Indiependence gave us a few days to get to know The Dirty 9s and we had a lot of fun chatting to them. A band who’s cover songs which they put out from time to time are almost as beautiful as their love for the Irish language.
We took them aside for a few minutes to get them to answer our Festival Interlude question as they will be playing at Hard Working Class Heroes, which will be one of the final festivals of the year. So with Indiependence under their belt and HWCH to come. Here’s what they had to say including staying in castles and grand pianos.
Do you have any song of yours that you love playing at a festival?
Keith – Today we were doing all new songs, so it was weird, it sounds kind of cheesy but the best one’s are the one’s with a cheesy hand clap.
Fergal – Foot to the floor, I think it’s this all back to traditional Irish music or something, this four beat thing that people inherently love, an ancestral thing.
Cian – It would usually be a song called Corridors from our first album, Paddy’s day we did an outdoor festival near dame street and that one got
the clapping going. we didn’t do it today so we could do new one’s.
If you could have anything on your rider, what would it be?
Cian – A grand piano for playing Passing Ships, it’s a slow song with a trumpet solo, kind of a soul making his final trip.
Keith – Right now I’d take a sacrificial member of the Indiependence crew to ferry you around, to wherever you are playing.
The muck here has been something else. A couple of strained knees, a couple of tears.
GP – A magic carpet ride and a grand piano so?
Fergal – A donkey and a cart, that would be grand.
Keith – And someone playing a whole new world, on piano, from Aladdin.
Fergal – and a trumpet player.
If you could duet with any band from the Indiependence lineup this year, who would it be?
Keith – Ham Sandwich
Fergal – It’s almost like you’d like to hear what they could do with with one of our songs.
Keith – They’d probably bin it
GP – Do something like the JD Roots things?
All – Yeah exactly that kind of thing.
Cian – You don’t really get to hang out with other bands because you so busy doing your own stuff, so maybe Indiependence could do something like that.
GP – a collaboration stage perhaps?
Fergal – I think especially for people like yourself, who go to see bands all the time, always pushing their own set
It must be refreshing to go and see them do something different.
GP – Well at times in the space of a year we can catch the same band playing a similar set 5 or 6 times. However the Delorento’s, The Minutes and We Cut Corners for JD Roots was an entirely new and intriguing experience.
If you could pick a Ham Sandwich song to do?
Fergal – I like Click Click Boom, bit of an obvious one.
Kieth – We like Models, it would be our favourite song.
Fergal – And we’d probably ask them to do Passing Ships, the song we won’t play at a festival.
GP – They have the pull for that grand piano?
Fergal – Definitely, and they have a trumpet player too.
Do you camp or posh it up?
Cian – WE don’t posh it up, but a member of our travelling party refuses to camp, so he found a castle for us to stay in.
We brought Fergal’s brother along for the trip as crew member.
GP – Is it as cool as it sounds?
Cian – It’s in castletownroche
GP – It’s a castle in castletown. Poetic!
Fergal – It was home to Michael Jackson for about 2 weeks.
Cian – A german or Finnish guy, we aren’t sure, called Patrick Nordstrum owns it.
GP – Did you get a historical tour when you check in?
Keith – You’re allowed wander around.
Cian – We went to the doctors tower which is a medieval tower that has like pagan stones, very led zepplin 1970s, stone henge.
Keith– We were expecting a falcon to fly in and carry us a message of when we are on at Indiependence.
GP – And you raise the moat at night. Standard fair.
Cian – We’re not posh, but people that come with us are, but if you’re not going to camp, you should find somewhere weird to stay
Like a castle run by a guy from Finland
GP – We’ll get the details off you for next year, we definitely want to stay in a castle!
If you could pick any headliner, one each for The Dirty 9s Fest, who would it be?
Cian – A guy called Rodriguez, I saw the movie Searching For Sugarman, so he would headline one of the nights for me
Fergal – I’d probably be the only one there, but The Cardigans, one of my favourite bands who are still going. So underappreciated
but it would be my perfect.
Cian – Can I just hypotetically ressurect, Rory Gallagher, Phil Lynott, Noel Redding in the Jimmy Hendrix Experience, Keith Moon,
Phil Lynott on bass and vocals, Rory Gallagher on guitar and Noel Redding on guitar too and switching to bass. If that’s possible, maybe it will be in a few years.
Keith – From what I’ve seen from going to festivals and probably my favourite most memorable festival experience watching a band was
Foals from Electric Picnic 2 years ago. It was the most energetic, balls out, hell for leather, jumping off whatever they can climb performance. Going mental but playing brilliant music.
GP – I can’t believe you recently covered a Boss song, and didn’t mention him!
Keith – Well The Boss would be playing with us and we’d be headlining.
Cian – He’d be collaborating with us.
GP – He’s a real upcoming act, and he’s looking like he’s gonna break through sometime soon.
Fergal – He’s got a glint in his eye!
Any embarassing festival moments?
Fergal – I was going to the toilet in a ditch of sorts, in the toilet area, and a man comes up to me and say’s “You’re my hero”
and I was like “Well Why!” and he said, “If you weren’t taking a piss, I couldn’t take a piss, you’re leading the charge” and then all these other people started pissing aswell. Then we had the hero talk for a while and he was like, “What Time is it” .. 9pm “The Coronas!!!” and runs off. They weren’t on for another 2 hours. I was the leader of the pack for a brief, brief moment.
How quickly can The Dirty 9s pitch a tent?
Fergal – It takes me five hours.
Cian – An hour.
Keith – As long as Cian is there it’s pretty respectible.
Cian – I used to go camping when I was younger.
Keith – Last year at Electric Picnic I was left to pitch a tent on my own, and literally there was people coming over to see how
i was getting on, it was just sad…. “Wow you’re still here”.
Fergal – We had a tent at one festival and it kind of looked like a fish but I think it was meant to look like a shark. We lost the instructions.
Festival Food – Any must haves?
Keith – I would personally go for an Ostrich burger
Fergal – Took the words right out of my mouth, either that or a cumberland sausage.
Keith – Or a pad thai, they are always really well put together.
Cian – Yeah I like a nutella crepe
GP – With banana in it?
Cian – Of course!
The Dirty 9s will be playing as part of Hard Working Class Heroes. Stay tuned to Goldenplec for the latest stage time breakdown information when we get it.