Interview by Kris Peters
After a long hibernation during which time the future of the band was uncertain, Northern Irish rock outfit The Answer are back, and, as the saying goes, are back with a vengeance.
But this time that phrase isn't just bandied about as an expression. It is a welcome fact.
After stepping back from all things to do with The Answer last decade, the members were finally coaxed back into music after being contacted by Golden Robert Records founder Mark Alexander-Erber who is a massive fan of the band and talked them into making their seventh studio album.
When the band convened at Middlefarm Studios last year it was the first time they had been together in a studio since 2015. It was a milestone that could have gone either way but thankfully for the music world at large it fell the way of creativity and thus the seeds of Sundowners were sewn.
Guitarist Paul Mahon joined HEAVY on the eve of Sundowners' March 17 release to fill in the blanks. We start by mentioning that after a seven year lay off the impending release of Sundowners must almost feel like the band's debut album all over again.
"It does a bit," he nodded. "It definitely reminds us of back in 2005 with our first record Rise. I think having that much of a break everyone was re-energised and really excited to get going again and we couldn't have had any more fun in the studio doing it."
Sundowners is a beast of a rock album, harking back to the glory days of the genre, but we press Mahon on the musical make-up of the music and what The Answer was going for on the album.
"We made six albums before that and then having that break we kind of had a chance to be very objective and remove ourselves from the band completely for a while," he said. "When we stopped I wasn't sure if we were gonna come back and make another record so I was kind of in the mindset that I was no longer in The Answer and it gave me a fresh perspective on what we've done before and what I really liked about it and what I wanted to do for the chance again. There's some back to basics rock and roll which got us excited in the first place. We used that as the template to get going again. We wrote it in a much different way than usual, because we started with not seeing each other for a few years so it was quite different to get going again. I think we had maybe two or three sessions writing and demoing together before COVID hit us and then that put a spanner in the works. I wasn't sure when we were gonna finish it or when we could get in the studio and we would just write once a week on zoom where we would exchange ideas then go off and work on them individually. In the Summer of 2020 we got together and demoed the stuff we'd been working on and then we didn't see each other for another year and did the same thing and then went in the studio. I think it made the songs more focussed; a bit simpler in some aspects where we might have overcomplicated things before."
In the full interview, Paul talks more about the time away from the band, what changed to make them try again, releasing Sundowners on Saint Patricks Day, how it felt coming together in the studio after so long, their first gig back at last years Planet Rockstock, their upcoming shows and what to expect and more.