You’ve heard Tom McGuire and The Brassholes already right? If so you’ll know they’ve released their new self titled album on the vinyl and all the streaming services.
If you’ve not heard it yet, you should check it out. It’s a hugely energetic, funk filled slab of fun; shot through with more than just a tinge of existential angst. Just the kind of thing that should be getting regular plays on the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show. Sounds awesome, right? We caught up with their massively enthusiastic lead singer and lyricist Tom McGuire just hours before the album’s release.
How’s things going for the band at the moment, these must be exciting times for you?
Yeah, the album is due to stream from tomorrow so tonight is a very very exciting night for us indeed.
We’re excited for people to hear it for the first time. The album launch at the QMU is going to be a pretty spectacular show, it’s going to be as big and bombastic as we can possibly make it. There’s lots of interesting and surprising touches that we’re going to put into this show. It’s going to be a serious operation.
It’s going to be fun, that’s what it’s going to be.
Cool, can you tell us a bit more about the album?
It’s a lot of labour and love. Contrary to what we first put our head over the parapet with, it’s actually quite an in depth, deep and thematically consistent record which tells the story of my experience through existential grief and convalescence through love. But it’s told surreptitiously through the medium of super awesome funk jams.
The album itself is thirteen tracks of really good, fun, upbeat music. But there’s a consistent theme there from start to finish. There’s a narrative that runs through that’s ready to be mined for those who want to delve a little deeper. For those who just who just want an immediate listen, each stand alone track is a fantastic piece of music.
Tell us a little bit more about the themes. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that from yourselves.
That’s it, I’m really curious to see how people react, because we released Ric Flair, which is very light hearted and about almost nothing really. We did that as a strategic thing to show the world something immediate and fun, to give an entry level gateway drug into our deeper material. The album is to do with negotiating existential grief in modern life and how one can hope to survive that sort of thing.
One of the ways we can hope to survive it is though fun and experiencing joy. So that’s where all this joy and fun comes in. That’s why, even though it’s not really thematically part of the whole, the song ‘Ric Flair’ is in there. It’s just a instance of joy for a lot of people and that’s what living is all about. Really the themes explored in the record are very heavy, very thick and very deep and essentially address what life is. It’s all there for people to delve into but for the immediate listeners it’s going to be funk jams.
So there it is, get yourself down to the QMU on 3rd February. Tom promises a seriously awesome night of funk, fun and surprises.
Tickets here >>> QMU
Album streaming here >>> Spotify
Spend monies, buy the album and support the band here >>> Tom and the Brassholes
Full interview in the February edition of Snack.