IT HAS been a long time since a Galway band has made a major impression outside of its hometown - close to 20 years in fact, back in the heady days of the early 1990s.
Back then, Toasted Heretic were showing how Galway was a natural home for indie with singles like ‘Galway and Los Angeles’ and ‘Another Day, Another Riot’; The Stunning wowed Irish audiences with their 1990 debut album Paradise In The Picture House; and Tuam’s The Saw Doctors blazed up the charts in 1991 with ‘I Useta Lover’.
It was an exciting time in the city and it seemed that at last Galway was in a position to join Dublin, Cork, and Belfast as a fulcrum for Irish rock and pop. However by the mid-1990s it was all over as both Toasted Heretic and The Stunning called it a day.
Only The Saw Doctors remain from that time and they also remain the only Galway band of the last 20 years that has enjoyed (and continues to enjoy ) a national and international profile and hit singles.
However over the last couple of years the Galway rock/pop/indie scene has been revitalised and the city and county can dare to once again ask: Is there anyone who can become a national phenomenon?
The indie flag has been flown by Tuam’s So Cow with Brian Kelly and Co having built an international cult following, played Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival, and been favourably reviewed in Pitchfork. So what about a band who could break into the pop-rock mainstream and win large audiences in the way The Coronas or The Script have done? That hope lies with The Kanyu Tree.
White boy funk
The Kanyu Tree - brothers Shane, Oisín, and Daniel Cluskey - have long won over Galway audiences with their infectious mix of slick pop, creamy vocal harmonies, and white boy funk. Now they are set to take on the nation with the release of their debut album People Street, which is out on Sony Music tomorrow.
“We want to represent Galway,” Daniel tells me as I sit with the band in Kelly’s for the interview. “It has been 20 years and Galway is a really artistic city and we’re delighted to have a chance to take over the baton.”
The Salthill brothers have already shown they possess the potential to make it big with their two recent singles - the excellent and infectious ‘Radio’ and its follow-up ‘Shelf Life’ - having received massive radio play on 2FM and Today FM over the last few months. “We were very surprised at the level of radio play, we never expected anything like it,” Oisín says, “and they are still in the radio charts.”
Given The Kanyu Tree are three brothers whose music mixes vocal harmonies with a disco feel, could they be described as Galway’s answer to the BeeGees? “We are big BeeGees fans,” admits Oisín. “‘You Win Again’ is one of my favourite songs.”
The brothers grew up listening to the BeeGees, Michael Jackson, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and The Beach Boys - with Oisín also taking an interest in bass guitar legend Jaco Pastorius - which influenced both their taste in and approach to playing music, and an interest in developing three part harmony singing.
Eventually each Cluskey would become involved in different local bands, but the idea of joining forces came one summer when Daniel and Oisín began writing some songs together.
“I was in college in Dublin at the time,” says Shane. “I would be back down on the weekends and during the summer. Oisín and Daniel had come up with riffs and we’d work on them. After I finished college we decided to see if we could do something. We spent a summer writing and a year later Gugai in the Róisín gave us our first gigs.”
This was in 2007-2008 and it was already obvious with songs like ‘Congratulations’, ‘Shima’, and ‘In My Drums’ that they showed a level of sophistication and potential that instantly put them in the ‘ones to watch’ category.
The band were then known as The Cheerfuls but later changed their name to The Kanyu Tree. What does their moniker signify? “Kanyu is a Japanese word which means ‘membership’,” says Daniel. “We spent our early years in Japan and we wanted to have a Japanese theme in the name to reflect that. We added in ‘Tree’ because the word has family connotations.”
How did the Cluskeys come to be in Japan? “Our dad got a job there,” Daniel continues. “Oisín and Shane were born there and we lived there for seven years. I remember we saw U2 in the Tokyo Dome and got to meet Bono afterwards. I kept asking him where was Larry as it was Larry I wanted too meet. Don’t know if he was pleased about that, but there is a photo of me and Shane with Bono.”
People Street
People Street is the brothers’ debut album, which features ‘Radio’ and ‘Shelf Life’, concert favourites ‘Congratulations’ and ‘A Lot Like Me’, and forthcoming single ‘Slow’, while the iTunes version of the album contains another old favourite in the aforementioned ‘In My Drums’.
Other songs to watch out for on the album include ‘Mariko’, a nod to the Cluskeys’ Japanese experience.
“Mariko is the name of a Japanese robot and which was this new thing in technology,” says Shane. “The theme is the fickle nature of people and how something can become dispensable. Despite how new the technology of the robot is or how celebrated it is, it will eventually be replaced by more advanced technology.”
The album was produced by Ali Shaheed Muhammad from hip-hoppers A Tribe Called Quest and although the pairing with the Cluskeys might have appeared unusual, it proved successful for all concerned.
“We were surprised by the choice at first,” says Oisín. “We sent him over ‘A Lot Like Me’ and asked him what he could do with it. He said ‘Do you want me to go all out or just touch it up a bit?’ We asked him to go all out, just to see what he could do. He went all out and he came back very positively about our music. He also said one of his songs brought him to tears so we knew he was the right person for us.”
“He was never about making the songs more hip hop and his genre,” says Shane. “He was always about enhancing what we had.”
Shane cites the title track as a personal highlight of the album and of their collaboration with Muhammad. “It’s the best collaboration we did with Ali,” he says. “It’s my favourite song on the album. Ali brought a nice sound to it. The title comes from an abbreviation of the original lyric which was ‘people walking on the street’ and it’s about ‘the walk of life’ and trying to find where you fit in’.”
The Kanyu Tree will be in HMV Galway on Thursday October 6 at 5pm where they will perform songs from People Street and sign copies of the album. The band will then play a full concert at the Róisín Dubh at 9pm which will also act as the official Galway launch for People Street. Tickets are available from the Róisín Dubh and www.roisindubh.net See also www.thekanyutree.com
