So far, Large Mound have had their greatest success in Dublin, but are currently on a nationwide tour. "In the kind of Dublin underground music scene so to speak, we’d be very well known," Anthony tells me. "And people would either have heard of us, seen us ten times, [or] written us off as "Those bastards I never want to see again". So those kinds of reviews help us reach those people that are outside of that."
Hugh chips in: "In order for someone to go see a band they need to be told or persuaded to do it three times. They have to hear a song on the radio, think "Oh yeah that’s not bad, I like that" or "I read that review" or maybe "Oh my friend told me they were really good", you know. In order to get somebody up off their arse to go and see a band that isn’t a band that they are reading about in the NME or whatever, I think they need to be told…" Anthony interjects: "Time and time again!"
If you ask any band what is key in spreading the word about their music, these days they’ll most likely say the internet. It’s definitely a tool that Large Mound use to great success – their own website, www.largemound.com has masses of information on it, reviews, news and you can even buy the albums through it. They also use their myspace.com website to great effect – and they recently discovered that their song Your Holiday Sounds Boring was being used on a Vince Vaughn fansite, which they found out only after getting masses of American friend requests.
"Myspace is great, and it’s been very good to us, or we’ve used it well," says Anthony. "You know, every band will tell you the same about Myspace – it’s made people more accessible, you know, like I am a big fan of the band King’s X and the members of that. And their singer just brought out a solo album and I left a message on his space saying it was great. I was delighted for him, I said: "I’m delighted for you, it’s brilliant, it’s a great album". And he left a message on our site saying "You guys are brilliant as well!" (laughs) it’s this sort of accessibility which was unheard of five, ten years ago."
One thing about Large Mound is their consistency – they’ve been gigging, writing and performing for around ten years and have never changed their name or outlook. Hugh elaborates: "There is this habit among bands to change their name every two years and then try and reinvent themselves some way, but they’re really the same band. And in a way that whole thing is like, a reaction to that. It’s saying "If you have been going for a long time, then good, that’s the way it is. Don’t start pretending"…you know, bands trying to deny their own history."
Anthony agrees. "Because you know, new bands are much sexier," he elaborates. ""Oh, I got this band’s first album, it’s amazing," you know. That’s one thing we did think about with this album – this is our third album – who’s gonna wanna know a band’s third album, you know? It has been very nice that it’s gone down so well, and people are bothering to listen to it, rather than getting it in the post and [thinking] "Fucking Large Mound, they’re shit, they’ve been around for ages, who cares about them". You know, it’s nice that people actually…it’s reassuring that people actually do listen to them."
"I read a quote from Joseph Heller once, who wrote Catch 22," muses Hugh. "And someone said to him in an interview "Does it not bother you that you never managed to write a book that’s as good as Catch 22?" and he just sat back and said "Not really – who has?" I thought that was brilliant – like, "Yeah, I know I wrote this masterpiece, do you really expect me to do another one?" I don’t think I’d keep doing it if people weren’t interested. You know, you need feedback, you need a fanbase, even if it’s modest."
