‘Big Music’ is often used as a derogatory term, used to describe bands who write the sort of songs destined for stadia that have all been done before and mostly done better. In the case of Irish act The Plea, however, it describes their music perfectly; they don’t care about potential detractors, and well they shouldn’t, because their songs are imbued with the kind of confidence that comes from a band who have learned how to come in the music industry the hard way. Their excellent forthcoming debut, ‘The Dreamers Stadium’, by all rights should have been their second album and not their first, but major-label woe a few years previously meant that the actual debut was scrapped. It’s out in a few weeks, so I thought it an opportune time to interview the quartet, and here’s how things went:
(((o))): Hi guys! Your new single is out this week, followed by the album in a few weeks’ time, so how are you feeling about it all?
Dermot Doherty (bass): It’s great to finally get out there and start playing the album live, it’s the best part of it now.
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(((o))): What sort of things inspired the lyrics on ‘The Dreamers Stadium’?
DD: Depends on the song, but it’s all either real-to-life or full-on fantasy, or somewhere in between both those things.
DD: ‘The Dreamers Stadium’ is The Plea as it is now . The sound of the band has not really changed; we just wrote a new album. Nothing got shelved, it just felt the new songs suited this album better.
DD: Probably ‘Feel it Ticking’ at the minute. It’s great to play live; it has that never ending chorus thing to it, so it’s great to jam live.
DD: Out of this world! We all work pretty good together, and everyone’s looking in the same direction.
DD: I’m not too good with these philosophical type questions, so I’ll just say we’d like to be seen.
DD: It was a good atmosphere in the studio; we knew where we wanted the songs to go, and working with Chris Potter turned into what we think is a great album.
DD: I’ve been listening to George Harrison lately; ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ especially, and some old Lead Belly, from a compilation album called ‘The Definitive Lead Belly’.
