Interviews

Radio Kilkenny - August 1996

Interview with guitarist Brain Gough on Radio Kilkenny on August 10 1996. Interview by Anne-Marie Walshe.

Interviewer: So why did you decide to release "The Voice Of Trucker Youth"?
Brian: Well, we had so many EP's that we thought that we would sort of compile them and sell them to Europe, or the Japanese, or whoever is more willing.
Interviewer: Whoever buys first.. there's a lot of songs on it, like 'Mackerel Sky High' which was the last release wasn't it?
Brian: Yeah, I think that might have been the last release. I'm not too sure.

Interviewer: That was on super-trendy vinyl if I remember correctly..
Brian: That's right, vinyl. There's no better place but to put music but onto vinyl. I'm not a CD fan at all.
Interviewer: Are you not?
Brian: Not at all. It's aesthetic..
Interviewer: It's kind of a dying breed though, isn't it?
Brian: Oh yeah, vinyl...well I think the people amongst us who realise how good vinyl is will still realise the moron's who want to buy CD's can.
Interviewer: Let them buy CD's.
Brian: I haven't been bringing vinyl up to the North so far. So I had to listen to CD's.

Interviewer: You're a Dublin band, but your in the North at the moment. Tell me what your doing in Randalstown ?
Brian: We're recording a new album at the moment and basically getting cabin fever at the same time 'cause I only get to leave the house once a day and for five minutes at a time. So I'm getting a bit tetchy. At the moment Pat's doing his vocals down on the album and he's got a mirror in front of him. So I don't know what the hell he's doing with the mirror.
Interviewer: Tell him not to laugh, okay.
Brian: We can't really work it out yet. We offered him shaving foam but he doesn't seem to want to take it. So there must be some other technical reason for it. Vanity?
Interviewer: Reverb, or something?
Brian: Probably, I don't know. It could be anything to do with that. But I'll leave that up to the engineer.

Interviewer: And what's it like in Randalstown ?
Brian: Quaint. quaint.
Interviewer: What part of the North is Randalstown in?
Brian: Antrim.
Interviewer: Excuse my geography. I should have known that I suppose.
Brian: It's sort of near Ballymena. It's quaint alright.
Interviewer: And are you hanging out with any of the Northern bands, like Joyrider ?
Brian: We hung out with The Bedhangers...
Interviewer: Yeah, great. They're a brilliant band.
Brian: ..for five minutes or something like that, and then that was that really.
Interviewer: They're nice guys.

Brian: But anyway, I sort of seem to have to go at the moment. Something's just come up of importance. So I'll leave you to it. I'm sorry I can't stay chatting, it's very busy here at the moment.
Interviewer: Okay then. Enjoy recording your next album and hopefully we'll see you doing some tours around Ireland fairly soon.
Brian: Yeah...okay then. Thanks.
Interviewer: Thanks Brian.

No Disco - March 1997

Interview with singer / guitarist Pat Clafferty on No Disco in March 1997. The interview was as part of an overall look at the Independent music scene in Ireland.

Interviewer: You were once quoted as saying that you would never sign to a major label. Is that still the case or have your views changed in the past while?

Pat: "I think it's that major labels have changed. I think the whole thing about indie vs. major has become so tight, the fine line is so small, that really so many indie labels are affiliated with majors, majors are affiliated with indies, indies setting up under the pretence and they're really a major... it doesn't really matter. It's the music and I think that if you get the deal that suits you then you've got to go and take it."

Interviewer: Independent seems to have truly come into its own over the last few years, but what about the future? Where do you see yourself in ten years time?

Pat: "I think, still making music unfortunately."

Interviewer: Older and wiser?

Pat: "Definitely older and probably brain dead."

Interview with singer/guitarist Pat Clafferty and guitarist John Duff on The Metal Show on 2FM on April 20 1997. Interview by John Kenny.

