The Blizzards: creation of 'The Domino Effect'

The Domino Effect is all wrapped up and ready to go. The press shots, artwork, video, etc, are all complete. However, this second album by The Blizzards took a lot longer than the five lads from Mullingar had ever expected.'We initially wanted to release the album before summer, but it just wasn"t ready. We had to mix and master it and all sorts,' says Niall.All in all, the second album took six months to complete, definitely not a rushed job.'We worked very hard on how the record sounds, which doesn"t matter to a lot of bands these days because people download most of their music nowadays and it sounds the same coming out of computer speakers.'Overall, this second album is something with which the boys are happy.'The first album - a lot of people said it didn"t catch our live sound, or the feel of us live, so we worked hard to get that on the second record and I think we"ve succeeded.'Will Blizzards fans find it very different to their debut album?'It"s definitely very us. The first single - I"m a Doctor - we had to release a catchy radio tune; that"s just business, you"ve got to release your radio track. A lot of the other songs on the album are a bit heavier. I"d like to think it is a big step up for us.'Does he think his writing had matured? Especially with a song like Postcards?'Yes. I never thought I"d write a song like that. It"s quite an anonymous track, we played it as a demo originally, it wasn"t mean"t to be anything other than a demo. I didn"t think I"d ever be able to sing it properly or anything like that. But the producer was like "this is where you need to go", it was much more honest. It"s not mean"t to be a depressing song either, it"s mean"t to be uplifting.'Describing the album, Niall Breslin labled it 'quirky in places, and it"s basically a story as well.' It is indeed a story. A story about a young band from Mullingar, who reached platinum success with their debut album, but not wanting to sit back or stop there, have aimed even higher this time around.'The producer that did the record, Michael Beinhorn, we sent him about 20 tracks before Christmas, and he basically sent them back saying "this is crap, this isn"t you, these are too serious, you"re moaning too much on them". In places they were political, and he said "nobody wants to hear The Blizzards talk like this, it doesn"t suit the band and it doesn"t suit you as a songwriter". What he essentially said is "you have to write quirky, uplifting, power-pop songs that you"re good at doing and it"s what people love listening to". So that"s what we did, we played to our strengths.'How did it feel to receive news like that about your music?'It was good. I needed a kick in the arse. I suppose I was just going through a period where I was just being a bit moany and giving out about things. When I listen back to those tracks I wonder what was I even thinking. You need someone to be honest with you because no one else would tell me. And then when we sent him the Postcards track he said "now you are on the right page."'So Postcards was the anchor of the second album, from which everything else grew naturally. The Blizzards have added a brass section to some of their songs, but it is hard to add to a bigger live sound than this band already have.'We didn"t want to add backing singers or anything like that, like some bands do. The reason why people like us live is because our music has a lot of energy to it. It"s punchy and it"s a hundred percent live as well, there"s no computerised backing tracks or anything. The brass section means you have an evtra gun in your artillary to build songs on and turn them into something a bit more different.'With the band"s debut album hitting number four in the charts and going platinum, do The Blizzards think this can make number one?'I don"t particularly care about chart placings,' says Brezzie. 'People have this big idea about chart positions. It"s easy to get good chart positions, you just go get everyone and their friends and their dogs to buy the album the first week. The key is to sell records over time. Our first record went to number four and we ended up selling 25,000 records. That was what we wanted, we wanted a prolonged sell.'At the end of the day, if we went to number one and sold 5000 albums in the first week, and none the second week, we wouldn"t be doing the second album, we would have been dropped by the record company. Business is business, you"ve got to sell records. Our fanbase has increased tenfold since we released the first record, so I think more than anything I would like to see us get out of Ireland now too.'I think we are ready for that now: we weren"t on the last record. Every band who releases a record just thinks they are the best band in the world, but we knew we had a lot of work to do. We weren"t naieve. We said to ourselves "let"s do one more record, get our live show really tight, get the band really confident in studio", and now I think, and this is not being cocky or anything, if we went to England, we"d stand up against any band on any stage. That"s the confidence we have now in our live show.'Are there plans to go to the UK?'I"m hoping to take a three day holiday to England next week,' he jokes. 