How long have you been together?
Patrick: Going on almost 3 years

How did you guys get together?
Patrick: I was without a band, doing the whole solo thing. Hated it and wanted to be in a band. I always wanted to work with Dave and Rob. Had no bass player, Rob was living with Gary and asked him and he said he'd love to do it. Fell into it really. There was no real thought really it just kind of happened.

Who are your influences?
Patrick: Wide and varied. I like Tom Waits, Eels, Sigur Ros and instrumental stuff.
Dave: That's one of the things that comes with us. Myself and Pa would come from very different background musically than Rob and Gary. We always said that we came from the folky, acoustic kind of thing. I'd be more the rocker side, like Bloc Party and bring that kind of energy to it.
Gary: I like the more thrashy kind of stuff. Myself and Rob would be more into the heavy stuff. Rob grew up listening to Metallica and I grew up listening to a lot of 70's stuff, the more progressive stuff. We've found a common ground in what we like and what influences us.
Patrick: Rob likes Milli Vinilli! He's not here so can't say any different.
Dave: He loves Aqua!
Patrick: I have the worse taste ever in music, how am I in a band?
Gary: Hairspray musicals 1-3!
Pa: It's muscials, it's fucking brilliant! Come on!

Bet you're a Grease man as well?
Pa: Oh fuck yeah! Grease, Sound of Music, Wicked, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... Mary Poppins, bought it yesterday!

What makes Last Days of Death Country different to your previous bands?
Pa: For me anyway it's, more people and that there's no one greater than anyone. It's four equal parts. If I don't like what you're doing I can say it or you can say it to me and there's no aggression towards anyone. If anything magically, amazingly happened, once again there would be no one above anyone. There'd be a vote/veto type thing.
Gary: There's an honesty as well. I think it's the main reason we've been together for 3 years as well. ya know theres a willingness to try stuff because we are all influenced by other stuff.
Dave: I think at the end of the day we're not trying to better anybody in Limerick or anywhere else. I think we're just out to do our own thing and write some really, really good tunes, that the four of us would put at the top of our record collection and stuff that we would ideally love to listen to.

When you guys are writing songs, would you (Patrick) write the lyrics yourself or all write together and add yer own bits?
Pa: When we started off I had a couple of songs. Then I'd bring them to the lads and they would dissect it and then that's what we did for a while. I'll come up with a basic basic idea or if Dave or Gary are writing a song. The song 'Strung Out' came from Gary. That song came from a bass line. We all went off and did our separate things for it. The basic angle ya know I'll bring it to the lads and they'll be like oh yeah that sounds like Snow Patrol'. They'll be like change that chord and Gary would be like well if ya change this, that'll be better. So with that then I'll go away and develop the song. It is very much a band effort. The lyrics would be me if I'm writing them. Dave is writing lyrics now and Gary's writing the lyrics now. It's good and it's getting bigger and it's becoming more involving for all four of us.

Are most of the songs about love?
Pa: The first four songs were love scourn. It was very much out of a break up. It was all very 'fuck you, who needs you anyway?' And then I watched this thing on Nick Cave, and he was on about how he writes songs and for me it was the most eye opening experience. He wasn't one of those guys who would sit there and wait for songs to come down and there it is and the song just came to him. No, that's absolute bullshit. Song writing is like anything else. It's a job. You have to sit down and do it and you have to keep doing it and you keep getting better at it.
Dave: We write about what we know, ya know driving 600 miles every week... things like that.
Gary: I kinda like to take stories and throw twists on them. I'm working on this song now and it's taking the story of Iccarus and kinda throwing a different kind of religious view on it. I'm not particulary religious, actually I'm not religious whatsoever. I like to base and make up stories on life questions that you have.
Dave: Whatever the songs are about, it's the darker stuff might add a bit of volume. Everything that I've been involved in is... very moody.

Even though your music is moody, and your lyrics are very dark, you guys still have a light quality in there.
Pa: I think there's always a little glimmer of hope in it. It's very accessble.
Dave: In a strange way, even though it is dark, we didn't purposely set out to make it this dark. It's whatever we're feeling at the time, it'll come out when we're in a certain mood. Whatever we're playing will do down well at the time and vice versa, the next week it'll be a bit different. We have a song in the works that is completely opposite to really what we are doing but it still retains us.
Pa: The newer stuff especially, we did a new song there it's properly upbeat. We're trying not to go for the same stuff. Every song we're really trying to push ourselves and the whole way we put them together and all the vocal melodies and backing melodies and even guitar and bass...
Dave: It's a fine line sometimes and people will turn around and say these guys need to find their sound. But we don't let a song out of the practice space unless it's us. Back to back some of the songs could be very varied. Some are slow and something that builds and something that crashes. It's a kind of, 'make of it what you will'.

Ye have a very varied audience. Everything from the metal heads to girly girls.
Gary: It is a surprise when you put music out there and the people pick up on it and say this is really good. It is nice. But it does surprise me when you see so many different people.
Dave: That's one thing I will say, whatever about our four backgrounds, we all have a very different group of friends to bring. And we get great support.
Pa: What absolutely shocked me, well the first time we played in Limerick, cos I said I was used to acoustic guitar, all very quiet and very civilized and now we have these tattoo fuckers everywhere. It's great! Such a very varied group of people that would come and listen. We have people like that I would never have imagined to ever come to watch anything that I would contribute to. What's also surprising is the people I thought would like the music didn't and the people I thought wouldn't like it, do like it.

