The Undertones' foot-down acceleration didn't slacken when Feargal took a sideroad to MOR country. Here come That Petrol Emotion, firing on all cylinders...

After the heart-breaking dispersal of the Undertones back in 1983, the phoenix would appear to have risen from the ashes in the form of Feargal Sharkey, but look further and you'll see a stronger force called That Petrol Emotion.

John and Damian O'Neil have joined up with drummer Ciaran McLaughlin, guitarist Raymond Gorman and singer Steve Mack to bring out two singles, 'Keen' and 'V2' and to play an extensive list of dates. I had a chat with Damian, Ciaran and later Raymond as they prepared to go into the studio to record their first album, produced by Hugh Jones, before setting off on a UK tour beginning in April and covering about 25 dates.

Damian: "We're looking forward to playing Scotland and Wales because we haven't played there yet. Last year we did a tour mostly on our own dates and then supporting the Long Riders as well but that was just England. We're going to Ireland for about a week — seven dates. I'm afraid now that, in London, we're getting too popular for small places like pubs. A lot of people get turned away so that's a dilemma you always face; you have to go on to bigger places and then you lose the atmosphere."

Are you happy that you're playing again?

"Yeah, definitely. I prefer the live side."

"Yeah, so do I," Ciaran confirms.

"John — he would prefer the studio side, I think."

Does John do most of the production side or do you all get involved?

"No, I think we're all involved... John wrote most of the songs, though. Even with the Undertones he always preferred the studio than live. He loves playing live but he always kept saying the studio's the best."

Ciaran reckons they're better live than on record.

"That's the reason I prefer live because I'm not happy with the singles we've recorded so far; they're not as good as they should be.

"It's a lot to do with the producer. That's why we've switched producers and brought Hugh Jones in. Hopefully he can capture what we do live. We did the first single ourselves. The second one was co-produced with our sound engineer, Geoff Perrin, and again, we weren't all that happy after a few weeks of listening to it. It's selling, though. The song stands up for itself but we're not that pleased with it."

Raymond arrived and we got onto the subject of singers — Damian admitting disappointment in the ventures of Feargal, "because he's a really good singer and it's just very bland," — and the discovery of Steve Mack...

"We met him in Easter last year."

"It was after we recorded the first single, 'Keen', and Raymond and Damian had done the singing. We thought it was OK but we weren't that happy with it. Steve came along to see us when we were playing the Mean Fiddler as a four-piece and we told him to come around for a practice and it turned out really well.

"We tried ads in the NME and all for singers and we got all these arse-holes turning up. There's no other word for them — people who thought they could sing."

"And if you're reading this now...!" Raymond chips in ironically, amused by the disgust in Damian's voice.

"They were terrible! The audacity of them to come! So we just gave up and the two of us started singing. Thankfully Steve came along."

So what happened to the initial recording?

"We just did the vocals over again. The backing track was already done. It luckily happened to be the right key for Steve."

Since his first nerve-racking appearance in front of about 300 people, Steve has grown into an incredibly energetic front man, becoming more and more dynamic with each performance and allowing the rest of the band to concentrate on their instruments.

Damian: "I've got a Fender Precision bass and I use this shitty amp nicknamed 'Big Hannah'. It's an Ampeg top and Hi-watt speakers. It's huge, too much power."

Why do you use a Precision?

"Well, you see, I didn't play bass before. I used to play the guitar in the Undertones. I didn't even know much about basses to tell you the truth. I just knew a Precision was a good guitar so... John bought it for me secondhand because I didn't want to buy a new one. It's alright but if I had more money I'd buy another one."

Raymond: "I've got a Fender Telecaster and Marshall amp. I don't know what it's called, it's just a combo."

So you're not really fussy about equipment.

"No, we're not undressed in the video."

Nice one, Raymond.

"As long as it sounds right," added Ciaran, raising the level of the conversation again. He plays a Gretsch kit with a Black Beauty snare. Is the snare sound the most important in the kit?

"Well, the snare and the bass drum."

"John's using a Fender Telecaster at the moment. Beforehand he was using a Gretsch.

"The guitar he used at the start was a Gretsch Chet Atkins, a brilliant guitar, but it got burned. A friend — he was a bit drunk — turned the gas fire on and the guitar was resting against it in the guitar stand so the thing caught fire and the whole neck went up. Luckily we managed to get it fixed but it's not the same. New frets were put on."

Do you think guitar bands have got a bright future in the face of the computer uprising?

Raymond: "Yeah, I don't think guitars will go out of style. They give you that basic format; if you've got a bit of imagination there's still a lot you can do with it."

