Thanks so much to Paul McAllister for the interview! I wrote about Scale the Heights some time ago and Paul was kind enough to get in touch and also to answer all my questions and tell the story of the band! If you’ve never heard about this wonderful Irish band, I suggest to discover them now! You will enjoy them for sure!
++ Hi Paul! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Still making music?
Never really stopped ! work life and kids tend to slow you down a bit but I guess if its in you it never really leaves you . Liam and I are involved as of today with a band called The City Remains. We will be releasing an eponymous 10 track album early in 2020.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
My first memories were listening to the radio in my dads car at a very young age, there was no real scene of radio in the house because of the TV so the car radio was the first real space that I listened to music in. At 5 years of age my first instrument was a small set of drums (from Santa clause) a bass drum, a snare and a cymbal, red and gold in color with thin plastic skins that you could leave a dent it if you hit it hard enough. My early musical listening was confined to what my parents listen to, early memories are of Frank Sinatra, James Last, Abba… their musical influence and pedigree I will admit was somewhat lost on me at such a young age.
++ Had you been in other bands before Scale the Heights? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?
The first band that I was in was a school band with Liam (who I played with in STH) on bass and and another fellow student called Dave Howlett on Guitar, a 3 piece band playing Joy Division covers and the like , there are no recordings that I know of….just as well!! not sure if the standard was all that great…LOL
++ Where were you from originally, Maynooth?
No, I was from Lucan initially (a town on the outskirts of Dublin but then moved closer to Maynooth (my school town) to a town call Celbridge, it was there that I met Liam who lived in Maynooth along with Dave.
++ How was your town at the time of Scale the Heights? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
Maynooth was pretty much out of the loop musically 30 years ago and beyond the pale, it had a growing college but it was relatively quiet in terms of music scene there. A lot of bands outside Dublin faced different challenges in terms of trying to find places to play and an audience- most roads led to Dublin in terms of finding places to play at the time- hence we looked to the city to provide us with places to play for the most part initially. Its pretty different now of course thankfully. Venues were for up and coming bands almost all in Dublin City the likes of the Baggot Inn, The Underground, New Inn all great in their different ways. We started with supports in places like the Underground and Yellow Pack nights where a few bands might play on a Monday night in the Baggot Inn for example and progressed from there really to our own gigs in those venues building an audience. Maynooth had no record stores as such so if you wanted to get something you went to Dublin on the bus to somewhere like Freebird records or Golden discs on Liffey Street if memory serves.
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
Well I knew Liam from my school days and we both had a good keen interest in music both listening to it and making it, the origins of Scale the Heights as a band started in a hairdressing salon in central Dublin strangely enough. Somebody was able to get the salon after hours to meet and practice so we all tracked into the city to meet, I remember it was the top of Grafton Street which was and still is a major shopping area in central Dublin I think we started early in the evening once the shop had closed, Lord knows what passers-by thought of the jangling guitar of a burgeoning band coming from the hair salon at 7 o’clock in the evening. Liam and Dave met in Maynooth and Dave recruited Tony the guitarist whom he previously had met separately elsewhere as I recall.
++ Were there any lineup changes?
With the exception of two keyboard players that we tried the lineup remained the same throughout the bands life.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
The creative process for the band was always fun, coming up with new tunes and ways to play them in the early days was always an enjoyable task, like most bands the creative process goes through changes as the band mature as Liam would’ve come up with a lot of the original ideas for the songs But once the band got stuck into the basic idea they as most songs do morphed into something bigger than the sum of its parts, there were plenty of studios and rehearsal rooms in Dublin most of them fairly grotty and dirty but they served the purpose for us and all the other bands in the Dublin gig scene at the time, some of my earliest practice memories were at Liam‘s house.
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band
I think overall we had wide range of individual musical tastes between the four of us as a collective unit. What we all agreed on was that the song was king so to speak and that guided us. Sound wise it was guitar ,bass ,and drums etc so that dictated our basic sound which you can hear. Influences would have been varied but off top of my head bands such as REM, The Go-Betweens, Replacements, The Chills all were on our radar and influenced us musically and as we matured their antecedents. Apart from the songwriting influences Tony the guitarist had a big say in the overall sound of the band he grew up playing music and was the best musician in terms of experience . His family if memory serves were involved in the covers, show band era in Ireland as players. He had a great knowledge of good country music (Gram Parsons is a memory of being introduced to by him) for example which he shared with the others and made the self taught Liam and I up our respective games and improve as players.
++ From what I understand your 1988 demo won the Carling/Hot Press Award for best unsigned act, is that right? There were three songs on it, where were these recorded? Was it your first time in the studio?
Like most bands at the time we recorded a lot of demos most of which I think still exist in one format or another and of course the tape was the main medium for archiving ones first efforts, and I think some of them are still around, there were always plenty of songs to choose from as our set list grow considerably while we were gigging. we took a lot to the studio but good studios were expensive at the time. We recorded in a few different studios in and around Dublin over the lifetime of the band . I personally found the studio at the time a little underwhelming, interesting and educational , but it never came close to the feeling of playing live for me.
++ And how was that contest? How did you enter? What was the prize?