Seems like you guys have been recording for a very long time, when's the EP, single, album out?
Pa: It looks like we've been recording for a very very long time. We were only doing one or two days a fortnight. (Dave lives in Belfast) And those one or two days we'd only be doing 3 or 4 hours. So we've never done a full day out there. The longest is when me and Gary did... from 4pm to 1am. It was all little bits because Fergal [Lawlor] was so busy with the Mitty's stuff (Walter Mitty and The Realists). He had loads going on, so we were trying to fit in when was best for him. It was rare when the four of us were in the studio together. It is coming out this year, I'd say late Febuary. It'll be a four track EP.

Are you guys going to do a launch?
Pa: A Limerick launch and do a tour to promote the EP as opposed to doing a tour to launch the EP.

And you're just going to go around Ireland for now?
Dave: yeah, we're still in the kind of pre-profile stage right now. A lot of people haven't heard about us. We know where we are and we know where we want to be in a years time. Do the couple of dates between Febuary and March.

What was it like supporting Giveamanakick on their last ever Galway show? Did you guys have fun?
Dave: I said to Pa when we came away from it. Everything about that gig was an education. Even soundcheck, just watching how those guys operate it was just an education. We're not out to better anybody but we kind of want to emulate those guys and get the same recognition as them.
Pa: I think if you're in music in Limerick, they are almost like the Holy Grail and to be asked to be on their final tour was special. It was a big thing to be asked.
Gary: They're just amazing. Even just to watch, down to everything, just the way they draw you in as a crowd.

So literally 2010 is going to be tour tour tour?
Dave: Gig the arse off it! Gig gig gig gig. Like I said ya know, a lot of people don't know us and haven't heard of us. Just going to go out and introduce them to the name.
Pa: For the last 3 years we've been practicing. Then we did some gigs and it's like we've been building for the last 3 years where we're all very comfortable.

How did you guys get involved with Fergal Lawlor?
Pa: A friend of ours, Brendan Markam, was recording with Fergal and we know Brendan and we asked him to pass on our number and see if he would be interested. And just the way they were talking about it, it seemed the way for us. And the numbers were passed back and forth and Gary never even mentioned that he knew him. I was talking to Dave and I was saying well he has my number, so we'll see now what happens. So he calls and he's like, Hi, how's it going? I saw ye had on clip up on youtube, ye have nothing recorded. I like it, come up and we'll have a chat and see what ye want to do. So then we all go out and it's like a military manoeuvre. It's like ok now we're going meeting him and we can't be late. Then we go in the car and Gary still says nothing like. Rob already knows the whole back story and me and Dave know nothing about it. So we hop out of the car and we're all like ok be professional. Fergal answers the door and he's all like Aboy Gary! How's it going buddy? Gary's like, Ah Fergal, are ya well? Myself and Dave are just looking at each other going, whats going on?! Turns out where Gary is living, the house at the back of them, had a studio and that's where The Cranberries used to practice out there for years and years. That's what happened anyway in a very round about way. He came to a gig as well and he liked our sound.
Dave: It was a challenge for him to take on a sound like us. He's learning too but he's very good at what he does.
Pa: We were his third band that he's recorded. He had done Brendan's [Markam] and Walter Mitty's [and the Realists] cd. He's a very down to earth guy.

Do you think the reason why everyone is so down to earth is because we are from Limerick and there's no bull shit really?
Pa: It's not being a gowl like and pulling the whole Limerick card. If you go to a Dublin venue or a place outside Limerick and you say you're from Limerick, straight away its like ohhhh, really? It's a bollix like. Even talking to bands who had done very good things being from Limerick is an issue and it shouldn't be. Because we don't give a fuck about it. If you come to Limerick and you're out on a Saturday night and if any of us or Fox Jaw Bounty Hunters or Walter Mitty And The Realists, we all talk to each other. There's no like, "ah well fuck them".
Gary: I was in Eamonn Doran's in Dublin and some members of two well known bands were there and they weren't talking to each other. Dublin being a bigger city there’s a very elitist attitude.
Pa: One of the biggest things that opened my eyes is the band We Cut Corners, those lads did the JD Set in Trinity Rooms and they won it. Two lovely guys and we brought them to a gig and they couldn't get over it. They were like "isn't that yer man from Giveamanakick", "oh yeah that's Steve" and they were like "is that Walter Mitty And The Realists" and we were like "oh yeah that's Niall and the lads there". They were like "so ye all know each other?" We were like "yeah sure we're all from the same town". "And do ye all get on like?" "What are ye on about? Sure we're all going for the same thing like". It's a case if we can help each other out we'll do it like. And they couldn't get over even just the Limerick crowd. They couldn't get over Dolans, ya know the way there's a band menu. They couldn't get over the fact that all the bands here talk and get a long and get gigs for each other.
Gary: If we got a gig in Dublin and we could pick our own support, we'd pick a band from Limerick. Just because they are our friends. Why not play with the people you know. There's no real rivalry between Limerick bands either.

Look for upcoming shows, as well as the EP, which will be out early Spring. To find out more about Last Days of Death Country, you can either go to their myspace of facebook pages...

INTERVIEW BY OLIVIA CHAU