Skip to main content

Interview with Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Originally published 21/10/2013 on Chunk.ie

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. That’s a name you won't forget in a hurry. What's the story behind it, presuming there is a story...
Its about a psycho killer who thinks he's God and then goes out into the desert to start his own death cult.

Uncle Acid 2013 (photo credit Ester Segarra)

I've been listening to Mind Control for the last few weeks and I've been trying to classify your sound, but failing miserably. It seems to flit between many different genres. Having said I have noticed that the album does go well with Queen of the Stone Ages latest opus, Like Clockwork. How would you guys classify yourselves?
Its hard to say. There's elements of rock, metal, pop, psych....

Cambridge is noted for many things, education, boat races, and most recently, Silicon Fen. It's not exactly known worldwide for producing hard rocking bands. What happened with you guys? Are you all Cambridge locals or did you meet there at college?
No, none of us are from Cambridge. I just happened to live there when I started the band with some friends. There aren't many musicians in Cambridge. Its a small place, but its not a musical place at all. A lot of people in the Cambridge scene hate me because I'm always slagging the place off, but that's fine. It's recent track record speaks for itself. Venues closing down, music licenses getting revoked....its just not a healthy place to be in a band. Now, the band is really based in London which is where I found the best musicians.

Mind Control is your third studio album in 4 years, that's a pretty impressive record. How do you work in the studio? Who's the main creative genius of the band or is it, as Roy Keane would say, a team effort?
Well, I write all the songs. I would still say its a team effort, but at the end of the day I suppose it comes down to what I want. We mostly go for a live sound in the studio. Just crank everything up till there's smoke coming out of all the amps and machines, then hit record.

I've bought your album (no freebies here!) and it's bloody amazing and I'm looking forward to seeing you guys here in Ireland later in the year. Is this your first time to play in Ireland? Will you have some time to sample the good life here?
I hope so! A lot of my family were from Ireland but this will be our first time there and its always been top of my list of places to go to. Looking forward to it.

Some light hearted questions to finish up with...
Simon Cowell, god’s gift to the music industry or the spawn of Satan sent from hell to ruin rock and roll?
Spawn of Satan. I actually walked past him in London recently as he was getting out of his ridiculous 4x4 and I can tell you he looks every inch the cunt in person as he does on TV.

Every band is guilty of writing bad lyrics at one stage or another, what's the worst you've come up with?
'I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devils work'. Horrible lyric.

Robin Thicke has recently shown that having scantily clad ladies in your video can make a catchy song an international hit. Can we expect similar videos from Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats?
Our videos are pretty sleazy as it is but I suppose we need to try harder!

And that's it, the Q&A with Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats is over.  Many thanks for taking the time out of your hectic schedule and we look forward to seeing you live later this year.
Thanks a lot! See you soon!

Check out Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats on their website, Facebook and YouTube!

Popular Posts

2022-03-26 Buskers on Grafton Street, Dublin

I took a walk around Dublin today,  thought I'd check out the buskers on Grafton Street.   There's a fine history of busking in Dublin, acts like  Hothouse Flowers ,  The Frames ,  Rodrigo y Gabriela ,  Damien Rice ,  Paddy Casey ,  Kodaline  and a host of others all cut their teeth on and around Grafton Street.  It stands to reason that some of those busking today will be successful in the future! So, who did I get to see today?  Well, check out the photos below: Zoe Clarke Allie Sherlock Paul Jenkinson

Bye Bye Spotify...

I ditched Spotify Premium this weekend. Why?  Well, I read an interview with Daniel Ek , the CEO of Spotify, and I profoundly disagreed with what he said and his attitude towards musicians in the interview.  So I said 'F*ck it', and closed my premium account.  I still do have a free account* as many bands choose Spotify to release their music, so I'll keep it for that reason. What now though?  Well, I'd created a large library of music on my home server over the last 20 years or so.  Every time I bought a CD, it got ripped to the server.  Every time I bought digital music from Bandcamp , Google or 7 Digital , they too got stored on the server, and that was fine for home use, it worked well.  But now I'd dumped Spotify, what could I do, how could I access my music outside the house? I'd played around with software called Plex a few years back, but had no use for it. I ended up doing nothing with Plex, but for this project, I decided to revisit it.  I knew that i

Pete Kavanagh - Mercy Video Shoot

I've been asked a few times if I'd be interested in shooting a music video.  Each time I said no because, well, I'd no idea what to do.  I'm not technical behind a camera. I know the look I want, I take my photos and, that's it.  I honestly don't know what I'm doing, it just works for me, sometimes (they're the photos you see!). I've known Pete Kavanagh  a long time. We both grew up in the same Kildare town and know many of the same folk.  Over the last few years we became friends through music.  He played, I listened and or photographed.  So, when he asked me if I'd shoot his video for 'Mercy', I said yes, albeit a hesitant yes, one filled with self doubt! Day one of shooting came around all too quickly for me.  I'd looked in to shooting video, read up a bit on how to do it on my camera, what settings to change and so on, just so I wouldn't look clueless on set!  I charged all the batteries and lights, packed all the gear away an