Galway Advertiser 2003/2003_11_20/GA_2011_E1_041.pdf 

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Th W e e ek
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Galway Advertiser
November20 2003

Page 41

California dreaming in Galway with The Thrills

he Thrills are Conor Deasy (vocals), Daniel Ryan (guitar/vocals/bass), Ben Carrigan (drums), Kevin Horan (keys), and Padraic McMahon (bass/vocals/guitars). Their debut album So Much For The City has seen them becoming the darlings of NME and Q. When I contacted them they were in Paris and due to head to Milan for a slot on MTV Italy. It's good for some! The Thrills sound incorporates elements of The Eagles, The Byrds, and The Beach Boys. Horan explains: "We went through this phase of listening to a lot of west coast music about a year ago and that kind of rubbed off on the record. We wrote the songs when we were at home in Ireland. We'd decided we would take a year off and not go travelling. So we were kind of depressed because we were doing shitty jobs just so we could afford to rehearse every night and send out demos. "We'd been away in California the summer before so writing about that was kind of cheering us up. We were listening to stuff from the west coast and it was a phase we were going through. Our new stuff sounds kind of different from that." The Thrills had early champions in the shape of ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey and Oasis' Noel Gallagher. Morrissey even offered them a support slot on an American tour which, unfortunately, they had to turn down.

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ONE WAY of shaking off the winter blues is to go see The Thrills in The Radisson on December 16. The Dublin quintet's US west coast sound has lit up the radio and the charts. Keyboard player Kevin Horan spoke to KEVIN MCGUIRE about Morrissey and Noel Gallagher being fans, meeting legends like Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach, and California dreaming in Dublin.
So, what was it like to be associated with the depressive 1980s icon? "That was our first experience of that sort of thing," enthuses Horan. "That was before we'd even got any offers of a record deal or anything. Morrissey is a really cool guy and he was kind of the first person on board. He's got a house down in Cork and he spends a lot of time in Ireland because his parents are Irish. "He's always keeping an ear out for Irish bands and someone passed him a copy of our demo. There was a phone number on it and he rang us and asked us if we were doing any gigs. At the time we were just rehearsing and getting stuff together for demos so he said he'd come down and watch us rehearsing." " We kind of did a gig for him because he was the only person there in the rehearsal space! He was tapping away and then he offered us a support for one of his tours but we couldn't do it because we hadn't even a record deal. Then later he asked us back to do the Royal Albert Hall with him. So, that was kind of the start of the whole story for us." Noel Gallagher is also a fan. Did the boys have any debauched nights out on the town with the brothers Gallagher? "Well, I think they're a bit more behaved now," says Horan of the Oasis gang. "I don't think they hang out together all that much. Noel has this thing of going to see new bands in small venues around London. There are a lot of bands he's kind of talked up to the press and on the strength of that they've got record deals. He seems a really nice guy and I don't think he's as wild as he was in the past, he seems pretty together. He was going to come down to the studio with us when we were putting some finishing touches to the album in London and sing some backing vocals." " However, the day he was due to come down it turned out that his exwife was going on holidays so he had to take the kid for that time. It would have been a nice little touch on the album. Hopefully we'll get to meet up with him when we're back in London." However this meeting of music icons is nothing new to The Thrills as they have in the past blagged their way in to meet Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach by posing as Irish Times journalists. Horan explains: "Yeah that was me and Daniel. When we were in America the last time we were kind of stuck there for an extra three weeks. We were living out of suitcases and we were staying with my sister for a while. Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson were playing in the local town within a week of each other. It's amazing what flashing an Irish passport will do for you. " " We said we'd just arrived from the airport and we'd flown over especially. Suddenly the front row tickets quickly turned to backstage tickets and then to a meet-and-greet. It's a bit harder to do in places like New York or Los Angeles but in places like Phoenix and Santa Barbara you wouldn't get that much hassle." " With Brian Wilson it's amazing the guy is still alive considering all he's been through. His voice is still amazing and he can still really hold it together. After the show he was really quiet so we didn't really get many words out of him. "With Burt Bacharach it was the total opposite. He arrived out in a tracksuit and a pair of slippers. There was like 20 people in the

dressing room and he kind of worked the room one by one. He was like big handshakes, hugs, and all conversation. He was great, he'd answer any questions you had. He was more together than he's ever been." The Thrills have been bandied about as "the next U2". Many bands have worn that moniker but never quite achieved the same level of success. Have The Thrills spoken to any of those bands for advice? "We spoke to a lot of bands around Dublin, great bands like Whipping Boy," says Horan. "We're really big fans of them and they'd an amazing first album. It was just that circumstances contrived against them when they were on a dodgy record label and half the people left. They never got a fair shot at it. We've been lucky in that we've had a good first year and things have gone well for us." " The U2 operation is so clever from the management to the band and it is an example of how to behave yourselves if you want a long-term career. However a lot of it is out of your own hands. We just have to make sure we keep recording and touring. There are a lot of bands that never got the breaks and we know that. We've been very lucky so far." Long may their luck continue as they take in Galway in December. Until then we'll continue to keep California dreaming to the sounds of The Thrills.