Superman spends his working hours dressed down as Clark Kent, earning a tidy wage as a reporter, while Peter Parker has to busy himself taking snaps before he can assume his role as Spiderman. To that end, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the lead singer of Melbourne’s own The Ramshackle Army, Gaz Byrne, has something to keep him occupied when he’s not out fronting one of the most crushing Celtic punk bands around.
“I’m super corporate, which is exactly what you would expect from a punk lead singer, right?” he laughs. “I’ve got a national sales role for a tech company. Music is definitely the outlet though. Because everyone knows that that’s where the money’s at: in the Australian music industry. Particularly for Celtic punk bands.”
Byrne is joking, but while it’s true that he might not have any chart-topping records to his name, he’s certainly courting his own ample amount of success and acclaim. The Ramshackle Army have recently dropped their new EP, Whitewashed Graves, and though it’s early days for the record, the reception from the press has already been strong. Indeed, the band were recently named home grown artist of the week over on Triple M, and their single Foreign Soil is currently featuring on heavy rotation across local radio.
For Byrne, all this success is a long time coming, and it’s been his dream for many years to make music professionally. “Music has always been something I’ve grown up with,” he says. “I got into punk in the early to mid ‘90s before getting into Celtic punk later. I joined a couple of bands after that and then moved on to join The Ramshackle Army about six years ago.
“It’s been awesome. It’s taken us to a lot of places we didn’t expect to go and a lot of stages we wouldn’t have been able to play if we were a hardcore or a straight punk band.”
Not that the six years have been exactly easy mind you, and even Byrne’s initiation to the group was born out of a misunderstanding. “I actually joined the band when they put out an ad for a folk-punk singer,” he says. “I was thinking more the Against Me! style, more acoustic punk, but then when I got there they were all Celtic style. I was like, ‘Oh. This is a bit different.’ ”
Back then, the band were, believe it or not, pirate-themed, and went by the name The Hornswagglers. Before long however, a lineup change altered both the group’s personnel and their sound, and soon they were wholly embracing their Gaelic roots and releasing the thrashing, melodic punk that now defines them.
Such a change was well-needed as far as Byrne is concerned. He argues that the band’s multi-genre approach has opened doors for them – certainly more doors than if they’d stuck with their swashbuckling roots – and he reckons the nature of their songs makes them accessible in a way few hardcore acts are. “We’ve all come from different influences, but given we are punk and a bit rock and maybe even a little folk, one day we’ll find ourselves supporting a punk band and the next time we’ll be playing Port Fairy Folk Festival,” he says. “It’s opened up all these different markets, which means we can go and find ourselves on the road a little more.”
That does also mean that the band sometimes find themselves playing for audiences who mightn’t be well-versed in Gaelic punk, but Byrne says such variety is all part of the fun. “You get a few more circle pits open up in a punk show than when you play a folk festival,” he says.
“Although I have to admit, we played Illawara Folk Festival once and the band before us were all pretty chilled out. When we came to the stage there were nanas sitting in the front row. They got up and left very quickly while the kids who’d all been outside came in and listened. That was the first time we ever had a pit go at a folk festival. That was a bucket list tick for me.”
By Joseph Earp
