Take three teenagers from Dublin, two boys and one girl, put them together and what have you got? Not Westlife or B*Witched, that's for sure. It may come as a shock, but some Irish teenagers still wanna rock, and when Mark Greaney, Feargal Matthews and Hillary Woods formed JJ72 in January of this year, they didn't bother with dance routines or traditional Irish melodies - they just went straight out, strapped on their guitars, and kicked 40 shades of ass.
JJ72's average age is 18, and when you hear their debut single, October Swimmer, you'll feel a little old and probably sick as a parrot. An exuberant burst of rock'n'roll energy, October Swimmer is an effortlessly-delivered slice of pure pop genius, with riffs to die for, a hook to send you soaring, and an unmistakeable smell of explosive teen spirit lingering long after the smoke has cleared. The song seeps slowly into the air, sounding a little like The Verve's The Drugs Don't Work, lulling you into a false sense of smug, oldie security. Then it grabs you by the scruff and sends you flying into the middle of next week, wiping away your preconceptions with supple, acrobatic grace.
Along with Fixed Stars' Here Comes The Music and Wilt's It's All Over Now, October Swimmer stands as one of the finest Irish rock singles of 1999 and - curses - it's made by three kids whose collective age is still a lot younger than Mick Jagger.
Mark, the band's guitarist, singer, songwriter and leader, met with drummer Feargal while both were at school in Belvedere College in Great Denmark Street. "We weren't really the rugby and cricket type," recalls Mark, "but we weren't the outcasts either. We weren't like the geeks getting beaten up by the jocks or anything like that. We were kinda cool."
Mark's musical education began when he studied violin from the age of eight, but it was Nirvana's Bleach album that made him want to enrol at rock'n'roll high school. Picking up the guitar was no problem, and writing killer licks came pretty easy too; persuading his parents to let him skip college was not so simple. "Our parents were like, go to college, go to college, but when they heard the songs, they thought they might as well let us have a shot."
Not to sound like an old warhorse, but back in my day, such parental encouragement would have been unheard of. Mark's parents, on the other hand, seem to support his rock dreams all the way, and besides, his mum is a Nirvana fan. "A lot of people are very patronising towards teenage music, because they think it's based on some sort of angst or on hormones which they have no control over, and I don't think that's true. I think it's underestimating us. We do it because we love making a really, really good tune, and we're striving to capture that abstract quality about music that no one can describe. It's not just a bunch of teenage laments."
Hillary was a late addition to the band, following a succession of stand-in bass players. She went to school in Rosemont Park in Blackrock, studied piano, and picked up a bass guitar for the first time in January. All three have just completed their Leaving Cert, and are now devoting all their time to the study of rock'n'roll. There's no svengali manager to smooth the way for them, and no multi-million pound record deal. In fact, the hard graft that lies ahead of them will probably make college look like a cakewalk.
The trio are now signed to Dublin-based Lakota Records, and have recently finished a tour of the UK which saw them picking up plaudits from Radio 1 rock guru Mark Radcliffe and rave reviews from Select Magazine. Parallels have been drawn with bands such as Ash and Chicks; make no mistake, however, JJ72 have their own sound, and you may just hear a lot more of it over the next few semesters.
October Swimmer is released next Friday on Lakota Records.
