An interview with tonight’s Sin É headliners Cheap Freaks’ singer/bassist Robbie Brady
Hi Bob, can you explain the origins of Cheap Freaks? Was it a case of unfinished business from those of you ex of The Things, or was Cheap Freaks approached differently?
The idea came over a year ago when Al and I were in Berlin. I was recording an album with The Real Junk and Al was helping out the sessions playing guitar etc. While we were over there we got talking on ideas for bands and found we’d the same interests so kinda started from there. We didn’t get together properly till the end of the year though. Cheap Freaks is a totally different approach to The Things, for one I’m working with another songwriter so immediately we’ve got a new direction in sound. It’s not any kind of unfinished business. For the past while we’ve had other members of The Things helping us out with live shows but as far as writing and recording its all just myself and Al. The only other Thing that’s now a permanent fixture would be Ruairi on the organ…
The band is going just over a year, are you happy with the progress? Yeah i suppose it’s going ok, we’ve had some set backs with members of the live band and some label set backs but we’ve finally got that sorted so we should be more on top of things this year.
We’ve heard an EP is on the way from Big Neck records and that your debut album is in the can. Care to spill on the beans on the recordings and upcoming releases?
We recorded about 17 songs for an album in Berlin last June, sessions went pretty well. We are just sitting on the tracks now as we plan to release a few follow up EPs to the Big Neck release before a full length record. We hope to have one or two new EPs out soon on different labels. As for the Big Neck EP, there was some set backs in pressing but that should available by March.
Your posters are always great, is artwork a big deal for Cheap Freaks? Who does them?
Yeah to me artwork is pretty important, it helps sell the product i suppose. We’ve a few different people doing artwork for us at the moment. we are always on the look out for someone good and so far we’ve found a few that like us and wanna work with us…
The live shows are always fucking loud, what gear do you lot use?
Our gigs are just loud because its a competition between all the members of the band to sound bigger and better than each other! We hope to one day all peek together in greatness and blow our beans all over this god forsaken world!
Bob, you run the Psychotic Reaction and Dead Chickens club nights. What motivated you to start running them?
I started those nights just over 7 years ago as a way to put on shows for The Things and be guaranteed that we have the whole night so our friends could listen to good music and we weren’t followed by some shite club. Just kept going from there really!
Are Dublin crowds picky about what they’ll go and see, or do you find many keen to take the plunge with international bands you bring over?
Man I can’t even give tickets away, for fuck sake! It’s always a struggle to get people out to gigs in dublin. I know myself that a lot of the bands I bring over are not gonna be the biggest crowd pullers but its great to get these bands heard by Dublin crowds. But more importantly I get to see them live and bum their merch off them!
