Only Paul Page and Myles McDonnell are being interviewed.  As you can imagine when three Irish lads are talking there’s a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘y’knows’ so I’ve tidied up the text a bit to avoid a lot of sentences that lead nowhere.  By the way if anyone has a copy of the first half of this interview, please get in touch with me and I'll tpye it up.

Tom: Well what I mean like, just for where it leaves ya, there’s loads of bands probably release great albums that don’t make it for one reason or another, but I always think in Ireland it’s much more critical to you because I think in England you can kinda get on with it. You can tour, you can support yourself, there’s plenty of venues. In America you can definitely do the same, American bands swap and change labels with much more ease, but here you seem to....

Myles: Well we’re kinda more isolated here.  I mean the fact that we’re in Ireland and it’s a much smaller market.  I know there’s a lot of things still going on in the underground scene and there’s a lot of bands coming up, but it does get to a point where you’re making a leap into the “next level” and that’s where a lot of the Irish bands do stumble. I mean I don’t know what it takes, whether you have to go away and stay away and go to America and do it over there or whatever.  But it doesn’t really seem to be as workable as one time, that certainly I thought it was, to do it from your home base, (pauses) I mean one thing we didn’t do is we certainly didn’t tour enough.  Paul touched on the fact that if there was one thing that was the mistake we made, it was the management we picked.  The person we picked was a really good and competent manager but I don’t think she was appropriate for the band.  She was managing some of the biggest artists around at the time.  She was managing Peter Gabriel and The Pretenders. The problem that became apparent to me, was that she wanted the whole thing to be media led and let the videos and the radio play do it all. And not tour, in as much that she was afraid we were going tour our arse off and find that we owed the record company tons and tons of money.  And when the records start selling then you’d no money. That’s a fine policy if you’re Chrissie Hynde or Peter Gabriel when you can sit back and let Sledgehammer do it for you on MTV.  But when you’re Whipping Boy, you need to get out there in front.  And especially because the live act was such an important ingredient in what we were. It was important that we get out there.  But we let her make that decision.  And that was probably...and that was to our detriment.  That we didn’t tour America. We didn’t tour Europe on our own merits.  I mean we went out with Lou Reed and we played for seven weeks and that was brilliant.  But we didn’t do enough of the spade work at a very crucial time.  And that was probably the one big mistake that I think we did make.

Tom:  Yeah.  It’s incredible. Every band seems to have something they can point to and the more I go on this side, playing bands, the more I look at England and that’s not that huge a difference between all the bands in England.  Like Elastica, or Space, or Cast you know?  They’re not that much better at all...

Myles:  They’re not better.  They’re not better.  Certainly none of those bands you mentioned were better than Whipping Boy.

Tom: No, definitely not.

Myles: And they didn’t make records, they didn’t play gigs like Whipping Boy.  I’d put Whipping out with any band. (pauses)  Would have at the time.  Any of our records.  Whether it be Radiohead, whether it be Spiritualised, whether it be...you know...Oasis. I’d walk out on the same stage with them and I’d be fine they we were going to give as good a show and come off as good as them.  We did. We played with the Pumpkins, we played with Lou Reed, we played with Nick Cave and we always gave a good account of ourselves.  So that was never a problem. But I mean why do bands take off? And why do, you know, I mean...

Tom:  Why so few of them from Ireland?  Is the question.

Myles:  Well...

Tom:  Cos there’s even bands now.

Paul:  I think bands have to realise as well, there’s no other walk of life where if you sign to a major label, they’re not going to keep throwing money at you forever.  Unless they’re going to get some kind of return on it.  Bands should you realise when you sign to a major label that this is the deal that you do.  They’ll give you money, set your band up, you’ll get the tour.  The record will be well promoted and you know, you have to sell records.  And that didn’t happen for Whipping Boy.  We just didn’t sell.  Not as much as it should have or was expected to.

Tom:  So what would you say then, cos I mean, you need to try and get something out of the whole experience?  Take for example, that’s a band I think are great at the moment, that are reminiscent of a lot of the bands that were around.  The Marbles, full of energy, great songs, great melodies, great belief.   What could you say to them?

Myles:  It’s a lottery.  That’s what I’d say to them.  It’s a complete lottery.  And nobody knows who’s going to be picked out of that...the winning numbers...nobody knows who’s gonna get them.  And often the bands who get them are probably the bands who least deserve them and the ones you’d put you’re money on to go down the drain fairly quickly.  It’s a complete lottery and it’s complete luck.

Paul:  I think bands shouldn’t have the fear of major labels.  I mean I know there’s been case of bands who’ve had really bad experiences with majors. But ultimately if you’re allowed make the album that you want to make – which we were – well after that it’s out of your hands.  Well, it’s not totally out of your hands.  But there’s an awful lot of luck and timing and just having the right people there at the right time.