Ciaran: "Computers write songs too clean, too precise. The guitar sound's got that dirtiness."

"It's really horrible watching keyboard bands," added Damian. "We're influenced by groups like Perry Wood who are the best guitar players ever on record really. It's probably just made up at the time, you know. It's not so much planned out. Even the synthesised sounds they use as well are not really clean. It's just there for a noise instead of musical accompaniment."

And on the subject of influences...

"Perry Wood, Captain Beefheart, Television, Velvet Underground, The Buzzcocks."

"A lot of soul and reggae music. That doesn't come out as obviously in our music. Roxy Music. Eno's stuff as well."

New bands?

"The charts are the worst they've been for years."

"There's a group called the Wolfhounds. They've got a record coming out, their first, next month. It's really great," Ciaran informed me with conviction.

"The Wolfhounds are a guitar band as well."

The second single, 'V2', came out on their own label, Noise A Noise. So will they be using it again?

"It just depends. I don't think so. Even if we were going to put stuff out on it we wouldn't have the time to do it properly really. It's so time consuming. You don't have time to actually write new songs and everything. When 'V2' came out everybody was running round making phone calls and going to Rough Trade and seeing what the sleeve was like. We were doing a tour at the same time. We didn't have any time off."

"It was worth it, though, because we learnt a hell of a lot about doing your own label."

Go on.

"First you get a distribution deal. We dealt with Rough Trade who had done 'Keen'. You pay for the studio yourself, cut it yourself and then give an acetate to Rough Trade and you just deal with everything yourself. The sleeve you've got to do yourself, you pay the person who's doing that for you and then it's in the hands of the distributor.

"You've got to have the capital to pay for the studio and pay for the cutting but once you do that it's just a matter of getting a distribution deal and then hassling, making sure it's being distributed.

"In total I'd say it cost about £800. The first pressing was 3,000 seven inches and 1,500 twelve inches. We still haven't seen any money for the singles yet.

"But it's important that they're out there as well because the fact that the record's out means that people will come and see us around the country.

"It's all paid for now by the group playing live. We played a Hell of a lot last year and we made some good money so it's all ploughed back. It's worth it just to have a record."

Is the tour going to be mainly to promote the album or is it to get the music around to people outside London?

"Both. It works both ways. We'd like to promote the LP and we like playing around the country. Like last year we played at Liverpool twice and the second time you see people who had been there before and they'd brought their friends and you play Birmingham and you see a bigger crowd so you're actually building up a following."

How did you go about getting gigs in the first place?

"We had a bit of an advantage because of the ex-Undertones tag which we didn't really want to play up on. But originally we got a residency in the Mean Fiddler — £3.50 to get in which was probably a bit classy for us. We got that mainly because it was 'two ex-Undertones'."

"I don't think there's any advice you can give to anybody," added Raymond. "It's just a matter of luck, I think, a lot of the time."

"It helps," continued Ciaran, "if you can support a group you like so you are actually playing to a potential audience. It should almost be a duty for groups like us to go along and see smaller groups just to see if they're good so that we can maybe ask them to support us because that's the only way they're going to get a foot up the ladder. You can get ripped off so badly, these promoters in charge of the PA and in charge of press and that, you know?"

Have you got a title for the album?

Raymond: "Probably 'Seen and Unseen'."

Damian: "Why not go for the other one?"

Which is?

"'The Manic Pop Thriller'. I like that one better."

Did John write all the songs for it?

"Everybody writes songs, John writes the vocal. He just gets up and he can get a tune from anything. He's a real natural songwriter."

They've chosen Hugh Jones to produce the album because they like the work he's done with Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes" B sides. Also, John and Damian worked with him on one Undertones single, 'Julie Ocean'.

"And the good thing is," Damian continued, "he's been to see us three times before Christmas now and he's very keen to do it so that helped. We're doing it in Rockfield in Wales. Again, we did the 'Julie Ocean' single there. It's really good because it's outside of London. The singles took us two days each — a day to record and a day to mix it. The LP — we've decided to do it in three weeks.

"We could probably do it in a day but we want to take more time over it."

Harking back to the production on the singles they feel that 'V2' was a bit muffled and that the vocals weren't clear enough and so, by popular demand, there will be a lyric sheet with the LP including the lyrics of the singles. However, Raymond has his priorities worked out.

"A lot of bands, a lot of singers, the tune hits you first of all. I think that's the best thing, the tune should always hit you first and then the words. You can place too much importance on words. It's OK having great words but if you haven't got a good tune it's not worth it."

A sound philosophy. Until I read the lyric sheet all I can say is That Petrol Emotion have great tunes.