Successful Irish band The Flaws have been in hibernation since their tour for their first album, Achieving Vagueness. This summer, they performed at a number of festivals, and released a single, 'I Don't Wanna Dance'. Now, they're preparing to release their yet-to-be-named second album. Here the ultra-modest Paul Finn, lead singer and guitarist, talks with Cluas. Your first album was very successful - do you find that expectations for this album are high? No, not at all, I don't think that anyone would really care if we ever released an album again! You've been working on your second album - what's it about? We started just writing songs aimlessly, and then we thought it might be more exciting to give the album a theme. The theme started out being based around the phrase 'peace and quiet', and it changed as the songs developed, into something else, which we're keeping under wraps until the album is a go. It's a very strong album ... [Read on]

Interview with Frank Turner, formerly of Million Dead Although Frank Turner is a well known singer/song writer in certain circles of music fans, he has in no way been affected by his fame. Leading the way up to his dressing room in The Academy, Dublin City, he made small talk and confessed that he is "a fan of peace and quiet."  Turner kicked off his U.K and Ireland tour in Dublin on October 13th, a tour which consisted of 16 dates. He's has just finished touring with The Offspring in the U.S. promoting his current album Poetry of the Deed and he has a reputation of being dedicated to being on the road. The singer spoke overtly about his gigging, saying he believes it is his duty to perform to the best of his abilities for his loyal fans: "I see myself as being an entertainer, above and beyond anything else, and my job is to get up on stage and make the people, who pay to come to the show, have a really good time." He likes to think of himself as s... [Read on]

I recently caught up with up and coming Belfast electro pop foursome Yes Cadets prior to their performance at the HWCH festival in Dublin. Yes Cadets were only formed last summer but in a short space of time have been causing quite a stir. A single, EP and an Oxygen performance later as well as wide spread airplay sees their star in the ascendance. Here is what they had to say.   You guys formed over last year, were you friends before? How did you come up with the concept of the band? We’ve all known each other for a good while, meeting initially a couple of years ago in the murky underbelly of the Belfast music scene. It was only last year that we decided to form the band that we always wanted to be in and to play the music we always wanted to play.    Why the obsession with Canada?     Well, it’s only really an obsession when it comes to Canadian rock music. Bands like Wolf Parade, Arcade Fire and Tokyo Police... [Read on]

General Fiasco, consisting of brothers Owen and Enda Strathern and school friend Stephen "Leaky" Leacock, have been setting the Northern Irish music scene alight for the past twelve months. Having already toured with One Night Only and Snow Patrol, and a certain Gary Lightbody singing their praises, this band is destined for big things. Lead singer and bassist Owen answered a few questions for me.. Do you have a specific method for songwriting? Is it usually lyrics first then music or vice versa? It usually happens all at once, I'll just sit with the bass or a guitar and start playing. The chords and melody come together and sometimes the lyrics too, they generally write themselves. Songs just come, when it works it's good and then at other times you cant squeeze out anything. I guess it's to do with mood or whatever, you need a little something driving the song - a stress or a worry.... or maybe something positive if you are that way inclined. What ar... [Read on]

Owen Ashworth began recording as Casiotone For The Painfully Alone in 1999. His unique songwriting has spawned 5 albums over those years and he has steadily grown in popularity. I caught up with him on his North American tour to ask him some questions. Did you enjoy your brief stop off in Vancouver? Did you get any time for sight-seeing? I never made it to Vancouver, unfortunately.  I got in a car accident on I-5, just north of Seattle.  My car was wrecked and I spent the night of the Vancouver show in a Travelodge in Everett, Washington.  I walked to a 7-Eleven and bought a beer and some Sun Chips and then laid in bed listening to a Seattle talk radio program called Too Beautiful To Live on the motel clock radio.   You're about half way through your North American tour. How has it gone so far? I'm home now, and other than the car accident, I think the tour went pretty well.  I felt very good about most of the shows, and enjoyed playing sol... [Read on]

Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have being creating waves in the indie scene since they released their debut EP last year. Their fuzzy indie pop has proven infectious and their debut eponymous album is amongst my favourite records of the year. I chatted to them during their tour of North America to see how things have gone so far, and what plans they had for the future. How are you doing? Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Did you enjoy your time in Vancouver? Things are great! We had a pretty awesome time in Vancouver - there was a rowdy crowd, which made things extra fun. How did the band get together? We were all friends first, and would hang out a lot and geek out about music.  We formed to play at Peggy's birthday party, though at the time it was just me, Alex and Peggy with an iPod on drums. We played about 5 songs with 4 chords in 10 minutes. It may have been really bad, but we had so much fun we didn't notice. When you were beginning i... [Read on]

Gaggle, a 22-piece London based female choir, creatively infuse powerful, fast paced evocative music with an almost intimidating air. Though Gaggle are only new on the scene, fronted by Coughlin formerly of 586, these girls definitely know what they’re doing, and it's not to be missed... Where’d the idea for Gaggle originally come from? People who know me well know that Gaggle is the only logical outcome of my interests and talents. There's more music than ever, more bands, more myspace, everyone is in a band but most of them are just boring, ineffectual, limp splutters into space. I wanted my next music project to be powerful, warrior style burst of excitement, strangeness and something to annoy people who dream of being Johnny Borrell.  I couldn't think of anything more powerful than 22 scary, smart women in evil monk-hoodies stomping and chanting about what it's like being a drunk, or being lied to, or the disappointment of being politically a... [Read on]

Being play-listed on BBC Radio One, an album recorded in France with a top class producer (David Odlum- The Frames, Gemma Hayes), glowing critical praise; after eight years together Pocket Promise are starting to realise some of their promise. Cluas.com caught up with Belfast based indie ban on the week they released their debut album I’ve been here for ages. Firstly, congratulations on the album release. The band has been together a long time, were you nervous about finally getting the record out there? Thanks! Yeah, definitely there's always going to be a certain amount of apprehension and nerves when releasing something, but it's completely overshadowed by the sense of achievement, pride and relief at getting the finished product finished and out into the public. We've been working so hard with promoting the album and letting everyone know what we're doing that we haven't had a chance to enter into any kind of feelings of fear. We feel like this wa... [Read on]

  Adam and Darcie are a husband and wife team from Provo, Utah. Having released their debut The Valley Where I'm From, a couple of years ago, they recently signed to Irish record label Indiecater Records. Their new album California Trail is out on July 24th. The new album is out next week. How do you feel in relation to it and, perhaps, the public reacton to it? Confident? Nervous? A bit of both? Adam: The process of writing, recording, and producing the album was a wonderful yet demanding journey, so having it done and ready for people to hear (and hopefully enjoy) is a good place to be. I guess I'm also cautiously optimistic. These are some of the more personal songs we've released, but I hope they will resonate with others in a way that is unique and personal to them. Darcie: We've put a lot of time and emotion into the album and I'm indeed proud of it. That doesn't mean I think everyone is going to listen to it exclusively for the rest o... [Read on]

Aloof as ever, Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon and previously Red House Painters, had a very quick word with Anna Murray ahead of his Andrew’s Lane gig this Thursday. Do you regret the demise of Red House Painters? I never saw it as a demise. Sounds a bit dramatic. Those guys are some of my best friends, and all of them are involved in Sun Kil Moon. Jerry and Phil play and travel with me on the SKM tours, and Anthony plays drums on the records. You are famous as much for rearranging other peoples' songs as for writing your own. 'Cover versions' are so often derided as being uncreative and unoriginal - what do you think of that attitude? I've talked too much on the covers thing, beat it to death. People think whatever they think about it, what can you do? You have been involved in quite a broad range of collaborations (with other musicians, labels etc) than most artists. Do you think it's important to the development of your musicianship ... [Read on]