Myles:  And I think, as Paul says, once you make your bed you have to be prepared to lie in it.  There’s no point in pointing fingers, cos everybody will have a reason.  I mean the people you’re pointing fingers will say it was so and so or it was someone else. At the time when we signed to Sony it was the only thing we could have done or call it a day at that particular point.  Because we’d been together at that stage nearly six, seven years.  And there was no other place for us to go than to have a go.  You have to have a go.

Tom: You do.

Myles: And then when you have a go, you have to accept that it mightn’t work out.  In terms of sales it didn’t work out.  In terms of experience it was...

Paul: Success.

Myles: It was a complete success.  And in terms of when we started out, where we though we’d end up, it was a success.  I mean as you know yourself Tom.  When we played our first gig in the Underground, that was a major achievement.  When got our first, our own amps, that was an achievement.  So it kind of goes on from there. The only thing is, you kind of see the goals ahead of you the whole time.  And it is kind of a shame when you don’t make the next one. We just probably didn’t make the next one, which would have been the ultimate, the crossover into where the likes of I mean you look at the likes of the Cranberries and things like that, I mean again like, never did particularly much for me but, y’know?

Tom: But you’re saying that in terms of life experience, for you.....

Myles: Well, I wouldn’t change a thing about that, with the exception of possibly the last two years of the band. That was more difficult for us, for all of us. I mean I think after we recorded or after the Heartworm campaign came to a close, it was gonna be harder for us to motivate each other...

Paul: To motivate each other and get on with it.

Myles: But we came up with this record and I think it’s a fitting kind of sequel to Heartworm.

Tom: Well there’s another track from it after these.

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Tom: 100 to 102 Today FM, it’s Pet Sounds, Tom Dunne and that is So Much For Love from Whipping Boy, from the new album which is called Low Rent and Myles and Paul are still with me.  And we’re talking and you’re kind of saying, from the tone and from the sleeve notes, that that is it for...

Myles: For the band.

Paul: It has been it since we finished recording the album.  The reason the album hasn’t come out sooner, it was very much self financed and independently financed, and when the band split (just after we recorded it) the motivation to release it back then went.  But we managed to get the money together to put it out now.  We didn’t want to finish on Heartworm, because we didn’t want to be seen as another major band who slinked away after their album went down the tubes.  So we wanted to finish on a high note, for us.

Myles: I think more importantly, the songs we had for this album were good enough.  We felt the people who liked the band and enjoyed what the band did would want to hear these songs.  Certainly that was my motivation.  To just get this album out and let that tie things up nicely.

Tom: Yeah.  It’s a brave.  I don’t know whether it’s a brave decision or what to make cos...

Myles: Well it was the only decision we could make.  You kind of go with your instincts and our instincts were telling us – get these songs recorded and get them out.  And it wasn’t easy to get them recorded.  (clears his throat).  It was difficult at times.  It was very difficult at times in the studio.  But at the end of the day the record stands up for itself and the band – whatever about the band splitting up or anything like that – on record the band still sound completely together and everybody “done the business”. And that’s all that really matters at this point.

Tom: And you were saying this means more to you?

Myles: It certainly means more to me than Heartworm, in as much as it was a more difficult record to pull together.  It was never going to be the celebration that Heartworm was, cos the band was down on its luck in as much as things hadn’t worked out the way we’d planned them to.  Our backs were against the wall and just to get it finished, was always going to be a major headache.  Both financially and psychologically. There was an awful lot of negativity around the band after Heartworm.  People who up to the end of the Heartworm campaign, who were saying how great the band were and how we were destined to be the biggest band out of Ireland ever, and U2 watch out, all that kind of rubbish, suddenly were backing off.

Paul: Self doubt starts to creep in and undermines everything that you try to do.  Suddenly where you were a unit, the cracks start to appear.

Myles: The cracks start appearing and that was the real triumph.  As people in the band, from the word ‘go’ we were always very different, all four of us, we were different.  And there were a lot of reasons why it should have never really worked but it did work.  Do you know what it was like?

Tom: I think it’s like that in most bands.

Myles: It’s only when times are hard that the differences, they become more acute.  That was when it became a slog.  But the slog has been worthwhile and this record is brilliant.  I mean I think we all love the record.  The four people in the band.  There were people in the band who probably went through times that they didn’t like the record, but I think now if you asked everybody individually, I think they’re glad that it’s there.  And that it’s been recorded and that it’s out.

Tom: Is that not gonna leave now a bit of a hole in your life? Because for so long Whipping Boy has been everything.

Paul: A complete whole.  A year and a half.  The band has been gone for a year and a half and there’s not a day goes by that you don’t think about it.  I’m constantly reminded through e-mails and letters from people.  The depth of feeling from people for Heartworm was incredible.  People waited this long and were so patient because Heartworm meant so much them and they thought it was such a great record. That’s a constant reminder of years gone by and what was great about what we did.  It is a huge hole, but it’s a matter of getting on and doing something else and starting things afresh.

Myles: When you’re doing something like music, a lot of the time you throw everything else in your life out the window.  When you’re concentrating on your music everything takes second place, everything.

