Interview with The Original Rudeboys at Nando’s

The Original Rudeboys were celebrating what was a special year for the lads that has accumulated with their début album, This Life, going Gold in Ireland. To celebrate, the lads are releasing a deluxe version of the album and they even threw a little party in Nando’s for a small amount of fans. Thankfully enough, the lads invited GoldenPlec along with the allure of some free chicken, booze and a small set from the new Deluxe album. We caught up with the lads to talk about the album, their “spat” with Chris Brown, glowing things in the night and the Irish hip-hop scene.

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Goldenplec: Lads you’re releasing a remastered deluxe version of your album, what can the fans expect to see as part of this new release?
Neddy: It’s got the single mix on there, on the original; it’s got two rap verses but on the single mixes that you’ve heard on radio; you’ve got Rob singing a lot more on the deluxe version. There is also two bonus tracks on there.
Walshy: *interupts* DVD.
Neddy: Yep, DVD. Always forget the DVD. Postcards, wristbands, all sorts of stuff in that little box.
Robert: The wrist band glows in the dark.
Neddy: You’ll have to buy the box my friend.
Walshy: *Slides DVD box over* Sure there’s one for you.

Goldenplec: Is this so I can think of you guys when I tuck myself to bed at night is it?
Walshy:
If you wake up in the middle of the night and start panicking – it’s meant to happen.
Neddy: We got this tweet off some chick. “I nearly shit meself, I woke up and me wrist was glowing”.
Walshy: She didn’t know what was happening.

Goldenplec: So part of this DVD, there is some interesting extra content for the fans?
Robert:
There is the music videos, the YouTube videos are up on the DVD.
Walshy: It’s about 18 – 20 minutes long.
Neddy: We thought it was a pretty serious, straight forward interview but people are coming on to Twitter and saying “it’s fucking hilarious”.
Robert: I haven’t even heard it now.
Walshy: I watched it, it was gas!
Neddy: It wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was just from when we started till this day.
Walshy: Back on the couch sorta stuff.

Goldenplec: So it must be really early doors stuff then?
Robert: The interview was shot just before the new deluxe album came out. It’s also got a mixture of images and video from when we started.

Goldenplec: Speaking of your beginnings on YouTube, what do you make of Fresh Era, the newest pop / hip-hip YouTube stars, what have you made of them?
Walshy: They actually posted the video when it first came out, someone passed it on to me and I posted it on me Facebook thinking it was great. Then loads of people got on to me saying these guys were brilliant. I tell you what, it’s just great for Irish music in general to have some fresh music and something new and upcoming. It’s also nice that they look up to us like.
Neddy: It’s also good that Irish people are acknowledging the hip-hop and urban music coming out now.

Goldenplec: They have gained a hell of a lot of notoriety from YouTube like you, they are very young admittedly, do you have any advice for them?
Robert: They seem to be doing grand, have you seen their hits. *laughs*
Walshy:  One of the lads from the band, the rapper, got on to me on Facebook and said “thank you very much, I’m a big fan”. My advice for him was to write his own song as his lyrics are great. Write your own original music and see where that takes you because covers can only take you so far, you need to have your own songs.
Robert: You’re going to be hearing a lot more of them but for the moment, they are very, very young. 13 or 14 I think. They haven’t even matured into what they want to be with music. They’re still finding themselves, that’s why they are doing this cover stuff. When they sit down and actually start getting a bit older, you’ll begin to see them. I think they have a great future.
Neddy: There are thousands more like them all over Ireland. Not getting the same hits necessarily.

Goldenplec: Well do you think now is the time for Ireland’s pop and hip-hop scene to be noticed, other live music is making big strides, do you think this will happen for genre’s you find yourself in?
Walshy: There is definitely a resurgence in Irish hip-hop, it was laughed at and frowned upon, people didn’t take it seriously. At the end of the day, it’s words, it’s a story and if people wanna hear a story they like, then they’ll go with it.
Neddy: I think people look at it for face value. They look at it and think “oh, it’s going to be three Irish lads in big hoodies and gold chains“. Then they sit down and listen to us on a acoustic guitar, just talking about having a couple of drinks or even serious topics like the new single about domestic violence, then they start changing their perceptions on it.

Goldenplec: Well of course, the matter of relatability in Irish music comes to the fore then. Talking about ‘bling’ this and ‘bling’ that but then the same person is struggling to buy Koka noodles moments later, doesn’t really add up does it?
Neddy: You need some bling to talk about though don’t you?
Walshy: *Points to ‘bling’* Plastic watch – Yeaaa.

Goldenplec: On to the your album turning gold, congratulations from us all here at Goldenplec. How did you celebrate and how did you find out?
Robert: We didn’t celebrate.
Neddy: Yea, we didn’t.
Robert: Tonight is the celebration.
ALL: *we all raise our beers* To the gold plaque.
Neddy: Well, when we first found out about it. When we got number one in the Irish independent charts, we got one plaque. So there was an argument over who got it.
Rob: No there wasn’t an argument. We said, here Ned, you take it and put it in the sitting room where it all began, it’s only right it goes there.
Neddy: They knew if I didn’t get it, trouble would have happened.

Goldenplec: You’ve had a crazy year, we’ve caught up with you numerous times over the year like early on at Vantastival.
Neddy: How cold was that festival?
Robert: That’s the coldest I have ever been on stage. I worried if I was going into any type of guitar solo or something that my brain was going to freeze up and not let my brain go where it wanted to go. My fingers were frozen solid but it was actually a great gig though yea. But you really couldn’t get any colder than a field underneath a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

Goldenplec: So I’d imagine that your’ fingers freezing wasn’t the highlight of the year. From traveling all over the country and to the UK, was there a highlight?
Neddy: Vantastival was a great gig but the highlight of the year would have to be….
Walshy: *interupts* Playing The O2, has to be.
Rob: Playing The O2.
Neddy: For me it was playing Phoenix Park.
Rob: He’s lying, it was playing The O2.
Walshy: We live 2 minutes away from the O2, we’ve always grown up looking at The Point (The O2).
Rob: Sure we were a bag of nerves walking up to Phoenix Park.
Neddy: Yea exactly, that’s why. Then we walked out and there was 10,000 people. Made me feel good – Phoenix Park for me.

Goldenplec: So you have some gigs coming up in the new year, what will be the plans for 2013?
Rob: Gig up until the end of the year, then hopefully we can sit down with the brilliant men in charge and see if we can impress them with some of the stuff we have written, then see where we can go from there. Hopefully, like the plan is to get more music out.

Goldenplec:  You caused a big stir a while back when you turned down the opportunity to support Chris Brown, how did you guys come to that decision, was it a tough decision?
Rob: We got an email asking us. We were together at the time and it immediately clicked with us straight away that it mightn’t be the right thing to do. In our opinion it wasn’t the right thing to do. We also had our new single out at the time, Blue Eyes, which talks about domestic abuse. Our main thing is to stay true to what we write about and what our fans listen to, because these are the songs that our fans like, these are the songs that they share around and gets us the likes of this *points to gold plaque*. It would just contradict everything. Chris Brown may be a talented dude but he has made one of the worst mistakes you can make as a human being and that can’t be brushed under the carpet, it can’t just disappear.
Neddy: It wasn’t for us. We turned it down and I’m sure you seen, newspapers blew it out of proportion. Maverick Sabre turned it down too and we didn’t mean for it to go public but it leaked out there. The media were saying we were giving middle fingers and fuck you and all. It was nothing like that at all. Thank you but no thanks was basically the jist of the email and that’s what we stand for.

Well all of us at GoldenPlec, fully and unreservedly respect the lads for their decision, you can catch the lads at one of the many upcoming dates soon. Check it out here. The Deluxe version of This Life, is in stores now.

Original Rude Boys Photo Gallery

Photos: Sean Smyth