Pretty Little Animals [Interview w/Saint Sapphire].

(l-r) Samuel Morgan (guitar/vocals), Shea McAuley (bass), Daniel Martin (lead guitar), Adam Walker (drums)

Saint Sapphire are underdogs of the Belfast music scene. New single Pretty Little Animals has garage rock hooks and a reflective piano section. Guitars roar like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, they pack the intensity of punk, and the chorus soars. They play London next week, joining Canto Falls at the Water Rats on February 8th. Here's what they had to say about their music:

What are you working on right now?

Sam: "We're working on stuff for a couple of gigs coming up in London and then in Belfast, and we're recording and releasing a new tune, it's called "Pretty Little Animals", I think. We also decided that we should probably throw some special things into the set for these gigs so we're doing a cover that we learned like 20 minutes ago as well as some other wee diddies. Er yiz go, ats what we're working on."

How would you describe your sound and what genre do you think you fit into?

Sam: If you were to take the actor Liam Neeson and had him herding sheep to loud bass and drums and guitars and vocals, that would be us! I mean, project whatever meaning you have onto that. It's really loud, it's really obnoxious and it's nice. Good songs, you gotta have good songs. That's the one bit we're lacking. *laughter*

Shea: Apart from the covers, they're pretty good. 

Adam: I think we do alright.

Shea: It's its own genre really, Liam Neeson herding sheep.

Has music helped you find your voice as a young person?

Sam: Well I'm fuck all good at anything else, so I hope it has!

Shea: Yeah definitely, it's something to do and you can meet people I guess who are similar to you, through music and stuff. I like it that way.

Sam: Dunno how the hell we found him [Shea] that way but yanno fair enough. "Meet people who are similar to you" - dunno where the hell you came from but alright.

Shea: Facebook ... Craigslist... *laughter*

Adam: Well, there's not really a legal way to take out frustration on something other than playing drums so it's really good to express yourself...

Shea: Apart from when your Tech teacher tells you to play quietly...

Adam: Yeah, fuck Tech.

Daniel: It's a nice change from dealing with smelly old men in the bookies! And a reason to get steamin'!

Is there a specific thing that made you want to start a band?

Sam: I had songs written, all be it, back when I started any band - they were pretty crap songs, but they were still songs. And I was like 'aw these musicians, they're all class - I wanna do that' and I did that and here I am.

Shea: Yeah for me it was like, I already played guitar so it was cool to find some people to play with 'cause I never really got to do that. But once I found a few friends to play with and stuff. It was literally just that - it wasn't to be in a band, it was just to play with people, so yeah. 

Adam: Honestly, it's just great craic. There's not many other experiences that can rival being in a band and all that good stuff.

Daniel: It's better than sitting in the house and doing nothing. You get out and you do stuff instead of swiping right on tinder all day.

Sam: - and left a few times...

Daniel: No! Never left.

Sam: Yeah, don't even look at them, just swipe right and hope  for the best!

Who are your musical influences or icons?

Sam: Songwriting wise, Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys I always had a lot of time for, Richard Ashcroft from The Verve was always one of my favourite songwriters. Arnold Schoenberg and Ignor Stravinsky are some of my favourite musicians. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the greatest person to walk the Earth. Bach was alright but Mozart was good. Beethoven wrote better piano music than Mozart did but Debussy wrote better piano music than both of them.

Shea: I have quite a different taste than the other three when it comes to music. I'm into a lot more my 'indie' 'emo' stuff. Indie bands no ones heard of. I just like bands with really unique sounds - something different or something new.

Adam: I do quite enjoy something different like lyrically I love stuff like Tom Waits because it's so nice and his music is always changing and he's been around for so long but is still Tom Waits, doesn't change for no man. But also love stuff like Black Sabbath, like people like Bill Ward who just really inspire you to start hitting stuff with a stick.

Daniel: I'm a big ACDC man. Angus Young, my idol. Led Zeppelin , classic rock kind of stuff. That's where I take it all from.

Who made you think about lyrics more deeply and what's your favourite lyric you've ever written?

