My favourite Irish album: Tom Dunne
"If the house went on fire this is the one I’d rescue."
The 100 Greatest Irish Albums, 16 Nov 2004
Tom Dunne on Microdisney’s The Clock Comes Down The Stairs
"I just remember being struck dumb when I heard it first. I think it had an influence on a lot of Irish bands at the time. It certainly affected us - I can clearly remember thinking ‘that’s it - we’ll have to stop messing around and start seriously rehearsing’.
"Everything about it is great - from the songs to Cathal Coughlan’s voice to Sean O’Hagan’s lyrics, which I thought were very clever. And the melodies were great - The Beach Boys have become so fashionable these days and everyone is influenced by them but back when this was released no-one was doing anything like it. If the house went on fire this is the one I’d rescue."
Tom Dunne talks about recording Something Happens' finest hour, Stuck Together With God’s Glue (46/100 Greatest Irish Albums
"I’m so far removed from it now that it’s hard to have any clear objective view about it. I remember that we were very focused and single-minded when we were recording it. We’d learned all our lessons by then and we were well prepared for it. It had a really strong selection of songs too which tends to help and we a great producer in Ed Stasium.
"We recorded it LA which was nice, we were all living in an apartment together, getting up in the morning and going in at about 11am and recording all day. The recording sessions weren’t at all pressurised - the producer, who was very experienced just said to us, ‘you can burn the midnight oil if you want to but you’ll just be tired all the time and won’t get much work done’. We took his advice.
"The record company were very happy with it although I remember Virgin London didn’t think ‘Parachute’ should be on it. They thought it was too much of a pop song. I see what they mean in the context of some of the other songs, which were rockier, but I wouldn’t change anything about it. We toured it endlessly and then we did the classic thing of not writing enough new songs on the road and we were in trouble when it came to record the follow-up..."
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