Clockworks tick the right musical boxes

Groove Tuve with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

The Clockworks are a guitar driven band with a punchy sound that brings Franz Ferdinand to mind. The Galway based quartet play The Loft on Saturday, 25 February.

The quartet are relatively new on the scene, but lead singer James McGregor and guitarist Seán Conneely have been playing music together for eight years.

“This started off as somewhere between Damien Rice and Mumford & Sons,” says James of the band.

“We had acoustic guitars, it was very downbeat and we couldn’t get into it. We were playing live, and we were into bands like The Smiths and Arctic Monkeys, but it never occurred to us that we could play that music too,” Seán adds.

The Clockworks are in their early 20s and while the Arctic Monkeys influence is understandable, it’s something of a surprise to hear James and Seán also cite The Smiths. The Manchester band had their heyday in the 1980s – what is it about The Smiths that continues to inspire young musicians?

“What isn’t it about The Smiths?” James says.

“The first song I heard by them was Barbarism Begins at Home,” Seán adds. “It was live in Germany, and James’s mother showed it to me. That bass line, I’d never heard anything like it before. I downloaded the discography. And the lyrics! They were the best band ever, and to think they were our age when they peaked, 22, 23. And they were only around for four years.”

James and Seán are joined by Damien Greaney on drums and Diarmuid Prendergast on bass. The four lads have made several trips to London, bringing The Clockworks to showcases and clubs in the English capital. It’s an ambitious, and expensive, step – why have they decided to go that route?

“I think most bands doing the rounds in Ireland go Galway, Cork, Limerick, Dublin and hit repeat,” Seán says, “They do the circuit, and it either takes way too long to get anywhere, or you don’t get anywhere at all. The odd band pops through.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.