Sam: I could probably be surprisingly specific about this one, I started to really care about lyrics when I started really listening to the lyrics that, as I said earlier, Richard Ashcroft from The Verve was writing especially on the Urban Hymns album. He's probably my favourite lyricist... I'm usually more of a music person than a lyrics person but on that one occasion, I always take Richard Ashcroft's lyrics over the music even though his music is incredible. My favourite lyric I've ever written is in this new song, "locked out of a tree like a monkey who forgot his keys". I love that lyric. 

Have the topics of your songs changed over time and do you write the lyrics or the music first?
Sam: I can't express enough how much I write the music first to the point where I procrastinate like a mother-fucker on writing lyrics. Originally we were meant to be recording the new song tomorrow but our producer is down with the flu so we had to reschedule and I didn't write the lyrics to this until the beginning of the week! So yeah I'm a music person. I don't know if the topics of my songs have changed over time because half the time I don't know what my songs are about! I tend to just write the first thing that comes to my head but then I end up projecting meaning onto those because somehow these nonsensical things that you've written at one or two o'clock in the morning somehow just have some sort of meaning.

What other bands would you compare yourself to?
Sam: It's difficult to try and rope us in to any other bands because in my writing I take a lot from a lot of people. Recently, I've been a bit like Shea, into bands nobody has heard of. Have any of you ever heard of Red Sun Rising? Yeah, I've been really into them and then Soundgarden - well everyone's heard of them. If you haven't heard of Soundgarden then you're a twat. Pearl Jam, even though they're a bit fabricated but they're still cool - that first album was still good. This band from Wales called Pretty Vicious - they're really cool. And I'd say it gets it's speed and intensity at some points from the classic punk bands like the Ramones and The Sex Pistols or Black Flag or GG Allin or whatever. But my biggest influence is the greatest band to walk the Earth and that's Petty Youth from Crossgar, County Down. They're the best band to walk the Earth and if anyone disagrees you're a twat and you're wrong.

What's your favourite song to play? Where does your mind wonder to when you're playing on stage?
Sam: I think we'd all probably agree that 'Scream' is our favourite song to play...
Adam: ...and 'She's a Hero'...
Sam: ...although I love how the new one is shaping up, the new one is shaping up really nicely. Once we get that done and down in the studio that's going to be a really good one. Where does my mind wonder to? My mind kind of wonders to a very dark place where I'm thinking, "Oh fuck I hope nothing goes wrong!"
Shea: I just kind of look and see if the crowd is enjoying it and what they're doing, especially with bass it's pretty easy, there's not a lot to concentrate on. And if anything's going wrong just trying to keep it going I guess.
Adam: I think it's really funny to make really awkward eye contact with the audience and wink at them until they look away...
Sam: Until they leave. 
Daniel: Em, for me, trying not to break a string. And wondering what to do if I do break a string. Just strings in general, I just think about strings.
Sam: Maybe that's why they break so much. You're thinking about them so much to the point where you will them to break!

Are there any changes you would make to the local music industry?
Sam: I generally find that the local music industry is not so much dependant on how good the band is but - I don't know if it's a thing with all local scenes but it's definitely with this one, it's about not how good you are, it's about who you're mates with and who you can get contacts with. On local radio shows some of the genres they go for are quite narrow - the flavour at the moment is 'dreamy', 'indie' sort of music. Yeah, Shea, we're looking at you mate! So yeah the big change  I would make to local music is to not make it so riddled with nepotism and make it more open. My big beef is it being if you're good mates with so and so rather than if you're good. 
Shea: I'd just like to say fuck indie bands.
Sam: Little Arcadia!

What is the dream outcome for the band?
Daniel: Glastonbury 2019. Looking like a cross between Hugh Jackman and Aaron Schwarzenegger. But yanno, dreams come true.
Sam: Just to play to big audiences, play a lot of music and hopefully be able to do something out of it to the point where my ma isn't sort of pressuring me to being like 'oh you need to apply to Uni, you need to get a stable job'. Hopefully that won't be happening anymore and we're just playing to big audiences and hopefully people will enjoy the music, fall in love to the music, conceive their children to the music... 
Shea: To 'Scream'... *laughter*
Sam: Yeah just to play to big audiences, play music that people like and have a good wholesome pish up with a lot of alcohol and good music. 

Anything else to add?
All: Pints!

Saint Sapphire are playing The Pavilion on the 10th of February; for more information visit:
https://www.facebook.com/events/208288549750420/