Interviewer: On the 2FM Metal Show, welcome to John and welcome to Pat from Mexican Pets. Come on in lads, how are you doing?
Pat: Okay..
Interviewer: Good. So if "Humbucker" was the debut album, what was "The Voice Of Trucker Youth"?
Pat: I wasn't an album. It just had an album look about it, but it wasn't really an album.
Interviewer: What was it then?
Pat: I was a collection of four singles that we did on blunt records, that were mainly for our pleasure, so we put them out on vinyl. And then, low and behold, we got a chance to go to Europe last year and we decided that it would be good to go with something that we could actually sell, and we also got them into the shops. So we put it on CD, the whole four, b-sides and all, so that's why it's not really an album. Some of them are kind of post-haze studio after-thoughts.
Interviewer: Right. It's not officially an album, but you were happy enough with the response, because it seemed to get an excellent response.
Pat: Yeah, it actually got quite good reviews, which I was quite surprised about.
Interviewer: Not bad for a couple of b-sides..
John: Exactly, yeah.

Interviewer: So, with the relative success of that.. "Humbucker". Where did you record it? Who were you doing work with?
John: It was recorded in Antrim, in a place called Randalstown, a studio up there called Homestead Studios, and it was two weeks recording of the album.
Pat: It was initially where Therapy? had done their first two records, Babyteeth...so Andy from the band suggested it first that we go up there. And Dan who's with us, from blunt, I went up in a car with him one day and we looked around and we liked it, so we went up and recorded it up there.
Interviewer: blunt is your official deal?
Pat: It's our official deal [laughs].
Interviewer: Why are you laughing?
Pat: It's our only deal.
Interviewer: Okay, you're only new, but it's your official deal basically...they haven't signed you up for sixteen albums or something.
Pat: Well, I think we take every day as it comes. Tomorrow if we get an offer [laughs]...so it just depends really. Obviously we're trying to escape from Ireland now and we're trying to go further a field. So, it just depends on how far a field we go. I was saying to somebody the other day that my ambition would be to go to the States for the end of the year.
Interviewer: Is that on the cards?
Pat: Well it will be on my cards, as far as I'm concerned.
Interviewer: [laughs] You can go and the band can stay here.
John: I'm still saving at the moment..
Pat: ...saving our pennies.

Interviewer: Has "The Voice Of Trucker Youth" been a start for you guys? Was it just to get this kind of stuff into the shops and yourself into the scene?
Pat: Yeah definitely, but we grow as everybody else grows. So the time when the first single, 'Subside', came out... for me that was the greatest thing and it did really well. For me it did really well. I was amazed how well it did. I remember Morrissey saying something about 'what was his favourite moment about being in The Smiths and he said it was when he actually went into a record shop and saw their first single.
Interviewer: 'This Charming Man' wasn't it?
Pat: It was 'Hand In Glove' I think.
Interviewer: 'Hand In Glove' right.. I stand corrected.
Pat: I got you on that one. So that was his favourite thing and mine was pretty much there as well, just to get a record out. Having been in a band a couple of years, what you really want to do.. what you really, really want.. is to put out a single that does okay and is played on the radio. The only thing about our stuff is that, apart from your good self, we don't get a lot of daytime stuff.
Interviewer: You won't get daytime stuff here especially, but the likes of myself and Mr. Fanning would be the people who would play it.
Pat: I know, this is the thing. But in other places and especially in America, college radio is so big that we would that we'd get quite a lot of college radio, if we got to America ...when we get to America.
Interviewer: Looks like the end of the year?
Pat: Yeah...

