Getting back on the Rubyhorse

Letterman and George Harrison featured in the Cork band’s history, but now they’re just happy to be back gigging again.

Letterman and George Harrison featured in the Cork band’s history, but now they’re just happy to be back gigging again, writes Ed Power.

THE phone call arrived from out of the blue just as Rubyhorse were about to take to the stage in Indianapolis. It was a booker from David Letterman’s Late Show. Could the band be in New York the following evening for a live taping? The answer was obviously in the affirmative.

“We weren’t nervous at all about doing Letterman,” recalls frontman David Farrell. “We’d been playing five nights a week for six months. At that point we felt we’d earned out. It was just another gig.”

So it was that, on July 8 2002, Rubyhorse became the first and only Cork group to perform on an American talk show. It’s a fact that has become lost in the annals, with the Bishopstown outfit never quite receiving their dues as one of the city’s most successful musical exports.

“Back home no-one knew what we were doing, bar our immediate family,” recalls Farrell. “The internet hadn’t quite taken off and we were based in America. We would come home once or twice a year and tell people what we were up to. They’d just laugh and go, ‘yeah…whatever’.”

They even toured with George Harrison, who also played slide guitar on one of the band’s records. Rubyhorse could have been one of the country’s biggest rock stories. Anthems such as ‘Sparkle’ and ‘Fell On Bad Days’ suggested a bluesier Coldplay and their songs were soon appearing on the soundtracks to shows such as fire-fighter drama Rescue Me.

“We lived the dream for 10 years,” says Farrell. “Some of it is a blur. There are memories we’ll have until our last breaths.”

Rubyhorse’s great insight was to understand that the British music scene had no time for Irish bands. Rather than waste years trying and failing to make an impact in London they instead looked to America which, from U2 to the Cranberries, has a history of welcoming Irish groups – especially those with a big, unashamedly catchy sound.

“We were in the position that so many Irish bands find themselves in — they record some music, tour Ireland once or twice and then… what do you do now? Nothing has really changed. We knew it would fade into nothing unless we did something big. It was choice between going to England or the States. You go to London and nothing is probably going to happen. It was the height Britpop. So we removed the safety net and went to America.”

After enough highs and lows for a lifetime, Rubyhorse sputtered out a decade ago. They’d had a degree of success and built a loyal American fanbase. Yet what was once fun was becoming a slog. Guitarist Owen Fegan left amicably in 2003 —a departure that, in retrospect, could be seen as the beginning of the end. Farrell moved home to Cork several years ago and now runs a restaurant, 12 Tables, with his wife in Douglas.

However, he never had the heart to completely walk away from Rubyhorse and the group continues to play sporadically. They’ve just completed a suite of new songs, which they hope to release in 2018. Ahead of that come reunion gigs, at Ballincollig Winter Music Festival this weekend and at Cyprus Avenue Saturday February 3.

“The Frank and Walters were doing an anniversary show to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, in 2012. We grew up around the same time in Bishopstown. They asked us would we open up for them. It was the first show we had done in many years. We’re playing as a six-piece now. These gigs are mainly us sticking our feet in the water.”

Rubyhorse were big — but they could have been huge. After moving to Boston, they achieved a substantial live following. This led to a deal with Interscope and a debut album overseen by Bjork producer Paul Fox.

“Interscope were the hot label at that time. They had Marilyn Manson, The Wallflowers, Bush. We recorded the album but by then the people who had loved the band had moved on to other labels. We were disappointed with the album anyway. We lost track of who we were and struggled to match the enthusiasm or excitement of the live show.”

That record was never released. By contrast their first album to see daylight, 2002’s Rise, was a relatively home-spun affair, assembled on the fly in a modest studio in Nashville. “It’s like being on the rebound from a long-term relationship. We found a producer who understood our vision, went into a small studio and it came out really quickly.”

- Tomorrow, Rubyhorse play the Winter Music Festival at the White Horse in Ballincollig. They also play at Cyprus Avenue in Cork next Saturday, Feb 3.