Cash reflects on the Choice Prize nomination this year as a highlight of the band’s career to date. “We genuinely weren’t expecting that,” he says. “It gave us some great exposure and the night itself was really fun. Half of the other nominees were good friends of ours. Not that the other half weren’t, we just didn’t know them. I’m sure Imelda May is lovely! For six weeks or so, that was really, really exciting because people were talking about it. People who might not usually be in the Halves sphere were checking us out. SXSW was great. Every gig we did on the back of that album seemed to be a lot fun. It was great taking the album out and seeing people’s reactions to it and meeting people.”
One thing the Choice experience, and the trips to SXSW, gave to Cash and the rest of the band was a greater appreciation of the talent at home. Cash sees many positive things brewing in the country. “It’s a shame we’re this little pin-point in the sea,” he says. “but people are still putting out records. It’s nice the whole DIY indie thing is starting to happen here. People always look at London like it’s some fucking amazing place but I’ve no aspirations of ever moving there or ever make it big. Ireland’s just as good. Now with everything online, you can sell your music to Germans or the Japanese without having to play a shitty pub in London to five people.”
Still, the option of moving must surely have occurred to band as ambitious as they are? “We were toying for a few weeks with the idea of moving to Canada,” says Cash. “It would just be the same there as here. We’d just be able to enjoy touring around but I don’t know, if the band’s aim is to be on Vodafone ads and write hit singles, then yeah go to London, dress well and put the hot one up front. I guess it depends on the band. If you want to just make good music, home is great.”
Cash and the Czerniaks plan on disappearing in 2012 to work on album number two and with the experience of one record behind them, Cash knows the sacrifices that will have to be made and he is ready to do it all over again. “If we make a record,” he says. “we don’t get a holiday that year because we can’t afford it and our time off work is used up so we might as well go somewhere nice with good food and sunshine. Somewhere where it’s sunny for two weeks, we can record by day and drink wine by night. It’s very pompous.”
In the end, Cash seems ready to do whatever seems necessary to get the Halves vision a little further towards reality. “When you’re doing the nine-to-five thing, band stuff becomes your holidays. In one way it’s depressing because you’d like to be on a beach doing nothing but the reality is you’re in Toronto or Brighton or Texas lugging equipment. It’s fun, you’ll look back and go, that was actually a really exciting time. If it turns out that we release two or three albums and then we retire, we’ll always be proud of that. I can go to Spain for a week for the rest of my life, once I’m done.”
Halves play The Unitarian Church with Jennifer Evans this Friday, 9th December.