'Yeah I think there are plans, but it is pointless to go to England or America unless you have a major label behind you.'I heard rumours that the band are going to America?'It"s not one hundred percent confirmed, but yeah, we want to do a showcase in New York for a week. We are getting an awful lot of emails off people in America saying "why aren"t ye over here, ye have a sound that would work here". But we mixed the record in LA and we walked up Sunset Strip a few times. There are 50 venues in Sunset Strip; there are two bands in every venue every night and there may be 20 people in these venues. So unless you have a major PR push behind you, you are pissing into the wind over in America. Or else you need something like Grey"s Anatomy to go "we love your song, we want to put it on our first lesbian scene...".'The Script have gone number one in the UK, do you think The Blizzards could do the same?'They have a huge, huge record label push. Basically they are number one worldwide for Sony Records, so there is no doubt that they are going to go number one, and they deserve to.'The Blizzards are very busy this week doing regional radio slots which they feel is the secret to their success in Ireland.'An awful lot of bands don"t pay attention to regional radio or papers. We tend to concentrate a bit more on that side of things. Like, down in Cork, people just listen to Red FM or Beat FM, they don"t listen to Today FM. That"s why we do these regional tours, and in every venue in every place we go, we do an interview with regional papers, so that to us, is the secret to our success.'On Thursday, The Blizzards have been asked to play at the 10th anniversary of TV3 in the Button Factory in Dublin.'It was nice to be asked because they are not going to pick a band that is not going to be able to entertain the crowd. Those gigs can be hard though because we know there are people there that have no interest in watching music so you have to win them over. As a frontman it can be very intimidating because you basically have to say to them "put down the f**king drinks, turn around, watch the music for half an hour," and you have to say that nicely. But we enjoy that. It"s easy to go to gigs when there are 500 people who"ve bought tickets to see you, so all you have to do is play and they"ll go mad.'Since the first album, has the band as a unit changed at all?'We"ve become much better musicians because basically before we played the first album, we had only played a handful of gigs together, and since that we"ve probably played a 1000 odd gigs, or more maybe. We have very much gotten tighter as musicians. People often perceive that we, the band, have changed. No individuals in the band have changed, but the band itself has changed. Like, if we go to a certain venue, we demand a certain amount of professionalism. Sometimes we get "the last time ye were here, ye weren"t like this," and we"re like "man, this is our career, this is our job. We are a professional touring band. We don"t want to arrive to a venue and have a piece of shit PA system", and then they see us as being too big for our boots. It"s nothing like that, we have gotten more professional and we have gotten more demanding in that sense of the word. You can"t do it any other way because at the end of the day, if we go on stage and we sounded crap, and people go home, they"re not going to go "well that venue was crap," they"re going to say "The Blizzards sounded like shit". So we are very much serious about our trade in that regard. We have a tour manager and a four-man crew, we"ve the whole thing. So when we do hopefully go over to England and America, people will see that we know what we are doing.'And the relationship among the different members of the band - has that changed?'I think on this album, for some reason, we got closer. We"ve been through a lot on this record, and even the whole crew, manager and everybody, there is very much a strong bond. We have an awful lot of respect for each other for how much we"ve given up to do this as well. All the lads have careers, some of them are married, some of them have kids, and at the moment, they could be working elsewhere and making a very good living, but they"re not, they"re doing this. So I think there is a huge respect among the band for what we"re doing.'Everyone in the band is totally different, we are all individuals and totally different characters. And now, where as before we wanted everyone to be the same, now we accept that everybody"s different. For instance, before a show I don"t like being around people, I"ll go off by myself and no one really takes that to heart anymore, they just know that"s me. I think we got to know each other much better on this record I think.'The first single off the new album, Trust Me I"m a Doctor, which was released last week, has had non-stop radio play. Is it the perfect pop song?'That"s exactly how our producer Beinhorn put it, it"s a perfect pop song,' says Niall.'We had been listening to a lot of bands and you realise all the great songs in the world have always been pop songs, not the left-of-centre indie songs. People remember the really great pop songs.'And there are plenty of good pop songs on this album, such as Modern Medicine, which is based on Brezzie"s own fear of flying. Every song on the album has a story behind it. Money Doesn"t Buy You Class is based on a lot of girls Niall Breslin met over the years, particulary when he went to college in UCD.'When I first went to UCD, you"d see these beautiful blonde girls in their pink Ralph Lauren shirts, walking into college. And then you"d see them in town that night choking on their own vomit. Not that I"m being self-righteous or anything. But that song was based on having a dinner with this girl. Each verse is funny. The first verse you actually think she"s pretty hot, next verse you think she"s a s**t head and the third verse you"re kinda going "I gotta go to the toilet, I"ll be back in like, never!''When I was in UCD there was a huge segregation between people from the country and people from Dublin. There still is up there. There was a huge superior and inferior feel to a lot of stuff up there. The girls I know wouldn"t bloody go out in a Ralph Lauren shirt but they wouldn"t be pucking their ring up at 11 o"clock and you could actually sit and have dinner with them.'The Domino Effect will be in all good music stores from Friday, September 12, with a chance buy it early in Heartbeat City, Mullingar at a minute past midnight, following Thursday"s free gig in Danny Byrnes on September 11. The Blizzards will be on hand to sign your record.