Less than a year ago, Fionnbharr Hickey, the frontperson of the Cork alternative band Pebbledash, spoke to us about how he felt that the band’s then-latest single, “No Worse,” was a “good step” up from their previous tracks. But, really, that single was signifying the ending of that era of the band.

“Around the time that ‘No Worse’ came out, things were kind of coming to a head, I guess,” Fionnbharr tells Post-Burnout when we spoke to him last week. “Because there was one or two of us in the band who really wanted to really pursue it and had these big, creative ideas of what we wanted to do, and, maybe, the other half of the band was just like, ‘It’s fun being in a band,’ or whatever.

“So, there was a bit of a clashing of heads, there. We did a gig, supporting Bar Italia at the Seanie Buttons things that were going on in Cork for a while, and I remember talking to Arran [Blake] from Pretty Happy, their bassist, and I think it was only the second time I had met him, and I completely just word vomited on him about all this, and how I was feeling, and how I didn’t want the band to end, or whatever.

“And he was actually very helpful. He was kind of just like, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta do what you gotta do.’ So, I think a week or two after that, we just had a conversation and two of the guys ended up leaving the band, and I think that’s when things started rolling on who I wanted to replace the guys with and who else I wanted to add.”

With the band’s former drummer and bassist gone, Pebbledash retracted to founding members, Fionnbharr and guitarist Michael O’Dwyer. Filling the missing positions with Jack Cashman on bass and Eoin Schuch on drums, the band added two additional members (and, by extension, instruments): as a second vocalist, they brought in Asha Egan McCutheon, a folk singer who had played shows with the band and whose sean-nós style had impressed Fionnbharr, and Cormac Donovan O’Neill, a synth player whose Aphex Twin-esque Soundcloud demos made Fionnbharr want to add that dimension into the fold.

The current six members of Pebbledash were consolidated in January and began gigging right away, despite the difficulty of gelling the older songs that the band had written and recorded with this new line-up. “We don’t play ‘No Worse’ or ‘Running Away,’ anymore,” Fionnbharr says.

“I don’t think we really know where we belong in those songs anymore, either. I don’t think we’ve ever even tried them. I think we’ve done ‘Running Away’ once, but I don’t think we’ve ever played ‘No Worse’ with Asha, because I couldn’t picture her doing any parts of that song, and I don’t think I could picture myself doing any parts of that song, either. [Laughs]”

Looking back, Fionnbharr considers the raucous, noisy, shoegaze-laden music that the band had initially played to be somewhat of a defence mechanism. He says, “I wasn’t really a singer and stuff before, and I’d be at shows and the sound guy would be like, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s all great. The vocals aren’t really coming through.’ ‘Ah, that’s fine! Shoegaze or whatever!’

“But I think it was just more out of, ‘I don’t know if I actually want people to hear this, or hear me singing, or hear what I’m saying, or whatever,’ but, now, we’ve worked hard on these songs and we want people to hear what we’re saying and singing. So, yeah, I guess it’s more of a confidence thing, as well; not hiding behind the instruments anymore, because I think both the instrumentation and the lyrics are strong now, so there’s no need to be hiding it.”

This new sound can be heard on the two tracks that the band released yesterday, which serve as an introduction to this different side of Pebbledash. The glistening, fragile, downcast, dreamy, staticky, and strangely comforting A-side, “Killer Lover,” is an original track and, without a shadow of a doubt, is one of the best songs of 2024.

It showcases how well Fionnbharr and Asha work off each other, while also showing that, despite the gaze effects being of a similar ilk to the old Pebbledash, the instrumentation and expression are on a different plane of existence. It is a perfect showcase of the band’s new direction whilst not being alien to what preceded it.  

The B-side is their cover of the Irish folk song, “Carraig Aonair.”  “The first time I had heard of the song, Asha was performing it,” remembers Fionnbharr. “She was actually supporting us at a gig, and I remember her singing it and everyone in the room was dead silent. I got shivers. I was like, ‘This is a beautiful song.’

“It’s an old, traditional song and it’s about… [Laughs] – when she says this, live, no one ever knows how to react – but it’s about this family who drowned off a lighthouse, down in West Cork. So, it’s a very grim kind of thing! I don’t speak Irish, so I don’t know [the words] exactly, but it’s just about this family going out to the Fastnet, which was the lighthouse, and it’s just about the whole sadness of that.

“And she calls it ‘An Caoineadh’ – ‘The Cry’ – and it was very emotional. I almost felt bad putting all this noisy stuff into it, because it’s such a gentle song, but I think I was reading Kim Gordon’s book at the time, so I was like, ‘I need to do some noisy stuff!’ [Laughs] […] And we just didn’t want it to sound like bad Lankum!”

The instrumentation on the rendition is probably Pebbledash’s least traditional and most amorphous piece thus far; using string, percussion and wind instruments to create a wailing soundscape that serves more as a dramatic accompaniment to Asha’s sorrowful telling of the tale than backing music.

“Live, as well – seeing as it’s really noisy – those instruments always end up being different, as well,” Fionnbharr says of performing the song. “Because you never quite know what screech the guitar is going to make. [Laughs] But I think that kind of goes along with the tradition of sean-nós, as well: It’s very vulnerable.

“I think it’s the part in the show where we kind of really get settled in, because we can kind of just let ourselves go mad and not worry about whether we’re playing the right notes or whatever, because we’re just trying to break the guitars without trying to break the guitars! [Laughs]”

Despite being a six-piece, none of the members get lost in the mix and each member’s purpose is evident. “Some of the nicest compliments that we’ve gotten after live shows is that everyone in the band is a key component of it, as well,” Fionnbharr says.

“We did a few gigs over the summer, there. Asha was gone on a Buddhist retreat, down in West Cork, for a while, so there was one or two gigs that we did without her and stuff, and it just felt like there was something missing, like.

“And I feel like, with the old band, we did a good few gigs replacing someone on the bass or drums or whatever, but I think, now, we couldn’t really do that because everyone plays a really key role and there’s no excess or whatever. So, it’s nice that people think that, that everyone brings their own flavour.”

While Pebbledash are focusing on their new course, they are giving fans of their old sound one last taste. With no release date confirmed as of publication, Pebbledash will release a six-track EP which features four songs created by their previous iteration and recorded by their current roster.

“These were songs that we used to play with the old line-up, so it’s a little funny, but they’re our favourite ones from that time; they’re songs that we all really like,” Fionnbharr says of the EP. “And they have been rearranged with the six of us, so they are different, but I think it would be great to get our favourite of those old songs out, plus two new ones that we wrote together, and then it’s like a clean slate.”

Pebbledash’s latest single, “Killer Lover”/”Carraig Aonair,” is available on all streaming platforms now. You can keep up with Pebbledash’s music, live dates, and social media accounts on their Linktree.

To hear this interview in full, where we go into further detail about everything discussed, as well as the Cork music scene, recording their latest tracks at Crowleys Music and what recording in a music shop brought to the sound, balancing the schedules of six band members, how studying architecture influenced the band’s art style, Fionnbharr’s opinion of TikTok, and much more, tune into tonight’s episode of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews…at 19:00 (IST) on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.