The past 12 months have brought forth a multitude of 'themed' album releases from bands old and new, big and small.  However it has to be said that one of the most unusual 'themes' for a concept album has to go to the punk rock band The Eruptors for their 'Bad Time To Be Having A Good Time'.  An innocent enough title you may say, ah yes but read on and soon you'll know what I mean ...   

MM - Introduce the band members to us and can you tell us a little bit of background about how you all came together.
Jeff: I’m Jeff Pepsii.  Me and Al where in a band together with three other people but we used to get really pissed off with the amount of faffing around to get things done.  So we started a power trio that eventually mutated into The Eruptors when we got Gary on board.

Gary: I was in another band with Geoff, he invited Alex to see us play a gig. I love rock, so did they, the rest is history.

Alex: The name ‘The Eruptors’ came about because I saw something on TV about a volcano, which made me think of the Van Halen song ‘Eruption’, and that made me think ‘The Eruptors’ as a name for the band.  Jeff agreed it was a killer name, and it stuck.   Then, after a few years of demoing songs when we could find the time, Jeff converted an old farm building into a recording studio and we used it to make an album.  Gary played some of the older demos to the record label that his other band is signed to, they were impressed enough that they decided that they would like to release the actual album, and the next one too. 

MM - When did you realize the band was going to work?
Gary: Jeff and I got on great in another band, and the Eruptors seemed like the perfect forum for our special brand of unbridled speed and loudness. The first rehearsal, with Geoff’s girlfriend taking photos of us all sweating it out in Survival Studios, Acton, was an indicator of the fun times ahead. First two gigs were awesome fun. What for me cemented the band as an integral part of my identity, was our first US tour. We rule.

Jeff: When I met Al and we first chatted about music and the bands we were into I knew that there would be cool times ahead.  And when I first heard Gareth tune his drums – he was just belting the living shit out of them.  I thought that was the complete package there.

Alex: I had no doubts it was going to work haha. Well the first gig was already booked before Gary joined.  At that point we had no major ambitions to do anything beyond that first gig, it was just about having fun and seeing if we could get away with it.  But I guess after that first show, the crowd, venue staff and the promoters all seemed to like it too, and I realised that the 3 of us really had something.  So we just kept on doing it, and here we are.

MM - Who or what inspired you to join a band in the first place?
Gary: Listening to Led Zeppelin, Yes, Fairport Convention, Deep Purple, Cream, Dire Straits. My parents, and my mates Chris and Steve – I was thirteen.

Jeff: Sex drugs and rock n roll.  I mean who can say no to that!!!  When I was a teenager grunge was the big thing but I just knew that it was fake and it couldn’t last.  There was nothing to aspire to, nothing to lift you up.  Not like rock n roll which had everything, the fun, the attitude.  Punk rock is rock n roll and vice versa.

Alex: My parents brought me up on 70’s rock, like Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Deep Purple, and some of my early memories from when I was really young, are of my uncles bands 720 and New Torpedos.  Some of those guys he was in bands with went on to join bands like LA Guns, Bad Company, FM, Samson and so on. As I got older I started listening to Iron Maiden, WASP, Guns n’ Roses then Motorhead, and blues music, then some of the punk stuff.  Grunge came in and there was some cool stuff in that scene but a lot of crap, a lot of posers. Scratch beneath the surface and it was no different to the fake 80s rock they claimed to be replacing in that sense, only more politically correct.  Everyone was whingeing about getting paid to be a rock star. Get over it! haha.

MM - I believe the band members are a bit spread out geographically, how does that work when it comes to band practise etc?
Gary: We practice only when we need to – i.e. if there’s a tour coming up or a recording, we’ll rehearse for that. We all know the songs anyway, since we wrote and recorded them and love them (they’re awesome, n’est pas?) This way we don’t piss each other off – you think it’s a coincidence we banished Geoff to Ireland?! No way! We are all good listeners on stage – a trio is a great, great thing, and we are all larger than life in the band. Not over-rehearsing allows us to deliver the most we can when we perform.

