This year’s been full of new experiences for Cry Monster Cry. The first came in March, when the Sutton two-piece – brothers Jamie and Richie Martin – released their first album ‘Rhythm of Dawn’.
“We didn’t know what to expect,“ Jamie tells me. “We spent three years recording the album and in that time, the sort of momentum that we’d built up went away and we were a bit nervous that people had forgotten about us. But once we released it, it was something that took off.”
After such a long time in the studio, have they been happy with the response to the album?
“Within a week of releasing it, we’ve had messages from people in Japan, Germany, every corner of Ireland saying they loved it,” Jamie says. “When you put that amount of work into something and you don’t know if anyone’s going to listen to it or like it, it’s a fantastic feeling.”
From the way Jamie talks of his phone ‘lighting up’ after their performance on the Imelda May Show aired, it’s clear that the band are enjoying having the momentum behind them again. Single Atlas has racked up 140,000 Spotify plays at the time of writing, and Jamie says that despite initial misgivings about the streaming platform, he came to embrace it as a marketing tool. “Those 100,000 plays, we wouldn’t have gotten those elsewhere.”
On their current Irish tour, they haven’t been shy of venturing outside the larger towns, with dates scheduled in Clonakilty, Roscommon and Carrick-on-Suir. “We did some dates with Mick Flannery, and he was playing these really small, cool places in Cork like DeBarra’s… they were completely sold out, and never in my life have I showed up as a support band with the venue packed, and that just showed us that those small pockets of Ireland are really where you want to be playing.”
A headline performance at the Button Factory is scheduled for October 23rd, and the band won’t be afraid to expand their show to suit that bigger stage – they have a live drummer, bassist and keyboardist on call. “Every gig is different and you have to take the time to change the setlists and even sometimes rework the songs to suit the venue,” Jamie says.
“It’s important that you get across as much as you can from every song in each venue. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth doing.”
Stephen Keegan
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