From Left to Right: Frankie Kelly (Harmonica, Mandolin, Organ, Vocals), Tim Cullen (Guitar, Vocals), me, Joe Lynch (Bass, Vocals), Wayne Soper (Vocals, Guitar). Missing from this picture: Andy Sutton (Drums)
The Hot Sprockets is a Rock'n'Roll/Folk band from Dublin. Moustaches flying in the moist Irish breeze, the five-piece released their debut LP 'Honey Skippin' (listen/buy it here) in 2011. You might actually recognise the track 'Cruisin' from the AIB (Irish bank) ad on TV.
AIB advert
Cruisin'
Their sophomore album called 'Brother Nature' (listen/buy it here) was released in 2014. Staying faithful to themselves, the lads provided yet another record full of energy and good mood. The Hot Sprockets' music is the perfect anthem to bootyshake early on a monday morning when it's pissing down with rain outside. The Hot Sprocket's music + WTF music videos = Immediate moral boost!
Personal favourite track: 'Shake me off'
I was looking forward to meet up these lads to see if they would be as cool in real life as their facial hair. [Spoiler alert: they are!] I was able to ask them a few questions after their soundcheck before their closing gig of the Dublin Rock'n'Roll Festival (August) at Whelans:
How was your summer so far?
Tim: Summer’s been amazing! We’ve been getting to Europe this year. It was the first time going to Europe, and they’re taking to us really well. We’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Holland… There is a label in Benelux releasing our album [Soul Brother]. We’ve had a good few tours in Spain. Our album is getting released there on Spanish vinyl on Folc Records with two extra tracks. So it’s been going really good!
Is that why you are going back to Spain, because you are doing four dates in September?
Tim: Yeah.
Their Spanish tour was actually finishing today, with a last date tonight at Kuxta Kultra Festival. The lads also released the Spanish version of 'Brother Nature' earlier this week. The two bonus tracks are 'Dimestore Cowboy' and 'Head Over Heels'.
I read in a past article of The Irish Times that you had planned to go to France last May, did you actually go?
Tim: No. We were gonna be booked for a three week tour, but it didn’t come together just because the release of the Spanish vinyls were late, so had to reschedule the planning. So, we haven’t head up to France yet.
Do you plan on going later then?
Tim: Yeah, we are kind of going to get our foot into Europe this year. Now, September we have Spain but we’re gonna be working on recording our third album, hopefully done by February and then next summer we will be branching out more in Europe.
Did you start working on the said album?
Tim: Yeah we have a good few tracks. You will hear one or two tonight… but it sounds really good. We have about six or seven nearly or definitely finished, and there is a good few more in the pipeline.
What is your writing process for that third album? Do you start with the tunes or the lyrics…?
Tim: It can be different things… Wayne writes most of the songs. Frankie has a couple, and we just bring them into the jam room. Sometimes they’ll be more finished, sometimes less, sometimes it is just ideas. And we’ll bounce around with all of them. Some of them work straight away, like there is a new one that came quicker than most of them. Sometimes they are too simple so we try to tech it up, other times we have to strip it back. Lyrics are usually done by the person who’s writing it. And if they're not finished we just bounce around on them together until recording.
Is that gonna be a 12 tracks record?
Tim: Yeah between 10 and 12, whatever goes down. We might keep some for singles or 45s.
Look at these happy chaps on stage!
Who do you consider as your influences and do you have a favourite band you listen to at the moment?
Wayne: Our influences vary from Blues to Rock’n’Roll… I am listening to a lot of Growlers at the moment, plus bands that aren’t on the radio. Any band on the Jagaguwar label. Any rock’n’roll psychedelic band that are gigging around at the moment.
Tim: Jack White, Queen of the Stone Age, The Rolling Stones, MC5, Robert Johnson… All the Blues guys. Any blues or Hip-Hop outcasts… Anything that’s good. Anything we can buzz off as a band with funny songs, like Tenacious D which we love… We love underground independent bands, and we support that as well.
What inspires you to write?
Wayne: The newest one is about when you want to party all night and then you get in trouble with the missus about it.
Tim: Different things. Frank has one about my father working seven days a week for his whole life and just being a bad ass. Obviously, relationships, partying, men, women, life, love, good times, sometimes we just write one because we are buzzing off and try some funny lyrics. That’s what makes us sing it with more confidence, you know, when we are all buzzing off together.
What’s the inspiration behind your band’s name, The Hot Sprockets?
Tim: We were just messing about with different things. Soper and Joe had another band before with Soper’s brother called Sopers Dirt. When they were bouncing around names for their bands, Sprockets kinda turn up. It was mainly because there is a dog in a TV show called Fraggle Rock. It’s like a puppet show. Jim Henson made the puppets, but the dog in that was called Sprocket. And then we bounced around names like SP Rocket… We created The Hot Sprockets because it sounded more retro. It had a different feel to it and it kept it… hotter! [laugh]
Soul Brother go get you're feet up off the ground! ♫
Do you do something special to prepare to go on stage, or do you just pick up your stuff and go?
Tim: Usually we group-masturbate before…
Joe: To release the tension! [All laugh]
Frankie: No, we don’t really do anything special… Well, our drummer goes for a wee right before we have to play and we are all looking for him. That’s our ritual, looking for Andy! [All laugh]
Tim: When we were in America, the heat was getting to us and we had 7 gigs in 7 days, traveling around, drinking and stuff, so your voice starts going. Our friend Rob Walsh was showing us a few little vocals things but we ever only do that when our voice is gone and by then it kinda too late! [laugh] But it helps you get through, big time!