Jeff: We use all the means that modern technology gives us.

MM - With the release of your debut album ‘Bad Time To Be Having A Good Time’ earlier this year, how are the band feeling right now?
Gary: Like Iron Maiden, only faster, mutha fucka.

Jeff: Feeling real good about everything, all the time!!!  Looking forward to finishing the next album, starting to write the one after that.  And just wondering what other cool creative things we can do with this thing of ours.

Alex: We’re sitting on top of the world, to quote a great blues song.

MM - What feedback have you received from the fans and music media been so far to this release?
Gary: Fans are not surprised at how awesome the record is. Media have generally embraced the vibe, although some people appear not to see the value in a twenty-one minute space opera ending in a skate anthem – what the hell is wrong with these people?!

MM - The album is a concept album set against a sci-fi theme.  Would you like to tell us a little more about this whole concept and walk us through the songs that feature on it?
Gary: No, not really. Open your ears and your mind, baby. Or maybe just ask Geoff.

Jeff: It starts off with two characters who are pilots in the space navy.  There at a pretty packed bar and there just looking out to see what’s going to happen.  There's a band in the corner getting ready to play.  But then the first song, dawn of the earth, takes us back to the birth of the planet and one of the things that crawled out of the prehistoric soup was the concept of evil.  Back in the future the band starts to play in the bar, the two space navy guys listen to the first song, theme from the eruptors and then high tail it to the base which is a hive of activity with the spacecraft being prepared.  We then get a bit of back story, we hear for example a speech made by commander de’ath to the combined earth navies which is broadcast around the world. 

We also hear a little bit of reaction to that speech by some of the ordinary people in their homes.  De’ath promise’s a quick and easy and moralistic win over the backwards aliens.  The war starts and mankind invades the alien’s solar system but it doesn’t go according to plan, in fact most of the space navy is destroyed. 

Commander de’ath then decides to blow up the alien sun using a weapon called the devil with angels wings even though every on earth thought that such an evil weapon would never be allowed to be used.  We don’t find out if this works or not and the album ends back where we started with a dawn of the earth.  But we don’t know is this because mankind or the aliens have being blown back to the stone age because of losing the war or is a grander point about weather evil has or is always with us from beginning to end.

It’s also about rocking out and having a good time.

MM - Do you have any plans to tour in support of the album?
Gary: If you have plans to finance such a venture, I can be on the road tomorrow morning.

Jeff: Ditto.

MM - Have you had a chance to think about how you will approach your follow up album or is it too early to say?
Gary: Long and hard (or so I keep hearing from our female fans). No really, the second album is nearly in the can. Incredibly, it’s actually better than the first CD. Mostly because of a drum solo, a tribute to Lynard Skynard, and the fact that it’s TWICE AS LONG!

Jeff: Yep, the next album which will be called ‘Seduce and Destroy’ is having the finishing touches applied to it.  Slightly different approach in some ways.  But that’s the nature of the rock n roll beast!!!

MM - How would you best describe your music to any of our readers who are currently unfamiliar with your music?
Gary: Like Motorhead, Zeke and AC/DC, only quirkier and with a better looking line-up.

Jeff: It’s like sticking your head out of a window of a fast moving car.

Alex: It’s the sort of music that makes you jump out of your seat and start rockin’ out

MM - The artwork for the new album is also pretty impressive, how did you come to hook up with Andy Tilley the artist and what input did you have on it’s content?
Alex: Andy lives near me and I know him from his work for the magazine ‘Bubblegum Slut’.  He mentioned that he could do us some T-Shirts, and had some pretty far-out ideas to do with wart hogs, machine guns, hot rods and scantily clad rock-sluts.  The shirts were a success and it was only natural that he should do the artwork for the album. We were all really pleased with how it turned out, he did a sterling job.

