Cork band are Pretty Happy with international reaction to new songs
Pretty Happy.
While the Covid landscape has presented challenges for many Irish bands, Cork post-punk trio Pretty Happy, have stayed the course. They've been splitting their lockdown time between Mayfield, Ballyvourney and London, and the release of their January single 'Salami' has received airplay from the likes of RTÉ 2FM, BBC Radio 6, US indie institution KEXP.
Vocalist/guitarist Abbey Blake has been enjoying the past few months.
“It’s weird. I’ve fierce imposter syndrome at the minute. Like, this is a song about sausages, what are ye doing? It’s me and Arran shouting about pork, how is this doing well? Of all songs.
“Especially with KEXP, because I found all my music on KEXP shows online, their live sessions. Sixteen-year-old me is losing her mind. It’s a huge one, to be honest. I love that it’s such a Cork song on the radio, too, that Dubliners are made to listen to. You get pride out of that.”
Follow-up single ‘Sea, Sea, Sea’ continues in the playful, noisy form that’s seen them get all this notice, a Frankenstein’s monster of practice-room ideas from before the lockdown, assembled shortly before their between-lockdown gigs at the now-departed Kino venue.
“We had the start of it, the ‘A’ song, at the start of lockdown. Andy (Killian, drums/vox) writes lovely stuff, so when he can bring in nice chords, and nice vocal lines, that’s not just Arran (Blake, bass/vox) roaring, it’s a nice bit of a break. “We had that for a while, and it’s a lovely song, the chords are so sweet, but we could never finish it. But I like that about us - there’s never a rush to finish a song. Just before the Kino gigs, I had the second part, a different song, and we stitched them together. It worked straight away, a weird little mould of two songs.”
The track’s accompanying video debuted at last year’s Spilt Milk Festival, an online weekender based out of Sligo, and has since gone on to be shortlisted for legendary London film house Pinewood Studios’ Lift Off festival, earlier this year.
Directed and shot by Abbey herself, its making involved sending her girlfriend into the sea at Inch beach amid the big chill of November - a last-minute substitution for her dad, of all people, who ended up volunteering as a runner. “It was lovely, but we disrupted peoples’ day a bit - lovely couples, going for a walk, and there’s us, digging a hole on the beach, ruining the place. I’d a big gimbal for the camera, because I’m the clumiest person in the world... it was all a bit ridiculous.
“It was about an hour or two, and then my dad was sent to refill the hole. It was great. It was very cold, we had whiskey and hot chocolate on the way back as a treat, then copious pints for Ellie after as an apology for sending her into the sea in November.”
It’s fair to say the trio are net contributors to the city’s arts community: all three are keen film-makers, numbering local web-series ‘Jag’ among the collective credits; while members’ work veers from theatre, to sound design, to local feminist arts group Angry Mom Collective.
No better people to lead the conversation on how we build back better, then.
“With the Cork scene, there’s so much talent there,” Abbey says, “we have people coming up, and I really feel bad for 19, 20-year-olds starting in the last year that aren’t getting the opportunities that we got. For such a vibrant scene, no-one really nurtures that. “I think the next step is a council-run and funded practice space, because there is none in the city, and it costs an arm and a leg if you do want to practice. Teenagers can’t afford that. We’re lucky to have a shed, but a public space would be top priority.”
- Pretty Happy’s ‘Sea, Sea, Sea’ releases on April 23rd across streaming services and on https://prettyhappy.bandcamp.com
