Limerick Post spoke to Limerick guitarist Darrin Mullins about his time in The Driven and the recording of the new album with Pavlov’s Dogs.
CORK based band Pavlov’s Dogs only came together and started rehearsing a few months ago, the band are preparing to tour an album of songs that were written and recorded in a home studio over The Oval Pub in Cork city centre over the past few years by two members of the long defunct Rathkeale, Co. Limerick band The Driven.
“The way the record was done, it was highly unorthodox, the band only kinda mustered after the recording was finished”, explains Mullins.
Darrin Mullins moved to Cork years after The Driven had imploded. In between stints playing guitar with The Frank and Walters, he stared to put together a small recording studio in the attic over the pub he was managing at the time.
The Driven’s bass player Paul Power was already living in the city and while Darren was recording ideas for songs Paul started to call over in the evenings and put down some vocals, “before we knew it we had 7 or 8 songs finished”, Darren says, “after that, we got enthusiastic about putting a band back together. I put down the bass and the drums were recorded by former Driven drummer Christian Best (now in touring with Mick Flannery) in his living room. The drums were the last thing to go on the record.”
Having previously signed to major label, Polydor with their band, The Driven, Mullins and Paul Power are determined to take the independent approach this time round. Mullins says, “The idea of getting a big label deal is a hindrance to a band, it gives them a false sense of security. Give it another 10 years and what you will have is your independent marketing houses, independent PR agencies and the major labels will only be there for the likes of the big American R’n’B stars and all that.”
Rathkeale’s The Driven were originally called The Drive and after various line-up changes headed for London in 1995 with a demo tape known as ‘The Cork Session’ which received a positive reaction. The band signed with Polydor, spent 1996-97 touring all over the U.K and released three singles including, ‘Jesus Loves You More If You Can Drive’. The album, also called The Driven, was released in France and other mainland European countries but never made the record stores in either Ireland or the U.K.
In 1998 the band’s recording contract was terminated by Polydor and the band’s singer Brendan Markham as well as Mullins and Power returned to Ireland. “I look back on it now very fondly” Mullins replies when asked to reflect on that time, “I was very bitter initially after the whole thing because it was a double edged sword. We got a great deal, we thought we were walking into something that would be long term, naively, of course, coming straight from Rathkeale, we were effectively a pub band. The first 18 months were amazing, living the dream effectively. The last year and a half were despicable because we weren’t allowed play gigs, we weren’t allowed record, there were good independent labels who were interested in us but we were still bound to the contract, so it killed us, it really did. It was a time of great extremes but I look back on it fondly now.”
Today with a new line-up formed to take Pavlov’s Dogs and the debut album on the road the guitarist is pretty much living the dream again, “we have matured a bit more, we have mellowed a bit more, but our tastes have broadened.
Paul is a huge Howling Wolf fan, the guitar’s dry harsh sounds come from early Neil Young and we are all huge Creedence Clearwater Revival fans as well.” But with a line-up featuring Spanish musician Paco on bass, Gordon Warren on keys/guitar and drummer John Coman formerly of Sylvia Saint and Bass Odyssey ready for the release of the debut single ‘Home’, these dogs can’t wait to get out and play again.
Guitarist Darrin Mullins sums it up best saying, “it is very liberating for me to get the telecaster out again and just hammer the sh*t out of it.”
Pavlov’s Dogs will release the debut album, ‘The Truth of Your Lies’ later this year. The first single, ‘Home’ is out now.
