Primate scream

You'll either love Fight Like Apes – or hate them. And that's the way they like it. MayKay Geraghty and keyboardist/co-vocalist Jamie Fox tell JIM CARROLLabout their anarchic journey from college drop-outs to nascent rock stars. Success is something they're getting used to – just don't ask them to tone it down

THE APES ARE at rest. It’s a hot, sunny afternoon in Dublin, a few days before the band travels to Glastonbury. The band’s busy summer will also take in appearances at Oxegen, T in the Park, Benicassim, Reading, Leeds, the Galway Arts Festival, Latitude, the Hop Farm Festival, Pukkelpop, the Secret Garden Party, Jersey Live, Le Cheile and the Clonmel Junction Festival.

In a hotel bar, MayKay Geraghty and Jamie Fox are rewinding the story of the band so far. It’s been one hell of a trip, so buckle up and sit back.

THE FIRST STEPS

In early 2007, Fight Like Apes appeared on the radar. They were loud, messy, angry, punky and hugely exciting, grabbing attention with such one-liners as “you’re like Kentucky Fried Chicken but without the taste”.

Live, lead singer Geraghty screamed, hollered, roared and howled so much you stumbled back in awe. They had the cut of a band who’d slap you round the ears, punch you in the gob and come back again to smile sweetly before kneeing you in the belly.

“We were completely unfocused,” admits Fox, keyboardist and co-vocalist. “We were just enjoying doing gigs where people didn’t leave in disgust after the first song.”

Labels and managers eyed up the band from the start. “We never expected anything, so when people started sniffing around, we were amused – and bemused – by it all,” says Geraghty. “We’d been in loads of bands before that no one ever liked, so we didn’t expect people to like this one.”

“We had no idea what we were doing,” giggles Fox. “We were rude to labels. We thought we were being witty. We definitely went through a couple of dodgy characters because we didn’t know what we were at. There was a cockiness to us back then, and I suppose that’s something we still have. Back then, we were just naive and finding everything very, very funny.”

Both dropped out of college, saying goodbye to courses in journalism (Fox) and medicinal chemistry (Geraghty).

“We were brutal at college,” says Geraghty. “We did well in school but terrible in college, I should have been good, but I’d a little taste of the fun of being in a band and, no matter what college course I did, I’d have been looking out the window and thinking about being in a band.

“The minute there was a possibility that this might lead to something,” adds Fox, “we just went for it. It was, in hindsight, very rash.”

Telling the parents was a bit trickier. “Our parents would have been very college-orientated,” says Geraghty. “We probably should have told them sooner but we didn’t. We went through so much effort in order not to make an effort to go to college. The two of us would meet up in the morning and go into the IFI for the day and just eat.

“The minute we got anywhere with the band, we were like ‘oh, I suppose we have to drop out of college now’. It made us work harder because we were so terrified of having to go to the parents and say ‘sorry lads, it didn’t work out’.”

ELECTRIC PICNIC 2007

There are many things you don’t do when you play your first festival show. At the 2007 Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Fight Like Apes did every one of them with great gusto.

They arrived on Friday, partied like mad over the weekend and then remembered they had to play a gig on Sunday. It was a fiasco.

“That was a serious low point,” groans Geraghty. “The thing is the others can go out and get wasted and still be able to play the next day. But if I lose my voice, I can’t do that. That’s the first time I was ever onstage going ‘oh shit’. There was nothing coming out of my mouth and I couldn’t bluff it.”

Fox: “We kind of forgot we had a gig to do on the last day and basically got on the stage and just farted.”

Geraghty: “We didn’t think anyone would come to see us. It was a huge surprise to see people in the tent that early on a Sunday morning. It was like rent-a-crowd. So many mates turned up and afterwards, it was like ‘good one’ and ‘uhm, that was interesting’. People still lie to us about that gig.”

COPPING THEMSELVES ON

There would not be another disaster like that one. “I realised that I had to take a 24/7 responsibility for things if I was going to take the band seriously,” says Geraghty.

They toured the UK (Fox: “we played to the sound engineer every night, basically”) and returned to perform at the Hard Working Class Heroes festival.

Geraghty: “We played in Crawdaddy to a hometown crowd and we weren’t rubbish. People used to be all ‘oh, you’re so cool’ and ‘you’re cute when you scream’ and ‘Jamie is so mad looking’, but that gig was the first time people really got it. It takes a long time for people to get what we do and realise it’s not gimmicky.”

