INTERVIEW: The Riptide Movment

At their first time at the Manchester date of Dot to Dot festival, Malachy Tuohy and JPR Dalton of The Riptide Movement take a little time in the van before their intimate set at The Roadhouse to chat about the success of their latest album ‘Getting Through’ and their plans ahead of its international release in June. Things are on the up for these Irish indie rockers with a number one slot to their name and 300k hits on their video for latest single ‘All Works Out’, and they are definitely not ones to be missed this summer.

We’re at Dot to Dot festival. How are you feeling about playing the festival later on?

M: Yeah can’t wait. It’s our first time playing Dot to Dot and we kind of got an idea of the metropolitan festivals because we’ve been kind of doing of them for the past few weeks and we like the vibe. We did one last week The Great Escape in Brighton and we’ve done Live at Leeds the week before where we were actually on a good bit earlier than this we, we were on at 12 o’clock in the day but they’re really cool because the venues are really full and it’s all students and people who are trying to discover new music so it’s great.

Do you prefer the vibe of metropolitan festivals to ‘in a field’ type festivals?

M: It’s our first time kind of doing them, the metropolitan festivals, we normally do the field ones.
JP: It’s definitely a different buzz but it’s kind of cool because you’ve got everything here.

You’re album ‘Getting Through’ got to number one in Ireland which is amazing. How are you feeling about the international release?

M: Yeah really excited because it’s our third album, we’ve release two albums ourselves and this is the first one to go number one at home. We signed with Universal last year and since we signed with them it kind of went to a different league almost. By signing with them it’s allowed us to release over here in the UK and tour over here in the UK and we have a German release now as well on 1^st June which is going really over there as well, so it’s really cool. And we’re down to Australia in October, so it’s all go!

What was the inspiration behind that album? Where did it come from for you guys?

M: We just released our previous album ‘Keep On Keeping On’ and we weren’t planning to do another album or even write another album until the end of 2013 but we were in Germany and one of our tours got cancelled. So we we’re stuck in the middle of Germany in our van full of equipment and our boat to take us back to Ireland. So we said let’s rent out a house, cleared out the house, loaded in our gear. We’d all got ideas built up over a couple of years – you know like bits of songs here and there – so we put them all together and so that album was written in two weeks in Germany. We arrived back then after Christmas and started recording it and it was mixed and mastered by the end of May and released the following April.

What are your plans for the summer? I know you have a few festivals lined up, anything you are particularly excited about?

M: We’re excited by Reading and Leeds because we haven’t played it before. And T in the Park, we haven’t played that one either. And [Benicassim Festival], we’re doing Benicassim in July so that one should be cool. We’re going to make a holiday of that one I think.
JP: A few German dates as well. Kind of starting over there properly.

You tour quite a lot. Is it a wonderful experience for you or do you hate every moment?

M: Honestly, I’d say it is good craic and the gigs are obviously brilliant, and on the road is brilliant cause you’re going to new places all the time. But being stuck in a van for 8 hours a day sometimes can be a little bit tedious in this little space here and sometimes, believe it or not, this vans grand between the three of us but if there’s 7 in the van… oh god.

What have been your best tour moments? Kind of stuff you’d tell the grandkids?

JP: [The Rolling Stones] gig in Hyde Park was amazing. It was hard to kind of take in, a bit of a blur the whole weekend, and then we got to play with one of our favourite bands which was pretty amazing. We got to meet one of them in the canteen as well, the drummer.
M: Another time was on stage with Neil Young for ‘Rocking In the Free World’. We got to support Neil Young in Cork and going on stage with him was a really big moment. Finding out the album went number one was a big one.
JP: We’ve played Glastonbury a couple of times and each times just been what you’d expect, the festival is amazing and playing the acoustic stage was brilliant experience.

We wish The Riptide Movment the best of luck on their upcoming plans, you can download their new album “Getting Through” from June 1^st on Universal Records.