We basically filled in a form and sent a demo tape I think and hoped for the best that someone would listen. The contest was over a few heats and then there was a final gig with all the finalists in Cork at a great venue called Sir Henry’s, where we won I feel based on song quality and live ability. We were given musical gear and a four track also which at the time was great and very useful for us to use.
++ So you went to record with WEA a single, was there any chance of them signing you or was it always a one-off deal? How was the experience of working with a big label?
The deal with WEA was part of our prize on winning the Carling hot press band, I think it was always a one off deal but we never really pushed them to give us more, the song that you refer to that was recorded at lab studios was called So Soon, I can’t recall if there was any specific reason that we chose it as a B-side I guess we just liked the song and it offered a degree of contrast to the A side
++ You also recorded a Fanning Session in 1989, where you played four songs. How was that experience? Did you meet Dave Fanning?
It was a fantastic experience , working with Dave and the engineers was a great education. Ian Wilson was the producer. I remember that recorded the songs in one take , the engineer was a bit blown away on how well rehearsed we were we spent no time at all getting the tracks down , I guess it was a reflection on how focused we all were on playing our music at the time.
++ And are there unreleased tracks? There were a few that I found on the Fanning Sessions blog like the wonderful “Down the Hill”… has there been plans to put some sort of retrospective release at some point?
There are plenty of unreleased tracks, Dave put a compilation together a few years ago, a mixture of live and demos i think, no plans to do anything with it…. but you never know, songs have a way of finding an audience long after they have been written sometimes.
++ Someone on my blog commented that you had a wonderful song called “When the Rain Comes”. Did this one exist? Care to shed some light about it?
Wow that’s one of the early ones !! one of the few songs that we used a keyboard to carry the riff and the feel of the song. Great that someone still remembers it.
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Goodbye to all That”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
The title is from the writer & poet Robert Graves autobiography of the same title. Published about his experiences in the run up to and during the first world war. The song itself was inspired by a conversation with someone Liam met who was previously very materially “successful” but who realised that they needed more to be fulfilled hence they gave up one way of living and withdrew to start again elsewhere under different circumstances. Liam wrote the song after that encounter I believe.
++ If you were to choose your favorite Scale the Heights song, which one would that be and why?
The band (as many bands do) went through changes in our song structure, tempo and style, we would have had 2 or 3 of those so there were songs from each phase that would have enjoyed the title as favorite in the early days songs like where will we be, two wives, and proud of you stick as highlights, how much longer as another that I loved to play as well as listen to later I guess songs like Harper, down the hill , blind mans clothes.
++ What were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
There were loads of highlights too many to mention, but for me one of the best was a Gig we did in the Olympia Theatre Dublin, we opened the show with Dave walking on to a blacked out stage holding a candle gently singing silent night (must have been around Christmas) as he got to the end of the second sentence he stopped said “F$%k this” blew out the candle , the lights came on and we ripped into the set , lots of fun. One of the funniest things I remember was a gig that we did were the promoter either got the date wrong or something like that ..anyway nobody turned up, but we played anyway , during one of the songs Dave who had either a radio mic or a very long mic lead left the stage during one of the numbers and went to the loo !! while still singing , the sound of band cranking out a tune without a singer on stage and the sound of running water as Dave used the toilet himself is something that will never leave me…….ever!
++ And were there any bad ones?
There were I’m sure , but we did a lot of gigs that its hard to remember now
++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards? I hear you were in the Latecomers?
Liam and myself still write and record together (Liam has never stopped writing). Tony did go on and play with some other bands and he still plays today, Dave dabbled in some musical activities I believe. The Latecomers name was really a tongue in cheek placeholder for a musical project myself and Liam have been working on in recent times. We will be releasing an album early next year called The City Remains. Its something we have really enjoyed doing and looking forward to releasing soon.
++ Has there ever been a reunion? Or talks of playing again together?
We did get together a couple of times a few years ago and it was great. Still tight, plenty of energy, as a drummer I smiled as the muscle memory kicked in and I found my self playing fills and tempos on auto pilot….. while playing I thought OMG I can still do this but I have no idea when this song ends!
++ Did you get much attention from the radio?
As a young band we got a fair bit of air time on radio 2 ( part of our national broadcaster RTE) with Dave Fanning the Irish version of John Peel… at least for our generation. We were also invited to record some sessions for broadcast during his show. We also got local airtime when touring throughout Ireland
++ I did notice you were on TV at least once, playing the song “Disposable”, where was this? Did you play any other songs that time?
Yes we appeared on other TV shows during the period playing other songs such as Goodbye to all that and Blind Man’s Clothes
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
i I think its fair to say that we had built up a good reputation as a live band working hard , and gigging on a regular basis, that brought us to the attention of the press. we had a particularly good relationship with Hot Press a Dublin based music publication , who often came to see us during one of our regular residencies in Dublin. We where an energetic and melodic band and the press that we received reflected that at the time I think in terms of those who were interested in what the band was doing. We had strong advocates who helped in the early stages of the band and encouraged us to develop further. We were relative outsiders at the time in terms of being a non Dublin City based band who had to build an audience from scratch and the positive attention we got helped those who were curious to come along and see the band at the time.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Just to say to your thanks for your interest and for taking the time to do this, I enjoyed the quick trip down memory lane with you. All the best.
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