day 29 - 30/11/20 : Holidays In Peru

Due to popular demand (3 people) I've decided for my second last blog post for this fundraising challenge to write about my stint in a band called Holidays In Peru. This was made up of myself as the singer, Caolan Plumb on guitar, Odhran Doherty on bass and Conall Campbell on drums and the world hasn't been the same since this unholy matrimony.

Drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll consumed my life for the greater part of a year. I poured my heart into our songs and I watched as the crowds of fans ripped out theirs and offered them to us in a plea of utter adoration and bass-fuelled euphoria. These are the words I wish I could write but unfortunately, our talents were mostly confined to the stale-lunch-scented music rooms in Rathmore and a cold room in Blackstaff mill.

The Origin Story

It was early 2015, if my memory serves me well. My mates and I were the ones that hung about on the floor of the music foyer that would hiss at the normies passing by but in reality we were a charming and very supportive group of friends. We were all, to varying degrees, really into music as our 'spot' might suggest. Naturally, some of my friends formed a band chosen from ourselves and people from School of Music which they christened 'Riker's Beard'. It was the early days then.

Band name origin. Riker, from Battlestar Wars

Their band name was a giggle. With Vincent, Conor, Thomas and later Jack all absorbed into this band, there were a few of us who made, what can only be described as a protest movement. The four of us - much like the anti-maskers parading at Stormont - formed a coalition of degeneracy and decided to form our own band which was aptly named 'Riker's Clean Shaven.' At that point, it was more an idea or a bad joke to volley back at the Riker's Beard members anytime they talked about their music but somnambulantly, we were arranging band practices and writing songs. We were a proper wee band now and a proper wee band needs a proper wee name. Riker's Beard had done a rebrand and called themselves 'Red House' after the Jimi Hendrix song so we began circling through names like 'Wanton Motive' (sounds cool but not sure what it means) and 'Depth Charge' (difficult to pronounce and again, not sure what it means). Eventually, Odhran suggested the name Holidays in Peru and again, we weren't really sure what it meant but my oh my doesn't that sound exotic? Conor at one point defected from Red House to join us and just like that, the fledgling new face of rock: Holidays In Peru were born.

The Golden Days

Making a quick lil sidestep from my story here if you'll excuse me. When I see Plumb or Conall or whoever else brings up HiP, we can't help but laugh at ourselves. While it is a giggle to think about, I'm unironically quite proud that a bunch of 15 year olds could actually write and perform songs. It's similar in a sense to how I feel about writing these blogs. I may look back in years and cringe at myself a bit for some things I've written but just as Sean and Tom have said in their blogs, it's a nice feeling to see the fruit of your efforts laid out in front of you and know, yea, I did that - it may not be the best in the world but that's not what matters - we set our minds to something and didn't let it perspire like so many ephemeral notions do. Back to the sin now.

The hallmarks of band practice with Holidays in Peru for me is the smell of curry chips, constantly feeling cold, some amount of lead time between us getting there and actually practicing and a fair amount of glee when everything finally came together. We were, I must admit, a bit of an unorganised mess that would spontaneously bust into bad covers of Papa Roach songs but the final half hour of practice was when I think we really came into ourselves. I've a pretty fond memory of us all practicing that might seem quite unremarkable to you now but I distinctively remember getting chills at the time: we were going through our song, 'Gone' (alternatively named 'I hate Anna Horner') and everything was going perfectly. We come to the climax at the end and Conall Campbell just goes into a drum solo that, in my rose-tinted memory could have been stolen straight out of Whiplash. He's going and he's going and we all come back in to do the song again and that final smash of the cymbals arrived like you were waiting for that one long Tetris piece to come in and ding you into a new high score.

Coming off our high, for our first gig at Blackstaff, we had two or three songs. Although it was an open event, the majority of the people there would have been the other bands we knew or our friends. I distinctively remember the first song we played acting as a sort of introduction-filler. It was a nice riff Plumb had come up with a few weeks before and was simply called, 'Saudi Arabia: Kingdom of God.' There's no lyrics other than that and you just kinda sing it ad infinitum until the song goes stale and people put their hands in their pockets waiting and wondering what they came to. We played it and it ended about exactly as I described. We play 'Gone/I hate Anna Horner' and as expected, it was a resounding hit. Pretty sure Tom was in attendance and threw his knickers on the stage. We finish off with We Will Rock You by Queen. We have the other bands come on until there's only a handful of people actually in the audience that aren't on the stage and have a merry ol time taking turns with all the verses.

Over the next few months we're rockin' out, writing more songs and having a swell time. My own personal low point is when I legitimately brought a Ukulele to a gig with the full intention that I'd plug it into the amp, add some metal nectar to this Hawaiian spice and none of the metalheads would pay any mind to the desecration of their genre. Thankfully, I figured out it was probably a bad idea so the Ukulele was ditched before I could shame the HiP legacy further.

We do a few more gigs, Plumb and I try our hand at busking in town, and we sell out to our corporate fantasies by hinting at the possibility of merch.

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

The Encore

Before the end of the year, I had spoken to Plumb, Odhran and Conall and for whatever reason that I can't remember, announced I was leaving the band. Shock, horror, intrigue - we have it all. We arranged the 'Penthouse Gig' that would be my final act before we parted ways. I wore a shirt and tie because what not-very-well-adjusted person doesn't wear a shirt and tie to a gig with their mates. The day comes, we perform, we get shutdown because the owner of Blackstaff, Johnny, reared his head and pointed out what we're doing is very much not allowed and have a lil boogie out the door. Stephen Forte, the talented person who designed the logos you've seen, ends up joining HiP on guitar and Hannah Blair, a friend from another band, becomes their new frontman. I retire and occasionally team up with my friend Neil Goss to occasionally jam but sadly, I mustn't have been able to keep up with all the sex, all the drugs and all the distorted-ukulele rock 'n' roll.

The Epilogue

While writing this it's one part happy, one part sad and two parts cringe as I reminisce with myself about all this. Cringe because the difference of 5 years feels like I'm leagues away from the lil shit I was then and I can't help but sink in my seat when I think of the 'mohawk' I attempted around this time. Sad because I was surrounded by such lovely and talented friends that were such a huge part of my life and who now I'd see and chat to in passing. Happy because, as cringeworthy and sad as I was then and I can be now, I'm pretty proud of us and proud that I got the opportunity to do something like that with my mates who were so important to me. I can pick out a few of us, ones including Conor and Vincent, who I have no doubt will have some massive success with music. If this isn't the origin story for some homegrown talent we'll hear about in the years to come (whether in music, game development, engineering or whichever else), at the very least it's a funny story to write about in a blog 5 years later.