Live sessions review and interview

Where are you based?  

We’re based in a small town in South-west Ireland called, Killarney in County Kerry. It’s a tourist town with lots of bars and it’s very busy come Summer in normal times. Fortunately, nearly all of us have been at one stage, or another, full-time musicians. That’s how we all met.

Tell us about your latest album release? 

I had been writing for about a decade and had an accumulation of songs. Up until about 4 years ago I’d never intended to do much with them. I’d played some of the songs in my gigs and they seemed to go down well, and some friends I played them for reacted positively also. I think that’s where the idea to do some recording came from. As mentioned already, I’d known the guys from our local music scene and asked them if they’d be up for it and it all started from there. We’d be a little further down the line now if not for Covid, but things are improving, thankfully.

Tell us about your music and the meanings of your tracks? 

The music is pretty straight forward rock ‘n’ roll. This album has focused mainly on relationships and how they affect our lives. Not love songs necessarily, but a kind of examination of the impact that any relationship can have on our lives. I used to shy away from writing these type songs until I realised that relationships, of all kinds, form the most integral parts of our lives. Ultimately we depend on each other, but sometimes we don’t make the best choices when it comes to the people we interact with. Sometimes we do! The album explores both sides of this divide.

What does the writing and producing process look like for you?

Apart from demos, I’m not very hands on when it comes to recording. I like to have someone to defer to during the making of any record so I ended up hiring a producer and I was very happy with the way things worked out. We went to Brendan O’Connor of Little Dylan Studios, here in Killarney. There was a lot of back and forth in a healthy way, with nothing off the table, it was very enjoyable. In terms of song writing, I’m not very disciplined unfortunately. I’ve tried to force it before and the results just weren’t good enough. I’ll generally pick up a guitar nearly every day, and I’m always willing so if an idea comes I like to think I’ll be ready. Then usually, I might have a writing spurt of a month or two. It’s mostly music and words together, though it has happened lots of different ways.

What inspired you to become an artist?

A Bruce Springsteen concert in 2003 at the RDS, in Dublin. I got the ticket for free, and knew a bit about Springsteen at the time, but not much. I emerged a fully-fledged acolyte. It was an almost spiritual experience; I was so mesmerised. You could just tell that he had to go to some very dark places to produce songs of that nature and I was really moved by what I saw. I had only ever sung after a few drinks at that point, aged 23, but I was singing professionally a year later in Killarney. I began playing guitar a year after that. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it all just kind of happened!

If you had to pick the lyric your most proud to of written, which lyrics would it be?

“Daylight and the fever, slowly subsides, No win, No Lose, No wrong, No right, I feel myself tremble, quiver and shake, here I go making the same old mistake.” Final verse and chorus from the song ‘Same old Mistake’, track 4 on our album.

Where can our readers get their hands on your new album?

It’s self-titled, so that’s Colm O’Mahony & The Hot Touches and it’s available to stream on Spotify and lots of other places via Distrokid. And it’s free to download on Bandcamp and Soundcloud as well as our website. In-fact the best place to start is our website, thehottouches.com. Everywhere we are on-line is easily accessible from the website.

Where can our readers find out more about you?

Before that I’d just like to thank you guys for featuring us on Off The Hook. You’re doing a great job and bands like us need platforms like yours now more than ever. So, cheers! We have a blog on our website where I give a rundown of each Month and some articles about how challenging Covid has been as a full-time musician. Thankfully the last few blogs have been a lot more upbeat!

1)  Pale Wizard Records - firstly nice name how did that come about?
When I initially started up the label I was a one man band so I wanted it to be a little personal and tongue in cheek. I’m a proud red head with pale skin as you’d expect, so it was just me poking fun at myself really.

2) To enlighten our readers a little more can you give us a sense of Pale Wizard Records history and your aims in music?
The label was set up to release the first single from Phoxjaw as I’ve supported the band since their inception and I wanted to help them out. Since then I’ve been using the label to release music from my own band Sergeant Thunderhoof. I brought my colleague Tim Hilleard in to the label last year in an effort to expand. We’ve since released music from Mos Generator, Sergeant Thunderhoof, Tony Reed and have a number of other releases planned. We have a particular interest in special one-off vinyl releases. We released a split single from Sergeant Thunderhoof and
Tony Reed last year where we both paid tribute to the music of Kate Bush and that was a great success. Our main aim is to release interesting and unexpected music which we have a passion for.

3) Can you name the stand out band that you've had on your record label in the past?
Getting to work with MOS Generator was a real honour for us as they are a band with such a rich history and reputation.

4) Also who is on your current roster who we should be looking out for in the future?
We’re keeping things very low key at the moment whilst we finalise the details on our next few releases. Everything is done out of my studio in Bath so we don’t want to take on more than we can handle. So the current roster is still very much the bands I’ve already mentioned, however we
will be adding to it very shortly!

5) You're launching an exciting new series of albums entitled 50 years later, what can we expect from this project?
This is our most ambitious project yet by far. We’ve decided to pay tribute to classic albums turning 50 years old by re-recording them in full with a full roster of exciting acts. Everything is being done with love and respect for the original, right down to the artwork which will pay homage to the classic sleeves.

6) How did the project get off the ground?
Last  year I realised that my favourite Alice Cooper record ‘Killer’ would be turning 50 years old in 2021. I emailed some bands that I know and a few I didn’t to see if anyone would be up for helping me to recreate it. Six months down the line and the album is pretty much complete, I have eight international bands on the record along with a bunch more providing bonus tracks. It’s coming out 50 years to the day of the original on Nov 27th on vinyl, cd and digital. The whole thing is just a dream come true and will be a really great collectors item for anyone in to Alice Cooper or record collecting  in general.

