As way of introduction can you share how Nerves first got together as a band?
We got together as a band because myself and Adam started playing our respective instruments pretty much at the same time when we were sixteen. We’d known each other since we were 12 so it was kind of an obvious move for us to start playing together at that stage. We were in a “band” with a couple of other friends that kind of disintegrated just due to none of us knowing what we were doing so after that I started to write songs myself, and me and Adam would get together in his attic and play them over and over. Eventually someone who was organising the town festival for the end of summer asked if I had a band and would like to play so I just agreed on the spot and then realised that we now had 2 or 3 months to become an actual band that was capable of playing gigs. Once we had that first show out of the way we just kept playing as many gigs as we could during our final year in school and then decided to move to Dublin together and keep it going.
Your music is a breath-taking mix of noise, shoe-gaze, punk and impassioned vocals. What is your creation process?
Nowadays we write in a very collaborative way. Songs will usually start with an idea for an interesting drum groove or based off an interesting guitar/bass texture and we’ll keep playing the idea until it branches off into different sections. Sometimes that will cause us to find something really interesting that makes us scrap the original idea altogether and keep pursuing the new one. We are very much based around interesting drum grooves and strange textures on guitar and bass. There’s very little in the way of traditional riffing, which we like. The songs are kind of built like electronic tracks, from the drums upwards. Then once the instrumental is mostly done that’s when I tend to come in with the vocals, which is why the songs tend to have a lot of lyrics.
Nerves debut EP Glórach is set for release on 15 March with a vinyl release through Blowtorch Records. What can listeners expect from the EP? And what is the meaning of Glórach?
The EP is a range of songs from the last couple of years of the band, the oldest being from 2018 and the newer ones from 2021 and 2022. Because of that there is a wide mix of sounds and arrangements. There are lots of blisteringly loud moments, a lot of unexpectedly quiet moments but overall I think it has a very cohesive feel. Its the sound of a band that’s just figured out what they want to do sound wise and it feels very good to have that period of time documented. What we do after Glórach is more ambitious and put together, but these songs are pivotal points in the bands progression and they are put together in a way that feels very much like a singular body of work. The actual word Glórach means loud or noisy in Irish, but not necessarily in terms of actual volume but more in terms of a loud headstrong opinion. Feels quite fitting whichever way you choose to look at it.
‘Thirteen‘, the second single to be taken from Glórach, will be released on 9 February. It follows ‘Empty‘ and manages to tell a sonic story with the instrumentation. The pace shifts throughout and yet it completely works as a whole. What was the inspiration behind the track?
That was very much a lockdown track, one of the ones I wrote after I had moved back to Mayo for six months in March 2020. I was listening to lots of the shoegaze bands I had been into when I was like 17 and 18 and wanted to emulate that but in our own kind of way. The ending of the track has that dance feel that we would incorporate more down the line and the guitars and bass kind of melt away into being monolithic synths textures towards the end. I just wanted huge guitar sounds that are also shimmering and shifting throughout the track.
Live you have already supported Sprints, Talk Show, Deadletter, Gurriers, Vlure and hmltd, and last year Nerves made their French debut in Paris at the iconic venue Supersonic. How was the experience of playing in front of a crowd in France for the first time?
That was one of my favourite gigs we have done, just to see a packed 300 capacity venue for our first show on the continent was better than I could have imagined it. Obviously because of the nature of the gig being a sort of showcase the crowd were kind of sizing us up for the first tune or so but it didn’t take long for little mosh pits to start breaking out and to see people pulling stank faces to certain sections. They were really enthusiastic and energetic and it made what was a slightly terror inducing situation into something a lot more comfortable. We really felt at home by the end of it all.
Any plans for 2024 that we need to know about?
Well the big thing is the release of Glórach, our debut EP on the 15th of March. We’ve got a couple of Irish shows and support slots popping up around that but haven’t been announced yet. More videos to go along with the EP’s release, some festival stuff for summer and then hopefully back to the UK and Europe after that.
If I looked in your fridge right now what would I find?
A garlic baguette, orange juice, cheese, ham, sausages, some oat milk and a bottle of coke.
For more information on Nerves please check out their facebook and instagram.
