be able to hear our music, however that happens.

Who would you most like to support? Probably Elbow after last night!

What's your ultimate label to be on? It’s hard to say, but I suppose we like the longevity of the bands on labels such as parlaphone.

What's the best gig you've ever been to? As far as gigs the four of us have all been to together, It would probably be either the Frames, Elbow or the Electric Picnic Festival in Ireland last summer.

Have you ever thrown a TV out of a hotel window? No

Would you like to? No, it would be terribly dangerous.. tut tut.

Any great stories from the road? Somehow I think the situation comedy of all our road stories would be lost on absolutely everybody!

Recommend one album to our readers you don't think they will have discovered: “When animals attack” or “sub lingual” by Cable.

Why should Londonist readers go and see you? Because we’re great, we’ll personally thank you for coming, and a band member may even flirt with you. Plus you might get a badge or a sticker for free! Wow!

What's your favourite...

...venue to play In London? – Dublin Castle, Camden / Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon.

...venue to go to in London? - Dublin Castle, Camden / Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon.

...record store? - Fopp

...shop (non-music)? “Gizem Foods” Our corner shop, 6 Heinekens for £5, and the best name ever!!

...market? Walthamstow fruit and veg market. Only to hear the guy shout “pound a bowl, Oi Oi!!!”

...place to people-watch? Either Walthamstow market or possibly Camden

...place to chill-out? Ten Bells, Spitalfields,

...place to get lashed? St Moritz Soho, Underworld Camden, our kitchen table.

...place for a post-gig kebab? Kebab? Nah, It has to be fried chicken out of one of London’s 23 million fried chicken outlets.

...view in London? Our mate Simon’s 22nd floor flat near camden, You can literally see the whole of London, if you can tolerate the smell of piss from the corridor.

...form of public transport? – Errr Night Busses?

What advice would you give Ken Livingstone? No congestion charge for musicians going to gigs!

What London place or thing would you declare a landmark? The photo wall in our front room, it will be famous one day!

The world is ending in 24 hours. How would you spend your last day in London? Very illegally!

Have you ever been sick on the Tube? No, but often sick of the tube.

If you could lose one part of London, which part would it be? Work or else rush hour.

Greatest thing ever to come out of London? Yeah that would have to be us (and we’re not even from here!)

What advice would you give to someone new to London getting on a night bus for the first time? Take a deep breath and close your eyes. What advice

If you wrote a song about London what would it be called and what kind of song would it be? It would be very short and fast and hectic, with everything going on at the one time and the singing would have to be shouty.. I think that sums it up fairly well? It’d probably be called lethal london (or something else ridiculous!) We probably shouldn’t write a song about london!

And finally...

Sum up London in just one word: City.

Doors for the Metro show are 7.30, show finishes at 10.30 and it's £6 to get in. More info here.

Last Updated 16 March 2006