Story of Hair’s debut EP

Story of Hair’s debut EP, Ho Ho Ho

Daniel Carey

TWO Mayomen are gearing up for the their band’s first ever release on Thursday week, December 13. Castlebar duo Ger Staunton and Paul Brett make up half of the wonderfully-named Story of Hair, whose debut EP, The Ho Ho Ho Stamp, hits the shops next week.
A single entitled Without Sound was released last Saturday on digital download and is available from download websites. The album will be available from Thursday week in Downtown Records, Castlebar and Westport. The official launch night takes place in Radio City in Dublin on December 13, and is followed by a gig in The Village on December 14. Before that, next Thursday, they’re heading for The Boom-Boom Room in the capital, and Ger Staunton is looking forward to getting back on stage.
“Besides demos, this is our first release,” he told The Mayo News. “We recorded it in August and since then we’ve been taking a break from gigging and getting the album prepared, ready, getting all the artwork done, and getting it multiplied. It’s been everything except for rock ‘n’ roll, everything outside of getting on stage and playing music!”
A far cry from the glamorous lifestyle associated with music then, but Story of Hair have been ‘doing a few gigs, keeping ourselves busy, and doing a bit more writing’. For the most part, however, they’ve been ‘making phone calls, sitting in front of computers and doing press packs’. Head-wrecking as that work may be, it has paid off, with airplay on Dan Hegarty’s 2FM show twice last week, in addition to the odd spin on local radio stations and Dublin in Limerick.
“We’re dying to get back into playing more gigs, because it just feels like we’re working in an office!” said Feeney with a laugh. “We’ve also got a load of new songs on the way that we’ve been tipping away at and we’re dying to start gigging them. We’re even thinking about putting them on another EP now and getting another recording done. I suppose everybody thinks that once you’ve released something, that’s as far as you’ve gone, but with the amount of waiting around and messing after you’ve recorded it, you’ve nearly got a whole new EP done. So we’re almost ready to record again!”
As well as drummer Staunton, Story of Hair also includes Brett on vocals and bass guitar, Tipperary native Caroline Carew on guitar and vocals, and Dubliner Amanda Eustace on guitar. “The band name was there before I joined, so I can’t take any blame for it,” laughs Staunton, who joined along with his fellow county man two years ago.
Having struggled to define what genre they fit into or what bands they sound like, the four members of Story of Hair now describe their type of music as ‘noise pop’.
“It’s got a touch of everything,” explains Staunton. “It’s got a few odd, quirky bits without being weird, and it’s got a lot of poppy bits without being sing-a-long. It’s a bit of a mixture.”
The album was recorded in Steve Shannon’s Experimental Audio studio in Dublin, while Ian Staunton did the eye-catching artwork. The band recently played in the west with The Blizzards and Delorentos, and Ger Staunton hopes to return to his native town in the New Year.
“We’re hoping to get around a bit in January,” he explains. “We’re putting the EP into shops in Dublin, Galway, Castlebar and up north and Cork, so we’re hoping to play everywhere where it’s in a shop.”

For more information about either the digital download or upcoming shows you can check out www.storyofhair.com