Back to the future with Cry Before Dawn show

There’s something compelling about music, both for people who listen to it and the ones who play it. There must be – why else would you reform a band you first started 34 years ago, one which went through good and bad times before breaking up 10 years later? The glib answer might be ‘money,’ but you couldn’t put that at Cry Before Dawn’s door.

The Wexford band, who play Monroe’s Live on Friday, August 19, are back on the road, thanks to a small but dedicated fanbase – and the fact that the band members are proud of the music they made.

Bass player Vinnie Doyle recalls what the band were up to when they formed in 1982.

“I was working with my dad in a garage,” he says. “I know Brendan, the singer, was a toolmaker. Pat (Hayes, drums) had his business making and delivering sandwiches and I think Tony (Hall, guitar) was working in Dunnes Stores. Fairly ordinary stuff going on!

“We were playing around County Wexford and Waterford, with the occasional trip to Dublin,” adds Vinnie. “In the early days, no one wanted to listen to hear us. We were playing originals, and maybe it’s a little bit like that now, people wanted to hear covers. I remember going to Kilkenny one night playing to five people, and different gigs with nobody turning out.”

But the plucky young band made their own luck. While in London for a gig, they finagled a slot on the prestigious Janis Long show on BBC radio. Before they got on the ferry home, they also called into HTV studios in Wales and played a session there.

“From that, we got our record deal with CBS,” Vinnie says. “But it wasn’t as simple as that either. There was a lot of work on the songs, and playing, but we were lucky to get that break.”

Life on a major label took over, and Vinnie and his bandmates embraced the opportunity.

“When we got signed, it changed everything in one way,” he says. “We had a living wage, we could go at it full time. We went into proper studios in London to record our first album [Gone Forever] we had really nice apartments there. From nobody wanting to hear us to the minute the first single was released in Ireland and the UK, that really changed everything.

For more about Cry Before Dawn and their upcoming gig see this week’s Tribune here