KERBDOG Celebrate 30th Anniversary of self-titled Debut Album
Cult Irish Alt-Heavy Rock quartet Kerbdog are set to perform their self-titled debut album 'Kerbdog' in its entirety at Cyprus Avenue this September.
Hailing from Kilkenny, the legendary band which include – Cormac Battle (guitar/vocals), Colin Fennelly (bass), Billy Dalton (guitar) and Darragh Butler (drums) are excited to be bringing their sensational heavyweight sounds to their loyal fans who’ve “supported us from the beginning” says Battle.
Following on from their SOLD OUT Irish and UK tour last year, Kerbdog are back on the road to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1994 debut self-titled album “Kerbdog” this year and will be entertaining eager alt-rock audiences as they play the album its entirety at each headline show.
Kerbdog rapidly rose to fame in the mid-90s with and were set to rock the world with their eardrum battering melodies which were a clash of indie and metal. Battle’s songwriting nous married with simple, dropped D riffs with a pop sensibility had A&R managers from around the world seeking to sign the band. They relocated to London and signed with Mercury Records and the four decamped in the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales to record their debut album with Jack Endino, the producer responsible for Nirvana’s debut Bleach.
“We were fans of that album, but we enlisted him after we’d heard what he’d done on Push, an album by a little-known Seattle band called Gruntruck,” says Battle. “We went to the studio where Queen did Bohemian Rhapsody and worked very hard on the album and put in the hours. Brazilian metal titans Sepultura were recording there at the same time and we could hear their album Chaos AD coming together. I think some of what they were doing seeped into what we were doing. It made the record heavier and chunkier than we intended, but we were happy with the results.”
Their 1993 eponymous debut was impressive enough and spawned four singles, hitting a sweet spot in a Venn diagram marked metal and grunge. Their follow-up, On The Turn, saw the band truly find their feet, and they spent the full summer of 1995 in Los Angeles in the legendary Sound City Studios and A&M Studios working hard to craft their next set of hit singles with producer Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine).
Unfortunately, Kerbdog were unlucky with timing and after an unbelievable summer in LA and a potential hit record waiting to be released, their return to Ireland saw fate conspire against them. Their album was delayed and when it was released in 1997, mainstream music press' attention had moved on from alternative rock to Britpop. Their momentum was lost and effectively changed the trajectory of the band which struggled to fill venues and resulted in the then trio parting ways. “To cut a very long story short, On The Turn was the right album at the wrong time,” says Battle.
Kerbdog’s loyal fans however have kept the faith over the decades and fans of alternative rock who had bought their albums, raved about their music with an evangelistic vigour. The band became a cult concern years after the fact, thanks largely to that second album. Although the band split in 1998, they reunited in the mid-2000s for several live shows which resulted in the 2014 live album Congregation.
Their sold-out tour of the UK and Ireland in 2023 was a huge success and the foursome now look forward to selling out headline shows across Ireland in 2024.