History

The story of UNDERHILL

Underhill began four years ago when myself (Richard Geraghty-Lead guitars, backing vox) and Mick (Orange-Drums and percussion) decided we’d had enough of playing other peoples music in shit school bands. The time had come to begin our own song writing experiments. The fruits of this we recorded on my busted four track recorder in Micks front room. We recorded four songs as a demo under the unlikely moniker ‘PARTYKILL’.

Although all but one of the songs ‘Avenue’ (which we still play in Underhill) were weak, the basic ideas for writing the kind of music we would listen to ourselves were there, we just needed more input.

This input came along in the shape of Gary Keeling. Origionally drafted to play bass in a live situation with Partykill, at practice sessions Gary proved his skills as a guitarist/pianist since he’d been playing both instruments for years (or so he says). This, coupled with the fact that he could actually sing (as opposed to what I had been attempting) led to his assignment of rhythm guitar/piano/vocal duties.

So retaining only ‘Avenue’ from the Partykill recordings, we started work on writing all new material which would yield the first Underhill songs. Drawing on influences as diverse as; Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Deftones, Far, Clapton (for Gary) as well as Micks ongoing fascination with all things ‘dance’, (although I don’t think it shows in our songs). If I had to define our music (which I hate doing) I would just say ‘rock’. But the biggest influence we had, at least in the beginning, would have to be ourselves, and the ideas we all brought to the table. Of course when I say ‘rock’ I don’t mean the processed american ‘rawk’ which seems to be everywhere these days (ie. Puddle of mudd, NickleFUCKINGBack, Creed etc, etc). I’d like to think we make something far more honest and real than those corporate sluts. We don’t write songs about how much we hate our parents, or our terribly twisted childhood or any of that old tired teen angst bullshit. Our songs are far more open to interpretation; take what you want from the songs, we’re not going to tell you how to feel.

It was around this time we began looking for a bass player. Luckily I knew someone, a friend from school, who had been playing bass a couple of years, so Shaun (Moore-Bass guitar, bad jokes) joined just as we began recording the new demo. Recorded using a combination of the aforementioned four track and Garys PC, the finished product comprised of three tracks- ‘This Way Up, Way Things Are, Inside’. The demo proved our ability to write songs well together but the DIY sound quality left a lot to be desired. So we concentrated on writing some more songs using old ideas and new ideas in order to have enough material to play a live set.

After a period of inactivity due to college/work commitments, we played our first live gig together on 15^th December 2001 to literally tens(!) of people in the Yacht bar Loughshinny supporting long time friends of mine-‘Suicide Kings’. More gigs followed- Athlone IT Battle of the bands (3^rd place), My 21^st Birthday party (boy my folks were overjoyed), a couple of gigs at Eamonn Dorans in Temple bar, The Voodoo Lounge, The Isaac Butt, among others. We got the oppurtunity to properly record some of our material when we won a local Battle of the bands in Skerries in August of this year (2002). The prize was a days free recording with Mark Guildea at the ‘Art of sound’ studios in Balbriggan and a radio appearance on local radio LMFM, where they would interview us and play the finished song(s) we recorded.

We recorded two songs in our one day at the studio- ‘Eleven’ (a song which we’d written just the week before) and ‘Witness’ our usual live set opener. These songs along with our own home recording of ‘Chimera’ (one of our heaviest and best songs) formed our latest three track demo. This time round we considered it fit for human consumption and so began distributing copies to anyone who would take them off us!

Our most recent gigs at another battle of the bands in Skerries (2^nd place) have given us the opportunity to distribute our demo to even more people and have garnered us a strong following. As a live band we really try to put on a good energetic show and it shows in the response from people who have seen us live, although I’ll have to try and stop trashing my guitars so much!

Future plans include a number of charity shows soon and in the new year, our spot on LMFM (in the next couple of weeks), plans for more recording and as much promotion as possible. Any recent developments can be found in the news section (when we can be bothered to create one!).

Thanks for listening, you’ve been a great audience I’ll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress!