Speaking Bluntly

On the phone with Bobby and the Blunts, Friday 20 January 2023

Listen to this interview on the Waterford In Your Pocket Podcast (on Apple Podcasts, and on Spotify, and on Spreaker, and on iHeart, and Audible, and Podcast Addict, and on…)

Bobby and the Blunts are an energetic, humorous and downright funky four piece from Mullingar that brings the noise and puts a smile on the faces of every audience member with their uptempo and gripping jams. From driving rhythm guitar to the eponymous frontman’s stomping basslines to silky Stratocaster solos, Bobby and the Blunts raise the roof of every venue they grace, including Dublin’s Sin é and Whelan’s, two Electric Picnics as well as Waterford’s own Electric Avenue and Theatre Royal.

Their all-original material is certified modern funk classics with a progressive element as its often impossible to predict the turns tracks’ tempos will take, or the dramatic double stops the impeccably-rehearsed group pepper in.

Songs and performances zoom by all too soon as they fire through their catalogue of catchy tunes with practiced professionalism while casually and comfortable commanding the crowd.

Bobby and the Blunts are on the rise throughout Ireland’s hottest venues and leading festivals. They are set to return to Waterford on Saturday 28th January, performing at An Uisce Beatha. After the soundcheck for the Galway launch of The Dream Rotation Tour, the band spared some time to speak with Simmo:

Simmo: So the band, in alphabetical order by surname:
There’s Robert “Bobby” Arnold on bass guitar

Bobby: Hello hello hello

Simmo: Hello
We got Robbie Burzawa on Rhythm Guitar

Robbie: Ah you can pronounce my name! Yes that’s me

Simmo: I try

Robbie: Nice one

Simmo: We got Ben Mulligan on Lead Guitar

Ben: Yep

Simmo: And Stephen Shanley on Drums

Stephen: Yes thank you that’s me

Simmo: So, you know, some of your highlights would be playing live at Electric Picnic 2019 and 2022; you were in Whelan’s; Sin é on New Year’s; Belvedere House (that was a nice one); and Waterford’s own Theatre Royal.
So, firstly, how are ye getting on?

All: Yeah good yeah yeah

Bobby: We’re down in Galway at the minute, living the dream, sure we’re on tour now, having a blast. How are you Simmo?

Simmo: I’m very well. Yeah so you’re kicking off your Dream Rotation Tour; has it been long since you’ve been on the road?

Robbie: Summer, last time

Simmo: Oh wow, nice. Starting the year off right anyway

Bobby: Yeah

Ben: Yeah damn right, with a bang

Simmo: Okay, so what kind of bands or artists would ye consider influences on yere sound as a band? It’s a very funky configuration, personally I hear you know, The Meters, some kind of Cory Wong-style stuff, dynamically like a Red Hot Chili Peppers thing; so, are there any other influences?

Ben: I think we’re all a bit different

Bobby: Yeah yeah it’s like an accumulation of all our different tastes thrown into one band like, but Anderson .Paak would be another name to throw in there; Vulfpeck, all of them

Simmo: Yeah

Bobby: Who else, boys? I mean we all grew up listening to pop punk and stuff

Robbie: We’re all mad into funk but we all love

Ben: Muse and all that kind of stuff as well, Rage Against the Machine

Bobby: System of a Down

Ben: System of a Down, yeah, and then a lot of metal, and then like hip hop as well, and then funk, so it kinda blended into a weird mixture

Robbie: Funkadelic yeah yeah

Ben: Funkadelic as well yeah, big time

Simmo: Cool! Yeah you can definitely hear the heavy influence along with the smoother, funky side.
So when you formed Bobby and the Blunts, was that kind of, did you arrive at that gradually, or did you know now it’s time we want to do something funkier?

Ben: Emm it initially started with me, Stephen and Rob, I think we kinda all said we wanted to start a new project and we didn’t really know what was going on, and Robbie/Bobby, he was actually in a different band at the time, but he had a nickname…

So the story goes: he had a nickname called ‘Bobby Blunts’ and everyone was like “Aw Robbie you should name your band ‘Bobby and the Blunts’” and he was like “Nah nah nah” and I thought that was a great name for a band, so I was like “Right, do you mind if we call it ‘Bobby and the Blunts’?” and Bobby still wasn’t in the band at this point

Bobby: (laughs)

Stephen: It was just me, Rob and Ben playing, and then we kinda said sure Robbie wanted to play with us

Bobby: Me, Stephen and Ben have been playing together since we were kids anyway so we took Robbie under our wing

Simmo: Totally, yeah, actually in the line of my research I saw you guys were in a band called The Resurrection?

All: (laughs)

Bobby: Yeah we were! Ben is still in that band

Simmo: I was going to ask: so I know Scally had a record out last year, and, did you play on that?

Ben: Yeah I played on that record yeah

Bobby: We all played on it I think actually yeah we’re all on it

Ben: Oh yeah, we all did bits and pieces yeah

Me, Stephen and Rob have been playing together since we were about

Robbie: About ten years now I think

Bobby: Yeah ten years yeah

Simmo: Oh Wow

Ben: So we went through kinda…

Stephen: Every kinda phase possible

Ben: Yeah we always kinda played in different bands together, but once we started the Blunts we were kinda like okay this is going to be our kind of like drive towards it instead of playing other people’s stuff

Simmo: That’s awesome! You know it’s just like The Band itself, you know: you’re backing an artist but then you just cut your teeth, play together for years and then the chemistry is clearly there like

Bobby: Yeah well we’d hope so after doing it for a decade

Simmo: (laughs)

Ben: We can’t stand each other!

