Strength in numbers: TLOBF meets ASIWYFA

And So I Watch You From Afar (or, if you prefer, the far more manageable ASIWYFA) are a DIY fairytale. Now two albums and countless hundreds of shows into their career, they have managed to make music a full-time pursuit without a major label advance.

ASIWYFA are also truly a band at their peak. Their second album, Gangs, is a remarkable step on from their debut; a euphoric testament to the beauty of distortion, chock full of ideas, innovation, and fun.

TLOBF spoke to guitarist Tony Wright and drummer Chris Wee before their show at the Scala, about the realities of life in one of the best-loved DIY bands touring today.

So, Gangs. I know you co-produced it yourselves. How important was the production side this time around?

Chris: It was really important. The first album was all sort of done in a dark room, but this time round we had a lot more input.

Tony: The first album we tried to do with a very live setup, but this time we decided we wanted to make it as big as we could. We tried to explore lots of production techniques, so there’s all these little glitches going on, and things in the background, so hopefully you listen again and think, “Oh, I didn’t hear that before.”

Was it a big learning curve?

T: Yeah. We were in the studio recording for four days, and then we would go and do three festivals over the weekend, like an Irish, an English, and a Latvian one, then we’d come back and have to set everything up again. It was kind of exhausting, but in some ways it’s good because the record itself is indicative of the last two years of touring that we’ve done.

It sounds like a Monday to Friday job.

T: And what a good job to have!

Do you think production is more important for instrumental bands? Do you think those details are noticed more if there are no vocals?

C: I think so. I think as time goes on people will have more expectations. I think they’ll be clued into it more.

When you were starting, did you specifically set out to start an instrumental band? Or was that just how it happened?

T: No, it was really just a by-product. We were all friends and it just felt good. To start off with we didn’t think, “Let’s start a band, and let’s tour like fuck.” It just didn’t happen like that. Our first gig was at a friend’s birthday party.

We didn’t have an agenda, but we just thought that the four of us together were really good, and something special could be happening.

Do you feel like there is a grand career plan now, even if there wasn’t before?

T: I think we just want to keep the momentum up. Continue to tour, see new places, play to as many people as possible. That’s really the calling, I suppose.

I think there’s a sense outside Ireland, or certainly in England, that the Irish scene is really starting to come of age, for want of a better phrase. Do you think that’s fair?

C: Yeah, I’d say so. I think particularly in terms of North-South music relations, it’s definitely the strongest it’s been since we’ve been in bands. We toured the UK a whole bunch of times before we even did our first Dublin show. We just didn’t know anyone there.

T: Then when we did start branching out we found out about Adebisi Shank, who were starting around the same sort of time. We started hanging out with those guys a lot, and they became like our hetero life partners.

We were thinking wow, there’s great things happening down there, and they were all looking at us thinking, wow, there’s great things happening up there. So it just made sense to start pooling our resources. It’s only a small island, there’s only about six and a half million of us. So strength it’s strength in numbers more than anything.

It does seem like there’s maybe a stronger DIY ethic over there.

T: Well there’s obviously lots of great DIY labels in England. But I think it’s also that every Irish person seems to be a musician. We all play something. So I suppose in that way it makes sense. The only difference now is that people are playing electric guitars and samplers, rather than sitting in the corner of a bar playing fiddles.

I read an interview recently where you said you’d turned down bigger deals in favour of Richter. Do you still think that was the right decision?

C: I think so. Come back to us in six months. But yeah, definitely for this release. We’ve known Richter for years, and it’s just so easy, we’re all friends. So it’s a nice environment to work in. If you’ve got any worries you can just call them. There’s no distance between the band and the label.

We didn’t want to go with someone new and start this new, awkward relationship, especially with the short run-up we had for getting the album out. So I think it was definitely the right decision.

T: Everyone at Richter is in bands, and they’re all touring all the time, so they know what it’s like.

And with Smalltown we were lucky too. Andrew Ferris from Jetplane Landing is an absolute legend, and someone we look up to so much. It was great being able to speak to a fellow musician. We were worried that would be lost with a bigger label.

I can’t imagine there are many layers of bureaucracy with Richter.

T: Exactly. They understand our needs, and we understand theirs. It’s all one big happy family.

I understand there were some songs that got scrapped. Are they ever going to see the light of day?

T: Yeah. We’ve got a nice big scrapyard that we can pick and choose from.

Like a lost album ready to go.

T: It was almost 20 songs, it’s like a double album. I was going to say, “Maybe when the money runs out.” But really, what money?!

Finally – Irish bands. Is there anyone we should be listening to who we might not be already?

T: There’s so many. Even Richter alone, everything on their roster is incredible. Check out anything on Richter, if it’s there it’s like a stamp of approval, just like K Records.

North of the border there’s Not Squares, Axis Of. Fighting With Wire are coming back. Then there’s all of these really great new bands coming through, like Eaten By Bears. There’s a lot of bands with just so much potential, you wouldn’t believe.