WindingsThe Certain Three tour kicked off this weekend with Ambience Affair, Windings and We Cut Corners. In the first of three interviews with the bands involved, Vanessa Monaghan caught up with Steve from Windings.

It’s a cold damp dark January day but Steve is in a positive mood, things have been going well for Windings since their album ‘It’s Never Light’ came out in October 2010. ‘We’ve been keeping really, really busy since then’, says Steve. ‘We did our album tour and we went to New York towards the end of October for the CMJ festival and it was a great experience. We got to spread the word around over there. When we came back we were basically rehearsing our new stuff and preparing for this tour. We’re doing ok, we’ve got around since then and we’re going to keep that up’.

As well as playing CMJ the band have also been invited to Canadian Music Week which will take place in Toronto in March. ‘Yeah we’re really excited about that, we only found out about a week and a half ago so we’re trying now to get more gigs over there. We want to make the trip as busy as possible for ourselves. We’re going to be playing the music from Ireland gigs which is going to be great but if we could fit in a few more shows around that we would be delighted.’

Canadian Music Week has a great reputation so it’s also going to open up opportunities of meeting new important players in the world wide music week and boasts an impressive list of previous keynote speakers including Matthew Knowles (Beyonce’s Dad) and Sir George Martin. ‘You could bump into these people and not even know who they were til later. Hopefully we’ll have some stroke of luck’.

Windings gained some new members in 2009, how much of an impact did the new members have on the album? Steve replies ‘The album was mostly recorded by the core of what was Windings, which was myself, Liam Marley who plays guitar and bass and Aaron Mulhall who plays drums. So it the three of us who actually went up to Letterkenny to record the album in two weeks. We did all the work on it but we had to get extra members to fill out the sound. So we were looking for people who were multi-instrumentalists who we knew would be good in the band and who we knew as well. We were very lucky to find Patrick O’Brien and Mike Gavin who bring their own thing to Windings too.’

The music industry has undergone some immense changes in the last few years, where do bands sell CDs anymore? Should you give your music away for free? Windings have put their first album up for free download from bandcamp. ‘Well it’s five years old and by the time we got around to recording the second album and going out on tour again, I don’t know if anyone had actually heard the first album or if it even existed. It’s a good way of getting people to know about it was to put it up for free and if the wanted to hear it the could download it for free.’

Another change is the demise of MySpace, Windings tweeted that they were going to delete their MySpace account and have done since then. Steve laughily says’ It’s Gone! It was a nightmare, I couldn’t maintain it. I used to know how it worked and then they changed it and then I figured it out and they changed it again. I was like, forget about this, there’s too many others. MySpace was great, it was brilliant, it was such a useful tool when we all started off. A great way for musicians to meet each other and they just made it bad basically. They tried throwing too much at it and it’s just not working out anymore. It’s a nightmare even trying to put up your own gigs, they made it as difficult as possible. There are way more avenues out there, there’s Bandcamp, which has way better audio quality . Then there’s BreakingTunes.com, it’s an Irish one like MySpace but everything is there on the one page and there’s no ads. MySpace just wasn’t working out anymore’.

Because there are so many social media and internet outlets now, which have Windings found most beneficial? ‘Something like Bandcamp and Twitter. You don’t have to let everybody know what you’re doing all the time and let them listen to every single noise you make, well that’s how I feel about it. If people want to go and listen tot the music you want them to hear there’s Bandcamp. If there’s people who want to really know what you’re up to there’s Twitter. In between that we do have Facebook but it’s linked to Twitter. I like Twitter because its very mobile.’

Windings got involved with The Certain Three Tour when Peter O’Sullivan from Word of Mouth bookings asked if they would be interested in going on tour with Ambience Affair and We Cut Corners. ‘We definitely were because we’re fans of both those bands. Last January there was one with O Emperor and two bands from the UK and it worked out very well, I went to one or two of those gigs. So we were delighted to be asked and delighted to be getting out on tour in January. It’s not the most active month but it seems to be this year in Ireland. There seems to be a lot of things on in January which is a great thing.’

With the tour working with a revolving headliner does it bug the band that they don’t get to headline every gig? ‘I don’t see why we should headline over We Cut Corner or Ambiance Affair, they’re working as much as we are. It makes sense for each band headline in their own town and then after that…’

With the first quarter of 2011 looking busy for band, what plans have they for the remainder of the year? ‘We’re looking at festival slots, one or two have been confirmed but we’re looking for more and more but we’re going to have another release definitely before the summer. I don’t think Its going to be an album or it’s going to be a single. I don’t know if the days of the album or single are even around anymore. For now anyway we’re just putting out releases, basically a cluster of songs. It could be four songs, it could be eight songs. I don’t know if you can call stuff albums, singles or EPs anymore really. I’ll have to coin a phrase other than release but for now its a release’.

Check out the official Windings website and Bandcamp

Catch them On The Certain Three Tour with Ambience Affair and We Cut Corners.

20.01.11 The Pavilion, Cork
22.01.11 Gonzo Theatre, Cavan
28.01.11 De Barras, Clonakilty, Co. Cork
29.01.11 Dolans, Limerick