Interviewer: Who produced the album? Or is it done by yourselves?
John: A guy called Ronan McHugh. He's with Kerbdog at the moment isn't he? He's doing some demos for them.
Pat: And there's a new band half-formed out of Dublin called Sic, that's Ricky Warwick from The Almighty. He's based in Dublin at the moment and he's singing and two friends of ours are playing with them as well. So they went up to Randalstown as well after we did. We were guinea-pigs. Ronan did the album with them as well. So Ronan's going to be a prime mover-and-shaker soon.
John: He's going to be a lot more famous that we are.
Interviewer: I don't think so. Basically, you have two albums now, where do you go from here? What's the next step? Do you tour with this (album)?
Pat: Yeah, we're going to tour with this. Basically, we're going to write more stuff as soon as we can. We wrote "Humbucker", the new album, at 100 mph because we knew that we had to get (say) 15 songs together and we were very prolific at that time. We were just quite lucky, we got the band together and we had been away in Europe, Germany and Holland, which was the first time we as a band had been away for a significant amount of time together, warts and all. So we kind of got to know each others ups and downs and we then went and recorded the album. So I think it was just a matter of getting to know each other that helped, certainly going away helped and we really did it quite fast.
Interviewer: Okay, well I'll talk to you more about that in a second and how you got on together in Europe. Let's play the first of two tracks that we're going to play from the "Humbucker" album. This was the first single, it's called 'Supermarket'.

Interviewer: On the 2FM Metal Show, I've got the lads signing copies of the new album "Humbucker", because we had a competition. We'll give the details of who won that in a little while. Actually, just one of those competition entries...there is a Mexican Pets Home Page on the Internet.
Pat: Yes, I only found out. I didn't know anything about this at all.
Interviewer: It's worth checking out. It's actually quite good.
Pat: Will I read it out?
Interviewer: You can, we'll do it now because the competition was to win signed copies of the new album "Humbucker" and also two tickets to the gig next Friday at the The Mean Fiddler, that's Friday 25th of April. So, we said 'Where are Mexican Pets from?' and Dublin is the answer, of course. And the five winners are...
Pat: The first one is Brendan Rice... Co. Carlow ...
Interviewer: ...and he's the one with the Mexican Pets homepage, so check it out. You might as well give out the URL.
Pat: Yes, I may as well give you this. This is the first one of these that I've ever done in my life. It's www.geocities.com /SunsetStrip/Palms/7690/ ...very strange.
Interviewer: That's strange, it's an American server. Anyway, he's the first winner and I think he deserves it too after setting up his Home Page.
John: I think so, yeah.
Pat: The second winner is.... I'll do the next one as well. Mexican Pets are from Dublin, correct...
John: The fourth one...and the fifth is....

Interviewer: Congratulations to all five of you. You've won signed copies of the "Humbucker" album and two tickets to the gig next Friday at The Mean Fiddler. Who are the support band, The Great Western Squares?
Pat: The Great Western Squares, you don't know about them John? They're friends of ours, one of the guys was in Pincher Martin ..Gary. And they've got a guy joining them on guitars, Stars Of Heaven Stan Erraught, who is now apparently playing with them and they recorded a new LP which is shortly to be released, and Capratone are a new young Dublin band.
Interviewer: So it's a good line-up then. And what time does that start at?
Pat: Doors open around half eight or eight o'clock.

Interviewer: Good luck with that anyway. Is this the first part of a tour then?
Pat: We're hoping to go to England for three weeks with a band called Cable, who are from Derby...
Interviewer: ...who we've played before actually here. They had an excellent single called 'Seventy', I think it was called.
Pat: Actually they're getting terrible reviews for their new single. I don't know why. I haven't heard it ..haven't heard it.
Interviewer: I haven't heard the new single. Seventy' was the track we were playing, which is quite good.
Pat: If they can get us in Derby ..you know. So we're doing that and then hopefully we're going to France as well.