MM - Who are your inspirations musically and spiritually?
Gary: I am spiritually bankrupt and all the happier for it. I have embraced atheism with a lust that only the victim of an over-religious upbringing can perhaps truly appreciate. The spirit is a construct of our (chemical) brains; a figment of our imaginations. My inspirations, however, are: Alex and Geoff, my parents, my drum teachers, my wife. John Bonham, Max Roach, Frank Zappa, Bill Bruford and my insatiable desire to ROCK YOU. I like the fact that this band steers clear of all religious or political agendas – we’re all aware of contemporary issues and histories; sometimes, though, it’s nice just to play some goddamn rock music and enjoy yourself, ya know?

Jeff: Neil Young, Ronnie James Dio, AC/DC, Heart, Hellacopters, Waylon Jennings, just loads of good music.  And of course all the bad, commercially ‘inspired’ whore music for the masses which also inspire’s but more in a what not to do with your time on the planet kinda way.

Alex: Musically – loads of stuff, rock, metal, punk, blues.  Obvious ones would be Iron Maiden, Rory Gallagher, The Hellacopters, Sex Pistols, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, WASP (especially Chris Holmes solo in the live version of ‘Sleeping In The Fire’ from ‘The Sting’ dvd!!!), Guns n’ Roses, UK Subs, the list is endless.  Spiritually, I believe there is a God of some sort.  Bill and Ted summarise things best; ‘Be Excellent To Each Other’.

MM - Does music dominate your life or do you get time to relax in between?  If so how do you like to chill?
Gary: I chill between songs, between gigs and in the shower. Otherwise I rock. Hard.

Jeff: I love surfing, ocean kayaking, camping, hiking.  But in a weird kinda cosmic way that would just be impossible to explain in words (for me anyway) its all the same thing.  If you know what I mean…

Alex: I like to run, do a bit of weight training, go to the beach, that sort of thing.

MM - Is there anything you’ve have done in the past that you wished you had done differently?
Gary: I should have eaten a bigger breakfast today – I was starving by 11.00!

Jeff: Loads of things!!!  But hey, win some, lose some…

Alex: No use crying over spilled milk…as one door shuts another opens….  Every ‘bad’ decision I ever made worked out for the best in the long run.

MM - How would you like to see yourself in 5 years time?
Gary: Reflected in a wall of platinum CDs on the wall of our studio in Cork.

Jeff: Yep, same, but in a bigger better studio.  And with gold disc’s.

Alex: Happy, healthy, and releasing great Eruptors music!

MM - What would you most like to be remembered for?
Jeff: I’d like to remembered with a dirty grin and a guilty smile!!!

Alex: I’d like to be remembered as the guy who played the guitar solo on ‘Leaving (On The Wings Of An Eagle)’ from The Eruptors forthcoming second album, entitled ‘Seduce & Destroy’.

MM - OK, now for a fun question, if one day you were involved in a freak accident and became a new breed of superhero, what would your name be, what would be your special power and what would your costume look like?
Gary: My name would still be Flamin’ Gary De Niro, and I would have the special power of rock endowment – I would be able to infect anyone, at any time, with an unflagging desire and ability to rock out all the while they were with me. Upon my sudden but not untimely disappearance, people would, like Scrooge, be left to reflect on what just happened. And their lives would be changed. And eventually there would be no more fucking hip hop.

Jeff: It’s already happened.  I can’t talk about it.  My superhero nemesis will start tracking me.

MM - Do you have any final words for our readers or is there anything we’ve omitted to ask?
Gary: “Hello everyone” to the readers. And you don’t appear to care, but I’m fine, thanks.

Alex: Check us out on myspace.com/eruptors and if you like it, buy an album or a t-shirt.

Jeff: Keep on keeping on!!  Rock n roll will never die!!! 

MM - Well there you have it my little rock-a-doodles, the very talented and extremely wacky Eruptors, or The Eruptors to be precise.  If you haven't heard their album yet then have a read of our review elsewhere on this site, if that wets your appetite then head on over to the bands myself site and wrap your ears around some snippets.

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