Bantry band The Calvinists: Memories, music and life lived to the full

Sometimes opportunities appear from the most unexpected places. And sometimes they can vanish as quickly.

One night in 2010, Bantry four-piece the Calvinists were entertaining the crowd in a local pub. In their midst was American travel writer Matt Gross. To say he enjoyed his evening would be something of an understatement. His excited words sang from the pages of his newspaper the New York Times.

“They were awesome: straight-up rock with a country accent… the whole room hummed with enthusiasm and pride. I was part of something. Maybe this was a moment that, years from now, I would remember as a big one,” he recounted.

Though the spotlight was on the band they stuck to their plan to make the music and records in the way they wanted. Some welcome assistance came from musician Colin Vearncombe. Best known for penning the song ‘Wonderful Life’ under his stage name Black, Vearncombe took the band under his wing and offered them guidance in his Schull studio.

Last July they finished recording the nine songs that would comprise their debut LP. But tragedy struck last October when Taidhg Burke Neff, the band’s bass player and one of the three songwriters, died following a car accident. Having taken the time to process what happened to their bandmate and friend, the remaining three Calvinists are about to release the album with a handful of live dates.

“We were making lots of plans at the time. We had a lot of things lined up. It was quite exciting then, but…” guitarist Marc De Zoeten’s voice trails off.

And now?

“It’s very exciting that we’ve managed to get the album finished. We had worked quite a lot on this album and we wanted to finish it for Taidhg and for ourselves. Taidhg was very passionate about his music and he was as eager as the rest of us to get it out. And in a way it’s a bit of a legacy for him. And also we’re really proud of the album and just happy people will get to hear it.”

“For a while it really knocked us,” adds guitarist and banjo player Frank Wieler, “sort of took the wind out of the sails.”

Gradually they came around to completing the mixing and mastering of the record.

Says De Zoeten: “We felt it deserved the energy that we have put in to it. It was an amazing time for us to spend together recording this album because it was during the summer when it was an amazing heatwave.”

Titled King of Lies, the album, from the vibrantly coloured sleeve to the raucous up-tempo songs contained within, betrays no hint of melancholy. Instead their particular brand of gypsy-flavoured rock speaks of lives led to the full.

“I don’t think there were many straight-cut influences,” says drummer Darragh Coakley of their sound. “There are obviously influences from somewhere but we didn’t want to sound like anything else either and we just did what we did.”

Adds De Zoeten: “Also we were really eager to get the way we do it live. That was part of the sound we have as well. It’s not clinical. It’s rough around the edges and that’s what we wanted — people to feel like they were there, kind of sitting in the room with us shouting at them.”

* The Calvinists launch King of Lies at the Frisky Whiskey Bar @ The Oliver Plunkett, Cork today; The Greyhound, Kilkee, tomorrow; Cobblestone Joes, Limerick, Saturday; The Medicine sessions, Lismore, May 30; The Mariner, Bantry, June 1.