Interviewer: Just to backtrack, we were saying before we played the single, you basically got yourself together as a collective unit on this short tour of Europe.
John: Yeah, I've probably only been in the band about a year and a half now. I'm the newest member of the band, so it was my first big move with the band and we went to Germany first and then we went onto Holland and we basically got to know each other really well. I'm not saying we got on with each other all the time [laughs] ..that's the way things go anyway.
Interviewer: It's not necessarily that you have to do that, but anyway, it seemed to work out okay. What was the audience reaction like? Where did you play?
John: It was really small towns...
Pat: ...really small towns in Germany that nobody's probably ever really even heard of, but they were great because they all did DIY gigs. It was organised by 'Hope Collective' of Germany, so it was that kind of thing. We played with people like Gas Huffer who are on Epitaph and then we played with quite strange bands. We played with one band from Sweden, who are doing huge in Europe, No Fun At All they're called. And they're like just complete Bad Religion, they're just like Bad Religion ..but not as good. And I asked the guys where are they going tomorrow after this and they're like "We're touring with a band from America" and I was like "Let me guess which band it is" and they're like "Yes, it's Bad Religion".
Interviewer: And the European reaction to it? Some bands out of here can do quite well in Europe by playing small gigs and things like that.
Pat: Again, it's very tempting to play around Ireland a lot and get bigger and bigger and bigger, but we're taking chances and we're trying to...
Interviewer: I think you need to.
Pat: Yeah, we're going to England a bit, but we want to go to Europe as much as we can and then, as I said if America beckons, I think that's where we would do quite well.
Interviewer: And do the college circuit?
Pat: I don't know if we'd do the college circuit particularly. I was in New York last year and I went to a gig nearly every night and it's so promising and it's so brilliant. They're still into guitars and the dance thing hasn't swamped everything. So there's still quite a wide range of music. There's a place called Brownies in New York where all the 'cool' bands play.

Interviewer: Your reviews so far in magazines like Kerrang! and everything, have been very positive. You're happy with that obviously?
John: Yeah, of course we are. Lets hope it stays that way.
Interviewer: I mean critical response is one thing but obviously you want to sell your product, but of course that helps.
John: Well that kind of falls back down to radio play again. If you're not getting played on daytime radio, hopefully there'll be shows like this that will always keep playing the records. That's what we were kind of worried about, bringing out the new record is that, we're all really happy with what we've done with the record, we think it's a really good record and we're kind of relying on this to push the band further, but it is a whole factor; if you don't get radio play, your product is not going to be heard.

Interviewer: Your biggest ambition, radio-wise, is obviously BBC Radio 1?
Pat: Yeah, although BBC Radio 1 went through a weird transition recently with Chris Evans leaving, everybody got turned upside down. But I do think even further, Europe is better. I do because the whole Britpop thing happening in England at the moment, there's very little space for anything outside of it.
Interviewer: But what I've heard from the Mexican Pets in the last while is that it's very much Europe orientated. It sounds like a sound that could be accepted in Europe.
Pat: Yeah, it's funny because when I was a kid, I used to think European music was crap...
Interviewer: We all did 'cause we were rebelling.
Pat: ...apart from Kraftwerk. But name a good band from France?
Interviewer: Plastique Bertrand 'Sample Pour Mois'.
Pat: Yeah Plastique Bertrand, right. 1977 for god's sake, when Ash were born.
Interviewer: '78. Got you on that one.
Pat: That's funny 'cause I've got it on a compilation from 1977, they're obviously wrong. So I think Germany, France, Holland ..there's Belgium as well because we've a distribution deal with a company in France and they do all the Benelux countries, so Belgium and places like that would be included. And as well, it's fun to go places where people can't understand you.

Interviewer: Okay, basically before we wrap it up and play possibly what could be the new single, what is the next step album-wise or single-wise? Are you going back in the studio again or what's the plan?
Pat: Well if it's this track which you are about to hear, then it's going to be remixed and we're going to have...
Interviewer: And why not release it just purely from the album?
Pat: No, because we don't want to. It's going to be slightly different. I want to give people something different. I mean if you've got the album, you've no impetus to buy the single and the thing with the single is that it's going to have two songs on it that nobody's heard and the single will be revamped and it'll be new and it'll be different and for ourselves, we have to keep our sanity you see.
Interviewer: Keep it in the studio. Anyway, Pat and John thanks for dropping in. And we sincerely hope that wherever you take yourself that it's a very successful show. Anyway, this is possibly the new single. You haven't told Dan yet, no?
Pat: No. [laughs]
Interviewer: Anyway, go outside and explain this to the record company, 'If Only Never'. Thanks to Mexican Pets, lads.
John: Thanks a million. Cheers John.
Pat: Thanks John.

