1995 was the start of a very special time for us. Having parted ways with London Records after a promising but unfulfilled journey, we came home to Dublin and moved in together into a house in Kilgobbin Road in Dublin. After so long being based in studios it was great to get gigging again, and we’d play anywhere at any time – have guitar, will travel, with particularly fond memories of The Blue Light. We also started to find our sound and take the songs we were writing began to take shape, often in that backyard in County Dublin.
We won a competition on 2FM to support Bon Jovi, our first “big gig”. From that point on the “big gigs” kept coming, it would take too long to mention them all but the Meatloaf tours, The Corrs, The Saw Doctors, Runrig, The FM 104 big days out and of course, our Olympia shows stand out. Moments like these really are hard to come by. We met so many great people who supported us and I’m still delighted when I hear people tell us their stories from our shows and records.
21 years have passed since Shine Box came out. Karmarama wasn’t too far after that. Before Karmarama came out when we were literally road testing new songs one song in particular seemed to struggle live. We recorded it with our long term partner in crime Pete Glenister and it became the most played song on Irish radio in 1998.
That was an enchanting time when everything was new to us and every day and every show a new adventure. It wasn’t all fun and certainly wasn’t all without the stresses that come with 5 people living together in a small space for so long.
The songs on this record don’t serve as a greatest hits. There’s another time and place for that. This is a collection of our favourite songs. It’s a bookmark to some of the memories we’ve shared and I hope you enjoy listening back as much as we’ve enjoyed putting this together.
Dave Browne, Dublin, Summer 2017