Melts

Another addition to the Dublin city guitar scene.

What are the roots of the band?

When the wheels came off my previous band I had no appetite to get back into playing but I heard the stuff the lads where doing through (bass player and good mate) Colm, and pushed him to get me into the band. After a few weeks we had a collection of songs and went into the studio to work on a number of tracks, the best of which, Skyward and In Person, we released in early 2018.

Did you all have common music interests?

Initially no, half the band are into psych rock (King Gizz, Oh Sees, Neu etc) and half into post punk (Echo and the Bunnymen, The Chameleons) but with working together and travelling together a lot we are always putting each other onto different artists we are into at the time, but it is important to have different influences with a band, to come from different styles and approach.

How was it finding gigs at first?

Fairly easy, we’d have known a fair few promotors from being in the previous bands. Our first shows were made up of support slots with mates bands and different club nights around the country.

There seems to be a very strong community amongst Irish guitar bands at the moment.

Very true, we are opening up for Fontaine’s DC on two of the UK dates of their tour. Gaz works with Girl Band as part of their touring crew, they have given us a lot of help in the early days of Melts, put us in touch with promoters we wouldn’t have known & always throwing a bit of advice our way when we’re in need. It’s really nice to have that stuff on hand. Also some whopper bands we’re into doing the rounds at the moment are Grave Goods, Badhands, Paddy Hanna, Powpig, Post Punk Podge & the Technohippies, pretty much all other music coming from Limerick at that. It’s class.

What’s been the most memorable experience so far?

John Dwyer of Oh Sees thinking our band was actually called Belts and saying “that’s a pretty cool name man”, which it really fucking isn’t, at all. That’s up there.