The Big Interview: The Riptide Movement

“When we write albums we generally get a house and move in all the equipment and spend a weekend thrashing out the ideas we have, bringing all of them together and going through it like we do for every album.”

It's not just anyone that can endure those long hours of practice and commitment. Dublin natives The Riptide Movement have really carved a place for themselves in the Irish music scene over the last few years and judging by their latest hit 'Elephant in the Room' they're aiming to expand on an international scale within the next five years. Their new album, Ghosts, is due for release on October 21stand Motley was lucky enough to get a listen to it early.

Born on the Ring of Kerry and Raised in El Paso

The Riptide Movement are not just a group of men who come together to perform a few tracks and head home afterwards. They’re long-term friends who’ve come together since they were fifteen of sixteen, went to school together and formed a band together. Mal explains that the inspiration for their band name came from an incident that took place over in Australia.

“I got caught in a rip tide on Bondi beach on Christmas day and it was kind of a scary experience, so it kind of stayed with us. So we were thinking of just calling the band Riptide and then Jay said it be cool to have something with a bit more with depth I guess, so he kind of came up with the movement part and that’s how the name came about.”

Last year the boys took over the main stage at Electric Picnic, singing their heart out. “It was so easy because there’s 2,000 people there and it’s just like you can nearly do no wrong, it kind of carries you through.” Their dedication and passion in engaging their fans while making music made me pause to catch my breath. Here are four young men from Dublin completely excited about gigging, touring and writing their own music on a consistent basis. Even more thrilling is the fact that they are headed for Cypress Avenue in Cork to perform on October 29th.

The boys highlighted the importance of intimate venues like Cypress Avenue, Whelans and Dolans, showing that they are far from being a one-trick pony. However, it was disappointing to find out they hadn’t been able to perform at Electric this year.

"I think it was mainly because we played the main stage last year and we've been flat out the last two years since the album Getting Through was released in April 2014. We were gigging right up until the 23rd of December and then we went off and did the album over in El Paso and we got back and finished off 'A Few Drops' and 'Windmill' and it was around April by the time we finished. Then we kind of had it set out that we weren't going to gig until the album came out in October."

“That was what we wanted, to just take a few months off and recharge the batteries. In saying that then, we ended up going back and doing two or three small festivals to road test a few of the songs, but we’ve been off the scene gigging wise since the 23rd of December last year.”

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