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Republic Of Loose are one of the most exciting bands to emerge from Ireland during the last decade with one of the most charismatic lead singers ever to bestride a stage in the country.
Jason O'Toole, 20 May 2008
While there is a huge soul and funk influence to their sound, it has always been difficult to pigeonhole their music. But the arrival of their latest opus – the astonishingly accomplished Volume IV: Johnny Pyro And The Dance Of Evil – makes it a next to impossible task to label them accurately. It’s an intense fusion of soul, jazz, rock, disco, pop and hip hop, with a rich seasoning of humour, the likes of which no other Irish band could possibly have contemplated.
And that’s exactly the way the Loose's lead singer, Mick Pyro, wants it. As a teenager growing up in the Dublin suburb of Terenure, Pyro says he was first turned-on to music by listening to Queen and Michael Jackson, who, in their different ways, could jump convincingly from one genre to another on the same album.
“If you’re into Queen as a kid it has a huge effect on you,” Mick says, “because they were able to do a funk song one minute, a metal song the next, and then go into a real tender ballad. It was the same with Jackson. One minute he’d do a rock song, the next a soul song. They didn’t have any boundaries. They were the kind of artists that I was always attracted to.”
His vision for Republic Of Loose was grounded in that openness. “Genres are just ways of putting tags on types of music,” he proffers. “It’s a way of limiting a whole bunch of information and putting it in a box. For me, all types of music have always bled into each other. I think that all music is influenced by other types of music. I don’t believe in codification of anything.”
Catching up with Hot Press for a few pints in the Library Bar at the Central Hotel in Dublin, Pyro is in good spirits. And he has every reason to be. After all, ‘I Like Music’, the first single from the new album, has already become an instant radio hit. And the album has been very well received, Paul Nolan of this parish describing Vol IV as an excellent record “full of cracking rhythms, great humour and highly imaginative stylistic flourishes.”
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