THE ALBUM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In early 2008, Fight Like Apes headed to Seattle to record their debut album with John Goodmanson. “We picked him because he had a lot of experience with heavy bands with female singers,” says Geraghty. “He was very direct with us, he said he wanted to make our album sound good. We’re suckers for a straight talker.”

The rest of the year was spent touring, touring, touring and then going back to tour some more. They played with The Von Bondies, Kasabian, The Prodigy, We Are Scientists and The Ting Tings.

“We basically stayed in the UK and played every festival or venue that would have us,” says Fox. “One support tour would lead to another and it was just busy all the time. We’d come home once a fortnight for a day or two and then head back to England again.”

Geraghty knew it was working, albeit slowly. “We knew we were coming across really well and that it would be worth sticking with it, but I don’t think we noticed a fanbase building. You’d meet the odd person who’d seen you a few times, but it took a while.”

At home they played Oxegen, which cancelled out the lingering bad memories from their other Irish festival show.

“We’d done loads of English festivals which had gone well,” says Geraghty, “but we’d never done an Irish festival show which had been a huge success, so we had to make amends. We said beforehand that it couldn’t be another one of those shows.

“We thought we’d get a good crowd, but we hadn’t played here for ages before that gig, so you never know. To walk onto that stage and see all those people was a big high point for me.”

Fox: “My stagediving went down well. I went nowhere.”

Geraghty: “I spent some of the gig banging my head off a keyboard. My mum was in the audience watching, and afterwards she said: ‘I trust you, but I hope you know where you’re going with this band’.”

THE BACKLASH

The album, Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion, was released in Ireland in September 2008. It got great reviews and so-so reviews. And then, there was the online reaction from fans and detractors.

“We laughed about it,” says Fox. “There were people we knew who’d say one thing to us and then say the exact opposite on some internet thread or blog. I don’t know if it’s an Irish thing or an internet thing, but people are obsessed about holding onto this thing they own, and when it becomes bigger there’s this backlash. Find me someone who likes the Arcade Fire’s second album and admits it in public.”

Geraghty: “I totally understand people who preferred the old DIY side of the band and weren’t too keen on the more polished, horrible word that it is, sound of the album. I’ve no problem with that, but people were just so contradictory and hypocritical. The same people giving out about us and the album were probably the same ones who were telling us we were going to be huge at the very start. You can’t please them.”

Geraghty claims not to bother with online fuming. “When the rest of them are looking up stuff about the band, I never get involved because I think it’s a waste of time and, because I’m a girl, shit gets personal. I don’t want to unnecessarily worry about stuff. We started this band for ourselves and that’s all that matters.”

At least, ventures Fox, they’re getting a reaction. “We’ve always wanted to divide the crowd. It wasn’t happening at the start so it had to happen at some stage and it did. We like the idea of being a Marmite band, and you either like us or hate us.”

THE WEIRDNESS AND THE FOLKS

There’s a lad out there with a Fight Like Apes tattoo on his arm.

“A guy got a massive tattoo on his arm of one of the skeletons from the album cover,” says Geraghty. “Rock’n’roll! He came to the gig in Waterford and showed it to us. We thought it was amazing and it looks really cool. He wants to get Fight Like Apes tattooed beside it and we were like ‘no, don’t do it, man’. I wouldn’t see a problem if it was a band like Smashing Pumpkins, but a band like us are so fresh and we could turn into neo-Nazis next year and where would he be then?”

More weirdness: the Apes’ parents are reading the music rags. “They read the NME and Uncut and tell me what Bonnie Prince Billy is up to,” says Fox.

That said, they acknowledge there have been times when their folks have simply had to grin and bear it. “Our music is not parent-pleasing”, says Geraghty. “I remember myself and Jamie started scuffling onstage during the first gig that my dad went to and he was . . . ” she grits her teeth “ . . . ‘I’ll fucking kill him’. I think if we were Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, it would be a lot easier.

“Some of the really violent, horrible lyrics were written because we never expected our parents to hear them. If it had been the case that we thought people might hear them, we might have toned them down, which is why I’m glad now that we did things the way we did them.”

Their future will bring even more gigs (the debut has just come out in Japan and the band are relishing the prospects of a trip East) and a second album. Much to their surprise, Fight Like Apes are in this for long run.

Geraghty: “I suppose we realise we’re in this by the skin of our teeth. We find it funny that we’re allowed be in a band or that people will pay to see us, so we want to hang onto this for a while longer.”

“We’re still absolute muppets,” grins Fox, “but we’re professional muppets now.”

Fight Like Apes play Oxegen today.

Their debut album, Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion, has just been reissued with a bonus disc