Interviewer: So Mexican Pets are away now to discuss with their record label whether they can release that. Anyway, 'If Only Never' could well be the new single from the "Humbucker" album from Mexican Pets, which would be the follow up to 'Supermarket' which is already out. Mexican Pets plus The Great Western Squares and Capratone playing this coming Friday the 25th of April at The Mean Fiddler in Dublin, tickets £5 including Late Night Club as well. Check them out and good luck to them as I said in their future endeavours.

Waterford Today - April 1997

This week Roddy Cleere interviews Dublin band, Mexican Pets

MEXICAN PETS

Interview with RODDY CLEERE

Mexican Pets, from Dublin, released their debut six track EP some time ago and was titled "Nobody's Working Title". Four 7" singles followed on Irish independent label blunt. Meanwhile the band were playmaking regular UK visits to great effect, playing there, and in Ireland with everybody from Fugazi and Girls Against Boys to No Means No, Therapy? and Sebadoh. 1996 saw the band play a string of live UK dates together with a summer tour of Germany and Holland coinciding with the release of a twelve track collection, "The Voice Of Trucker Youth" Now the band have their latest CD on release "Humbucker".

Pat Clafferty is the vocalist and guitarist with the Mexican Pets

I started our conversation by asking where the title came from

PAT : “Well, it’s a guitar pickup. Les Pauls and Gibsons have them. It seemed to describe the type of music we do.”

How did Mexican Pets come to be ?

PAT: “ Initially it was a friend of mine Jill Hahn, who has now moved to America, and myself who formed band . We went through various changes of personnel and then we finally settled on four people and we have been the same since for he last 2 years or so.”

Lately the kind of music that the band do is losing favour with many of the young people. That's not to say that the music of the Mexican Pets is bad….far from it. So I asked Pat if the band still feel that there is a market for what they do and will that market hold?

PAT : “ I agree with you. It’s quite funny really. When you record an album, you tend to put your head down for six months or whatever and get on with it. When you come up to the surface you find that somebody has changed the goalposts and that can happen to a lot of people. But I feel there is a market for everything at the moment, rock and pop or whatever. I do agree with you, like, what was cool when Nirvana were around is not really cool today. Some of that sound died when Kurt Cobain died. Besides you cannot live on the back of somebody else's sound. You’ve got to do what you believe in.”

The band have recently returned from working in Germany. Did they enjoy the experience?

PAT: “ Oh yes!! It was not a career move or anything like that. It was the first time we had done anything like that and it was funny to see four guys in the back of a van and being able to get on with each other in those circumstances.”

Next came the usual bland question. Which does Pat prefer, playing live or out on the road???

PAT : “ I prefer the studio!! I’m a perfectionist and I only get to be a perfectionist when we are in the studio. Having said that I never expect to go out on stage and then get the same sound that we can get in studio. The great thing about the studio is that you have so many chances to get it right. We seem to reproduce the studio sound very well on stage and we are very lucky to be able to do that. There are no overdubs or pickups on the CD sound, its all done live to tape, so reproducing that sound is not as difficult on stage as you might think.”

What are the influences on Pat ?

PAT : “ I like the music of BECK. These days I am listening to a lot of the Beach Boys, in particular the album "Pet Sounds" and Tom Waits. I love Roxy Music and I love all the British post punk bands.”

How do the band see the Irish Music Industry in relation to what the band does?

PAT : “ There is an anomaly between Hot Press and reality for an Irish band. If you get 10 out of 12 for a review, which we did, for an album review, which we did. However we did not get the same thing in England, so it Hot Press championing their own. As for the Irish Music Industry --- I don't see an industry. Certainly if you are the Corrs or Boyzone, then there is an industry. Even then I doubt if they are based in Ireland. I don't think that the Government has given enough support to Irish bands over the years. Film makers recently got the BES, section 31. The Irish Music Industry equivalent is probably still on a table somewhere and the bands are moving on. I feel that young bands need support and if it comes from the Government, just the way film industry was supported, then it would be a great help.”