Tom: How do you explain that to people?  Say there’s people listening who just have normal  everyday jobs and they’re wondering, what on God’s earth makes someone put so much of their life on the line?

Myles: It can only be the love of it, it can’t be anything else.  Because the rewards are so far in the distance.  It’s kind of the light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s a tunnel that’s  like, it’s unending.  There’s no certainty in it, but the certainty is that once you get something good, a good song – it might be only a good riff – it’s worth it.  It’s worth it.  There’s no buzz like it.  There’s no buzz.  And people who’ve never been on stage will never understand the buzz that fellas in bands, whether you’re playing the Underground or playing the Point Depot, it doesn’t matter - the buzz is basically the same.

Paul: And it’s probably not always there.  If I look back over the years of Whipping Boy maybe ten times on stage, maybe a little bit more, where you really felt this was a special gig.  Those kind of gigs stick out.  Forget the hundred gigs you did in other places but there’s ten gigs where, as Myles says the buzz, there’s nothing would compete with it, it’s indescribable.

Tom: Was there a favourite moment for you guys?  Was there one moment where you remember – like looking around on stage and thinking ‘whoa’?

Myles: A few people have asked us this in the last week or two.  It’s very hard to be specific.  It’s kind of all been a blur, in as much as it’s been twelve years that flew by.
You listen to Heartworm and immediately you’re drawn to moments in the band’s career where it was just brilliant – in the studio and live.  It was just all great.  There’s nothing better than it.

Paul: I’m constantly drawn back to gigs in places like the Underground.  You know where the world outside is going on, but inside the Underground there’s maybe a hundred and twenty people.  And it’s just you and the people who are there to hear your music and nothing else matters for an hour and a half.  I think it’s different in a place like that, where it’s a band just starting off and full of energy and just a desire to get their music across. That kind of gets knocked out of you a bit as the years go by.  You take so many  knocks, I mean you still enjoy it but you’ll never feel the same kind of thrill as when you went out there for the first two or three years.

Myles: I think it goes back to the levels we were talking about earlier.  I think if you’re constantly going up the ladder and you are getting those little rewards and those perks along the way.  I think that sustains everybody’s enthusiasm.  I think that’s the hard thing.  To keep everybody ‘g’eed up the whole time. That everybody is still focused in the one direction. That’s difficult because over course of twelve years so much happens in people’s personal lives that the baggage you collect all along the way...you evolve into something different than what you started out as.  And maybe your goals are different.  And you need everybody to be all the time...

Paul: You have to be very selfish when you’re in a band as well.

Tom: You do yeah, especially to family.

Paul: After a while, I mean they’re incredibly patient and all, you have to start thinking am I doing the right thing?  Am I excluding everybody else just because I have this goal?  You can balance things for a while but then you’ve to way things up and make a decision.  And I think that’s what we’ve all done, after this album.

Myles: Once things aren’t going to plan...

Paul: The wheels come off.

Myles: The focus starts wavering and you start to think, as Paul says, is this really...I mean there did come a point in Whipping Boy where it became intolerable for all four of us, for different reasons.  We said why are we doing this?

Tom: Seems to be the same in all bands.

Myles: It is the same in all bands.

Tom: We certainly had those moments as well.

Myles: Why are we here?  Why are we doing it at all? Why are we even bothering?  This is worse than any job. But at the end of the day you get the CD packaged up and sleeved up and that’s when it’s worthwhile.  And nobody can ever take that away from you.  You have it there and that’s the end result.  And it justifies the means completely, for me anyway.

Tom: Something to be proud of.  Quick break and then one more track.

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Tom: 100 to 102 Today FM, it’s Pet Sounds, Tom Dunne and Whipping Boy, “No Place to Go”.  And you really have no place to go now haven’t you?  Whipping Boy have left the building as it were.  Are there any future projects lined up or what are you going to do?

Paul: Yeah, I mean, myself and Myles have a lot of material written since the tail end of Whipping Boy and since then we’ve kept on writing.  I suppose, up till now, we’ve been reluctant to dive into another band and another project, because you still kind of cling on to the idea of Whipping Boy.  But we’re not going to be doing that for too much longer.

Tom: Yeah, it’s like a marriage isn’t it really?  Worse.

Paul: It is really.

Myles: Yeah.

Paul: We’ve a lot of stuff written.  We’ve kind of got the excitement back for music as well.  You loose that a bit when things are going wrong and we’ve got that now, and we’re starting to listen to a lot of music, new music that we hadn’t heard.

Tom: Good stuff.  Well I’m afraid we have to leave it there.

Paul: I think Ferghal and Colm are getting something together as well so...

Tom: Could be two Whipping Boy albums out before we know where we are.

Paul: Should be good.

Tom: Listen thanks for coming in.  Sorry to hear about it. But as I say great band, great albums can’t be taken away from you.  That’s the main thing.

Myles: Thanks Tom, thanks.

Tom: Myles, Paul – thanks very much.