Frankie: If we have a wild night, or we are staying in a hotel I always hear Wayne next door in the showers doing those things..and I think ah Wayne's up!
Anything special to bring with you on tour?
Tim: Guitar!
Well, really?
Tim: Yeah. [laugh] I’ve got a lucky shirt. You know just a shirt I like and I’m like ‘yeah I’ll bring that’.
Frankie: Baileys?!
Wayne: We haven’t brought Baileys yet but that would be good actually.
Joe: We don’t have a lucky… hum... but we bring the Basque flag.
Tim: Yeah, when we go to different countries now, we bring the flag. I guess that’s lucky. Other than that, it’s just keeping our buzz up, our spirits up. That’s the main thing I think.
Do you have a song you particularly like to play live?
Tim: New ones are always good. [All approve] Any new one, which is just fresh. You’ve got a good feeling just bringing it from the jam room into the audience and see how they react as well. Then again, in different gigs, different songs would go better than other songs. For example when we were in Holland, we did a gig during the day, and there was loads of kids and it was a real chilled out vibe, so we played more of our slower songs and they got better applause and the more rock ones. Whereas usually at our gigs where there’re drinks the rock ones go down better and we cut out the slow ones.
What do you like to do in your spare time when you are not doing music?
Tim: I like to listen to music. [All laugh]
Alright, something not related to music then?
Tim: Watching documentaries on… music! [laugh] Or I love stuff about countries as well, reading books about music, history… I am just interested about different cultures. If I could travel more I’d love to travel to loads of countries.
You guys travel quite a bit…
Frankie: Yeah we do.
Tim: But you’re playing as well so you don’t get to see it. You usually get to see the odd thing but you have about an hour a day so I haven’t really traveled in about ten years.
Frankie: Draw and paint
Joe: I just like skateboarding and hanging around the city, people watching.
Wayne: I like to read and I am trying to teach myself how to learn engineering on the computer with this program called Rebirth about recordings.
Tim: Andy the drummer isn’t here but I’ll speak for him. He likes science, he is really interested in the stars and cosmology, anything to do with space and science. He loves all that stuff! And he watches eight Simpsons a day! He just admitted it to us today.
Franky: Does he actually?
Tim: Yeah he said he doesn’t go a day without watching it.
Wayne: He doesn’t have the time to watch eight though…
Tim: Yeah I dunno.
Franky: He doesn’t sleep lads!
Listen to Radiomade here & catch up with all the ‘Honeyskippin’ with The Hot Sprockets’ podcasts here and follow the facebook page of the show to be updated.
Alright, my last question is about ‘Honeyskippin’ with The Hot Sprockets’, your radio show, can you tell me more about it?
Tim: It’s on radiomade.ie which an independent radio station online. Friends of us run it. There are awesome shows on it and they run daily gigs and it started to get bigger and bigger and get more people tune in… They just needed people for a show and we said we’d love to do it. We love promoting, playing and sharing music with each other so we said why not share it with other people? And it promotes gigs around Dublin as well. Honeyskippin is the name of our first album so that name sort of made sense. At the moment, it’s mainly Frankie doing it. It’s every Thursday 2-4pm… Tune in!
I will! Actually, the name of your first album ‘Honeyskippin’, where does it comes from? Because I could not figure it out… You mean skipping, like with a rope but…?
Frankie: It's kind of like that but with honey!
Tim: Frankie’s brother just said it in the jam room one day.
Frankie: ‘Honey’ as in a girl and ‘skipppin’ as in skipping to the next one, seeing loads of women. But it can mean whatever you want.
Tim: It just sounds like a cool word. It made sense at the time so we just built lyrics around it. We like stuff that doesn’t really mean stuff but when you put them together you make your own thing out of it.
Yeah I noticed that when I was looking you up. Some words really confused me…
Tim: [laugh] Yeah some probably don’t translate into a different language, but you can just get what you want from the song.
I'd like to thanks to band members to have taken the time to talk with me, as well as the Rock'n'Roll Dublin Festival organisers Keiron and Dave to have helped me arrange it.
If you liked this article, please share it and support this blog by liking Of Bands & Gigs Facebook page and following @ofbandsandgigs on Twitter. I also share news about alternative or/and local bands on these. Upcoming articles on the blog includes my interviews with English Rock'n'Roll lads The 45s and Irish pop-punk sensation Beware of you as well as the review of American Alternative Rock bands All Time Low and Twenty One Pilots performances at Belsonic Festival (Belfast, UK).
Out of the six bands that signed my flag, the Hot Sprockets definitely have the coolest autographs, even my cat Lord Byron was pretty impressed!
Catch the Hot Sprockets live in Dublin at the 5th years anniversary of The Workman’s club on September 9th. And with the entry cost just the price of a pint (5€), what more could one ask for? Except probably an actual refreshing pint after the gig because I guarantee you that these lads will get you hot and sweaty!
Additionally, they will be playing at Gravity Festival (Tipperary, Ireland) on September 12th. Find The Hot Sprockets on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Spotify, and on their official website.
True Story!
I'd like to thanks to band members to have taken the time to talk with me, as well as the Rock'n'Roll Dublin Festival organisers Keiron and Dave to have helped me arrange it.
If you liked this article, please share it and support this blog by liking Of Bands & Gigs Facebook page and following @ofbandsandgigs on Twitter. I also share news about alternative or/and local bands on these. Upcoming articles on the blog includes my interviews with English Rock'n'Roll lads The 45s and Irish pop-punk sensation Beware of you as well as the review of American Alternative Rock bands All Time Low and Twenty One Pilots performances at Belsonic Festival (Belfast, UK).
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