How do a band like the Mexican Pets feel about the likes of Boyzone?

PAT : “ Fair play. I have come around to the fact that if you come from this island, to go abroad if a difficult thing, and make it out there and I meet you I will shake your hand, because it is hard enough without the backbiting and the like. What they do would not be my cup of tea but good for them. The one thing I would say is that Irish radio has not played enough indigenous Irish music. If you are going to give performances royalties to bands they need to be played on the radio, after all it is how they make their living apart from gigging. Every artist depends on radio play to get them know and I think that many radio stations are afraid to play certain artists for fear of losing advertising.”

The current single from the Mexican pets is 'Supermarket', with its gravely vocals and soaring guitars and harder rhythms and can be found on the new CD "Humbucker"

'Till next time……. Bye.

Copyright Waterford Today 1997

The Event Guide - July 2004

Saint and Singer

Not content with being remembered as the Mexican Pets’ mainman, Pat Clafferty has just released his solo record, 'A Prayer To Saint Jude'. The album will soon be launched at The Hub, marking Clafferty’s first gig in five years. Before all that, Úna Mullally caught up with him.

"To summarise, I suppose my main memories are predominantly the camaraderie of a band. It was about being able, for the first time, to come out with tunes that people liked. Putting out records was a goal that I had that was at last achieved." Comebacks are all about memory lane, but reminding people of who you once were can often eclipse what you are now doing. Fortunately for Pat Clafferty, he is about to release an album of such a sublime calibre that it looks to overshadow anything he has done before it — in a good way.

The craft of song writing has always been a valued one to Clafferty, which is indicative of his suitability as a solo artist rather than a guy in a band. "I don’t want to be in a band again," he says with conviction. "Now I would find it hard to let go of the songwriting control. Becoming a solo artist wasn’t that difficult a transition. I was doing my own thing for film and TV, and I became quite multi-instrumental, although not that I’m extremely adept. I began thinking like an orchestra, if that makes sense, and I applied that to being a solo artist. It was kind of a funny experience because you do go through self-doubt. Y’know...there’s no one else in the studio giving you feedback, it’s just you."

Since The Pets died, Clafferty took a break and started writing music for TV and film, bringing us, among other things, Rats’ 'Celtic Rap' in ‘Paths To Freedom’. And he’s currently working on the score for a new RTE comedy, ‘Stew’. But in between all that, he was still writing songs. "I built up about 15 songs and, when the time was right, I just launched back into it. Now I’m at the point where I’ve got another album ready to do".

Mexican Pets were stalwarts of the Dublin scene way back when, but then DJs and decks stole the limelight, much to Clafferty’s disapproval, "At our time, the Dublin scene was just starting off in ‘91 or ’92. It was the first emergence of a real alternative scene. Now, I suppose, there’s a re-emergence of that, but I suppose it died off at the end of the '90s. A lot of good bands finished up, like Pet Lamb. Some of the DJs had something to do with that. Rock became unfashionable, and there was all this introverted and self-knowing twiddling of knobs. I wasn’t interested in becoming a part of that. There are, of course, some great instrumental bands, but very few."

And Clafferty certainly seems to be happy about things coming full circle. "Songwriters are reappearing in bands. Look at The Frames doing so well, compared to even five years ago. When I was bitter and twisted I could be cynical of those bands, but at this stage, if anyone can make a living from music, I’ll shake their hand."

With another record in the pipeline, Clafferty certainly is a fast mover. "I’ve got the launch of the album at The Hub, some nationwide gigs, and I’m willing to play support to good bands. I want to get back to hanging out with people in bands. I’m gonna record the new album in September. I’m not gonna hang around this time."

Pat Clafferty launches his new album, 'A Prayer To St. Jude' (Purdy Records) at The Hub, on Dublin's Eustace Street, on Friday 23rd July. Support comes in the shape of Crumb. Doors 9pm, admission €5. www.patclafferty.com / www.thehubmezz.com

Andy Irvine / Mozaik

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