7) I believe you set up a Kickstarter in March for the project, go ahead and tell our reader who might not have come across this before what Kickstarter is?
It’s a way for small organisations like ourselves to raise money and awareness for a certain project. The people who back it early get rewarded with special incentives which aren’t available at any other time. We smashed our target in less than a week, so I’d highly recommend checking the page out if you want to get involved.

8) Lastly thanks for taking the time out to answer our questions and where can we go to find out more about the album and your record label?
Thanks for your time! Head on over to our Kickstarter page for a full breakdown of what we’re trying to achieve this year: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/palewizard/alice-cooper-killer-50-years-later

1) Firstly give us a bit of history to your band Das Kapitans?

Steve used the name Das Kapitans for releasing solo material and old songs over the last year or so. At the start of 2021 with lockdown starting to cause severe misery I (Simon) wriggled my way into the Das Kapitans name and we started pulling together some ideas that hadn’t made it onto our band ‘Fuzz and The Felts’ future release list. It’s just the two of us putting the songs together remotely so far this year. If we ever come out of lockdown we might recruit some other middle aged blokes and jump on a stage.

The first "Official" Das Kapitans release was a 4 track demo, in March 2020. Steve was writing songs that would never have suited what we were doing in 'Fuzz and The Felts', and liked the the idea of releasing them, initially without letting anyone know (other than the FATF band members) who Das Kapitans actually was. He was sending songs to local radio stations and BBC, and when the songs got played, they were always preceded with "The mysterious.... Das Kapitans", or "I Know very little about this band... Das Kapitans". He quite liked it, but soon realised, that can only go so far.

2) So you have a really interesting project this year a band, tell us a bit about the project? 

12 full albums in a year. One a month at the start of every month. The more we say it out the loud the more ridiculous it becomes. It sounded simple in January! We are both quick songwriters we don’t spend hours, days, weeks on songs. We both have a need for songs to be created quick and in the moment. Whether that’s a deep psychological reason and a need for instant gratification or we are just lazy I’m not too sure!!! Either way it works for us. We create our best songs when we just go for it without any thought process and no agenda. Some of our favourite songs on the albums have been written and the basic structure recorded in well under an hour. 

The first three albums we just went for it and didn’t really think about styles or genres. Now we are looking at album 4 we are writing with a particular sound in mind, but that doesn’t mean the process gets longer. It just heads us in a slightly different direction. This will probably be how things go for the rest of the year and December 2021 will be some hideous jazz fusion with a funk twist. I feel sick saying that. 

3) The January, February and March albums have already been released how are they different from each other?

Album 1, Joulukuu (December in Finnish) was very much us throwing together a compilation of separate ideas and demos which then quickly moved onto to throwing new ideas back and forwards with the modern magic of iCloud sharing! Album #2 really was our first collaborative effort. Its a real mixed bag of genres but all pulled together with some ridiculously catchy hooks and choruses. We are both suckers for a catchy chorus. Album 3, Blah Blah Blah, continues with the collaborative writing and as a result, it has more of that consistency to it. 

4) What can we expect from the April album to come and when will it be released?

Album 4 we are possibly bowing down to Steve's roots and going all out in your face punk. We had lulled people into a false sense of security on the first 3 albums….now we can just piss them off and have to start apologising on album 5! Within 24 hours we might head in a totally different direction though! The plan is always a 1st of the month release on Bandcamp and all the streaming services.

5) What does the writing process look like for so much material to be produced over such a sort period of time?

Blink and you miss it! We both sit in our own homes….guitar in hand….open up logic on the Mac….lay down a drum track….about an hour later its getting sent across to be added to, messed about with, synth added. JOB DONE! 

I (Simon) do occasionally have night terrors about us committing to 12 albums in one year. Sadly we can’t live off the zero income from these releases and we both work more than full time jobs, so its a few late nights each week and thank goodness for lockdown! We have definitely learnt more about recording and mixing etc through this process.

6) Go on out of the 12 albums which month would you say has the best album?

Well considering we’ve only actually written four of them so far...I’d say album 9 is going to be a highlight!! 

Errrrr I think album two so far. Might not have the best songs but I think it will always be the one where we will remember the moment of “shit we can actually do this and people are going to listen and like it”, we don’t write songs in a way that ensures people will like them but if anyone ever does you can’t ignore that warm fuzzy satisfied feeling. 

7) Which song has the lyrics your most proud of writing? 

I think lyrics are something we’ve probably struggled with over the years as it’s something you believe needs overthinking. The older you get the more you realise that’s bollocks. The best lyrics are the ones that come out of your mouth when you are laying down melody ideas or testing recording levels. They can be the most honest, creative and sometimes quite funny (see Big Fat Poo on the first album!). 

I think track one on album two is the favourite - Rabbit. The song is under a minute, probably about 20 words in total and the lyrics are just ridiculous....which obviously makes them good in our minds! 

8) Where can our readers get there hands on the albums?

All albums have been released on BandCamp, search for Das Kapitans, or Fuzz and the Felts Presents. All albums are also heading onto the streaming sites each month as well. 

9) Thank you for taking the time out to talk to us, but before you go where can are readers find out more about Das Kapitans?

We have a handy little link tree account here which will take you into out magical online world……..https://linktr.ee/Daskapitans