A shared love of epic, distorted guitars and blistering harmonious pop brought Brian James, Mik McKeogh, Greg McCarthy and Dar Grant together to form Funeral Suits in 2009. Only together a few months, the Dublin based band landed a plum support gig with Franz Ferdinand and impressed the full-house in Dolan’s Warehouse that night with their raw energy. Fast forward to 2012 and Funeral Suits have developed, spending the best part of two years holed up in a disused office space in deepest North County Dublin, writing and rehearsing and the band is about to release the debut album, ‘Lily of the Valley’, a polished collection of epic indie-pop.
Greg McCarthy of Funeral Suits remembers that gig in Dolan’s and told Limerick Post, “When we played with Franz Ferdinand in 2009 we had only been playing together as a band for less than 6 months, we were very fresh faced and still cutting our teeth as a live act. What led to us changing direction was simply from being in a rehearsal room together playing music all the time, we were constantly developing as musicians churning out song after song. We must have had between 30 and 40 songs before we went to record the album.”
‘Lily of the Valley’ was recorded with acclaimed producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths, The Cranberries) over 3 sessions around Ireland. “Making the album was lots of fun. Stephen made the process as easy as possible, it was a pleasurable experience all round I think”, concludes Greg.
Funeral Suits will release ‘Lily of the Valley’ this week on Model Citizen Records. “We are really looking forward to taking the album on the road. we have been playing the songs live for over a year now and its strange doing gigs playing these “new” songs to people all the time. With the album out now it will be nice for people to be able hear all the songs before they come to see us live.”
Funeral Suits play Bourkes Bar this Wednesday June 6 with guests Neon Wolf. Hear the debut LP ‘Lily of the Valley’ on www.musiclimerick.com.
