A rustling can be heard in the hedges of Irish Independent music, something wicked this way comes. Wicked in the mid 90’s skateboard slang sense of the word obviously, because Dublin based alt-rock band ABAM definitely have a bright future ahead of them. With the surge in popularity in Irish bands at the moment every musician wants their moment in the spotlight based on similarly commercial music. The fresh, experimental and yet progressive quality to ABAM separates them from the rest as they create something completely new for the Dublin scene. Their sound is almost indescribable as every song you hear offers something different, from catchy riffs that cause uncontrollable dancing to exploratory music with hyper-speed drumming that draw some comparison to bands like The Mars Volta. Cynics may say this is not a band for the present but regardless, they are a band for the future. Connected caught up with Neil Adams (guitar) and Kev Curran (drums) at a recent show to chat about the next steps in the ABAM journey.
Hi Guys, Great show! You seem to lose yourselves in the music on stage. Do you pride yourselves on live performances?
Neil: I think our live shows are the most important thing of all. We have been in the studio and recorded a few EPs but when we are jamming and rehearsing its all about getting right for the next show.
Is the imagery on stage important to you?
Kev: Do you mean Neil’s green Pants? (Laughter ensues)
Neil: yeah, the green pants are very important! We like to wear bright colours and just get crazy on stage, Its not just about public perception but about our own comfort on stage.
You have two more shows in the next month, so you are very busy with gigs. Are you concentrating on that predominantly or is an album a priority?
Neil: At the moment we are still writing the album, and the gigs we are doing give us the chance to test and develop new material. We plan to record before the start of June so it should be finished by the summertime
Kev: We aren’t quite sure WHERE we are going to record it yet…
Neil: Yeah but its going to be mega!
Kev: It’s going to be awesome!
You spent some time recording in the States last summer too. What did you take from the experience?
Kev: It was deadly. (Again, laughter ensues)
Neil: We went to Los Angeles, had a great time and got to play some live shows over there too and count ourselves really lucky that we got the opportunity. We even got a chance to record with Jimmy Coup and Rich Mouser in the Mouse House Studios, which may I add was the absolute nicest studio I have ever been in! It had swimming pools and numerous bedrooms, even though I didn’t have my own room…
Any Plans to return?
Kev: Yeah definitely, we’d like to organise some sort of tour up the east or west coast.
Neil: We don’t want to just stay in one place like we did in LA, we want our next trip over to be a bit more…Scattered.
Neil, with you and Connor being brothers, do creative differences ever take a more personal twist?
Kev: No way! They have some sort of weird telepathy. They both understand instantly what the other is doing; they don’t even have to talk about it. They just start playing and, it just works. It’s like magic pours out of both guitars!
Neil: I don’t know about that! It is great how we compliment each other though. Like, when one of us writes a riff the other would instinctively know what we both think would sound cool playing over it.
Kev: I don’t understand how you two do it at all. When you listen to each of their contributions singled out on their own, they sound completely wrong for each other. But when you put them both together, it mixes perfectly.
A lot of your influences come from video games which is shown in lyrics and song titles such as Red Shell. Are video games a big part of your life or childhood?
Neil: I just bought an N64 with Goldeneye and Mario Kart!
So it’s still a huge influence today?
Neil: Absolutely. I had recently bought Mortal Kombat and all through the following nights gig I was thinking about doing Fatalities, so much so that my antics on stage led to me falling over an amp during a song. I had to stay lying on the amp until we finished!
Kev: Goldeneye is great for nostalgic reasons and it paved the way for Halo and Call Of Duty which I love.
Neil: The classic stuff will always be my favourite. In fact, one of our songs is named after the SNES game “Zombies ate my Neighbours” which is crazy because we play the song so much I forgot about the origin of its name.
Kev: That new game Left for Dead is pretty cool too.
It looks like you guys have a plethora of resources still untapped!
We will never get tired of writing music about computer games. Ever.
ABAM will be playing the Twisted Pepper on the 30th of April; alternatively you can check them out at http://www.myspace.com/ABAMband.
Words by Dave Quinn
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