As much a hard slap as a gentle stroke, Dublin band Skindive embody the spirit of the classic hard-working Irish rock band: they slave for years trying to get noticed and then - whoom! - they get signed by a US label, release a dΘbut album full of sonic timebombs and become an overnight success.
Currently the Irish band du jour in the US, Skindive comprises four people: Alan Lee (bass), Ger Farrell (drums), songwriter Gerry Owens (guitar) and Danielle Harrison (vocals). If there's an odd one out in this strange bunch it's the last; she arrived in Ireland from Los Angeles after hearing a Skindive song across a transatlantic phoneline. The music was something she related to immediately, she says. "I was doing backing vocals for friends' bands in Los Angeles - I was really scared to be a front person. I was putting a little bit of thought into it, but I couldn't find anything I related to, that I really liked. As soon as I heard the tape, I thought it was just the thing for me."
Harrison booked a flight to Dublin shortly after - not to join Skindive, mind, but simply to do an audition. What if she had failed it?
"I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into," she says, a steely resolve showing through her resolute babe-like quality. "I met the other members of the band, and spent a week in Dublin. I was so ready, it was so absolute in my mind that this is what I wanted to do."
From the Melrose/Fairfax district of LA, it took Danielle "about a year to get used to everything in Ireland. It's a lot different. I like the humility that people outside of Los Angeles have. There are good people there, but on the whole they're, just, y'know, a little bit arrogant."
If Harrison is the focal/vocal point of Skindive, and Lee and Farrell the backroom boys stoking out a rhythm, then Owens is the person who drives the unit. He's easy to spot in the bar of a Dublin hotel, as he's the only man with long hair with red streaks through it. Then there's the regulation black clothes and bloody big hob-nailed boots. From Trim (no offence to any of our beloved readers in Trim, but really, you'd never guess it), Gerry Owens is quiet-spoken but clearly determined in his quest for world domination. Skindive, you see, is his baby. A control freak, then?
"In relation to Skindive, I am," he confirms, failing to blanch at the term. "I have a particular vision. With other bands I was in, I'd just go along with what everyone else wanted to do.
"It sounds very arrogant, but it's not. When I first started doing things my way, things tended to go right, so eventually you trust your own instincts. If you have an idea of what you want to do, you get to the idea really quickly. It's not about arrogance, it's more about achievement."
Skindive started life over five years ago, as one of the many bands who cut their teeth playing/living in Dublin's fondly remembered Da Club. Having spent some years previously in London in a series of bands that Owens describes as heavy ("Those bands are a one-way street - you can only go heavier. If you go lighter, you alienate your fan base; there's no left or right"), he returned to Ireland with a visionary zeal. His mission was to create a band whose sound was on the right side of intense, yet which also understood the relative merits of a pop melody. Cue recruitment of the right people and an undivided attention span.
"The whole idea from the beginning was to recruit a female singer," he says. "I like the way melody lines are put together in songs from the 1950s and 1960s, the larger, bolder stuff - Henry Mancini, all those people. With that in mind, if you construct a reasonably strong melody and add a female vocalist, you can pretty much do as much damage as you want underneath; you can go to town on it. The album goes from entirely orchestral stuff to total noise. Once you can bind it together with a voice and melody, you have total freedom."
While the music is an engaging mixture of blistered guitars and cerebral notions, Owens is correct when he says Harrison's voice sweetens the overall sonic timbre. "There were no singers who turned up for the auditions who didn't have good voices, but Danielle won out through the tone of her voice, which was perfect for the music."
So far, Skindive has had to fend off the inevitable comparisons to Garbage (not without foundation, it has to be said). Some critics find the band's music clinical and passionless; others find it quite soulful.
"It's the voice that gives it the warmth," affirms Owens. "Half of the music is cold, but it's cold intentionally; there was certainly the idea that the music would sound austere. That's where the voice comes in, to give it a touch of humanity."
The band's dΘbut album, Skindive, is released by Palm Pictures. Skindive will play the following Irish dates: The Lobby, Cork, September 15th; Limelight, Belfast, September 19th; Dolan's Warehouse, Limerick, September 20th; Cuba, Galway, September 27th; and Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin, October 11th.