IT’S all about cars for Patrick 'Pa’ Sheehy. He is the singer and main songwriter in Kerry band-on-the-up Walking On Cars and one of their best songs is the hit single Speeding Cars, so it’s only right that when I call him he’s driving around the mean streets of Tralee.
Sheehy and his bandmates are all from Dingle, the Kerry base for the hugely popular Other Voices music festival, and it’s safe to say that 2016 is going to be the year that Walking On Cars become a big name outside Kerry and Ireland.
After selling out the Olympia Theatre in Dublin last year, the band’s fanbase has continued to grow. They marked the release of their debut album Everything This Way last week by appearing on The Late Late Show, performing Speeding Cars (backed by the RTE National Concert Orchestra).
“I think when you’re on the Late Late, that’s when your mum thinks you’ve made it,” laughs Sheehy.
He and his bandmates Sorcha Durham, Paul Flannery, Evan Hadnett and Dan Devane had actually finished their album a year ago but bided their time in releasing it.
“We needed to get a bit of a fanbase outside of Ireland, so that’s why it was put back,” says the frontman. “Now we have a small following abroad. We spent a good while in the UK. We spent a month on the road with The Kooks, we did a few shows with James Bay and a few headline tours. I think it was the right thing to do.”
The album is packed with radio-friendly and anthemic indie-pop tunes, with Catch Me If You Can, Ship Goes Down and Don’t Mind Me among the standouts.
Of course, the Kerry band have already been compared to the likes of Coldplay, Kodaline and Snow Patrol but Sheehy is fine with this.
“Yeah, I’m cool with that. It’s kind of inevitable.”
He says nearly half of the album was written when the band were holed up in a cottage on the Kerry coast about four years ago.
“That’s where we had our initial creative burst, in this little cottage on the edge of the Dingle peninsula. We had no internet and minimal transport, so we got enough food to keep us going for a few days.
“We had a heap of instruments and wrote a lot of the album songs there – songs like Speeding Cars, Don’t Mind Me and Flying High Flying Low.”
He admits that Speeding Cars is “a special song” and with its catchy “hey-ya hey-ya hey-ya” refrain and an epic guitar solo, it was a pretty easy choice for a single.
Yet Sheehy says that Catch Me If You Can is becoming “the standout tune live”. The band play Belfast on Monday and the singer is excited about the trip north.
“Yeah, we’re psyched. We’ve played Derry a few times and we did a festival in Belfast with The Coronas, so it’s about time we got back up there.”
He admits that going on the road is tougher now, as it means being apart from his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter back in Dingle.
“That’s probably the hardest part of it all. I used to love going on the road and seeing new places but now it’s tough, but we talk every day – sometimes two or three times a day. Then it’s great when I get home.”
Fatherhood is “definitely beneficial” in terms of how he writes songs: “It opens your heart up a bit.”
Other Voices has also been a huge inspiration for the band.
“When you see some of the biggest names in music walk through those doors – people like Amy Winehouse and Elbow and this endless list of heroes, in your hometown; that definitely had an effect on us.”
He says the huge response to his band’s music on the likes of YouTube, Spotify and iTunes has exceeded their expectations, while selling out the Olympia in Dublin was “a huge deal”.
So could he see the band playing the much larger 3Arena in Dublin before the year is out?
“We’ll see, man. Who knows? Just put it out there. We’ve got a crazy year ahead, I think.”
:: Walking On Cars play The Limelight in Belfast on Monday (doors 7pm, tickets £12). Everything This Way is out now on Virgin EMI.