Bobby: We kill each other yeah

Ben: We love each other

Bobby: We love each other yeah

Stephen: We don’t say that because… that’s not cool

Simmo: So when you play a live show, what do you hope audiences get out of your live performance?

Robbie: They just get into it with us

Bobby: We hope they get really sweaty! They like to dance and have a good time and walk away from the gig going “Jaysus that was class”; that’s just kinda what we want to do because that’s the way we like to walk away from gigs ourselves

Ben: And kinda see like the fun element of it because we take the piss out of each other on stage, we have the craic like, it’s not a serious thing you know, there’s no like trying to be posey, we’re like having fun having the craic on stage and that can translate with the audience very well, they can see us just laughing and joking, and I think that makes people kinda feel that as well

Simmo: Definitely, definitely. I suppose there’s kind of always an interplay between… the crowd feeds off your energy, you feed off the crowd’s energy, until everyone, you know, has a great experience.
So I know you guys play a lot of shows with other Irish bands: of the other Irish contemporary bands you’re listening to or play with, what kind of groups are you interested in or what have you heard lately that was really inspiring?

Bobby: Well we’re with Adore in Galway tonight they’re a brilliant indie rock outfit like they’re brilliant and then the likes of -you can probably hear them in the background there a little bit sound-checking- and then Scustin as well they’re huge; Audible Chocolate

Robbie: We were on tour with Audible Chocolate last year

Ben: Obviously Backroad Smokers Club

Bobby: Yeah The Backroad Smokers Club from Waterford you probably know them

Simmo: Of course of course yeah.
Yeah no I saw you guys with Audible Chocolate, they were great, they were again, just very smooth

Ben: They’re savage

Simmo: Very tight, very tight group

Bobby: So good, yeah

Ben: We’d be big like, I know he’s not around as much but like Republic of Loose would’ve been a huge influence on us as well growing up so we definitely took a lot from that I think

Simmo: Cool, cool!
So I heard in an interview on The Empty Pockets Podcast that your songs might come together either through a jam or someone brings in a piece of a song and you work it out; that interview’s probably two years ago at this stage: has this process changed in the last couple of years? Or is that still like the secret to your success?

Stephen: I think it’s constantly changing like because we’re always like as a band you never want to do the same thing constantly and you’re always trying to make it better and do it better so you always try to think of different angles but I think we’ve tried loads of different things between recording stuff we send each other and that kinda thing and then you know that kind of stuff but we’re trying things differently like, we’re always doing that

Simmo: Cool yeah. I know funk is kinda you know there’s conventions to funk music, but have you written any songs that you wouldn’t consider suitable for Bobby and the Blunts and do ye put this out anywhere else currently, any side-projects?

Stephen: We’ve definitely binned songs or at least put songs on the backburner kind of thing because we don’t really know if they work or if we need to change them

Ben: We have songs or some parts of songs or some little riffs that are just sitting in the vault there for the last like two years and we might just bust it out in a jam maybe, we’ve done like Unconditional or something- we have a song that we wrote before, it’s a big kinda long epic one, but like it’s not funk at all it’s more like spacey ambient

Simmo: Cool!

Bobby: Bluesy, weird just weird stuff

Ben: We busted it out like as a jam once on a set but never really, yeah never released it, it’s not funky at all but again-

Bobby: There’s loads of stuff there, Simmo, it’s just all about forming it into one big ball you know?

Simmo: Oh for sure. And it’s funny because sometimes you know yeah you come up with a part of a song but you’ve got to let it bake for a while, and then you arrive at it later you know you grow and a year later you’re like “now’s the time to make that up”, you know?

Bobby: Yeah exactly buddy yeah

Simmo: Cool, so, Mullingar undeniably has a huge creative and live scene; so what can you tell me, this is probably for Stephen, what can you tell me about Tonic House Collective?

Stephen: Oh Jesus...

Well Tonic House Collective is like a band thing that I play with as well we do loads of stuff but it’s pretty much just all the musicians in Mullingar that’s where it came from, it came from an open mic that happens in town every Thursday for like years and pretty much all of us, that’s how me, Rob and Ben and even Robbie then as well got into kinda trying to play new songs and stuff so like, but that’s a band, an open kinda group band I play with that you know I do in town and the lads sit in as well and play, it’s just Mullingar’s fantastic for every musician just plays with each other and doesn’t mind, everybody’s good mates like there’s no competition, it’s savage for that to be fair

Simmo: Ah that’s the way it should be. And I suppose being a drummer, you’re always in demand: you know, everyone’s a guitarist but then you need a good drummer

Stephen: Yeah there’s definitely a lot of good drummers in Mullingar as well, there’s a good few of my mates that are good drummers in town as well so that’s the thing you know if one of the lads when we’re in the pub playing and they want to get up and play they’ll get up and play like, we’re all in it to have the craic together that’s the main thing and have a jam. Same as the lads said we’ve always done that. That’s how we I think write songs and we definitely came up with ideas for songs by the four of us just going in and jamming with other people and coming back to it and making something of it you know?

Simmo: Cool! So I have a question now for Robbie Burzawa: so I read you’re a guitar teacher at Mullingar Music School, and just wanna know how that’s going?

Robbie: Yeah it’s going great, I have loads of students and yeah I’ve moved onto ukulele now and bass as well. It’s definitely like opened up the way I look at guitar, just through the different instruments and stuff. Yeah it’s an eye opener anyway! But yeah it’s been going great.

Simmo: Sweet! Now for Mr Arnold: you’re obviously you know, you’re best-known as the bass-wielding co-front man, do you still play piano? I came across an old SoundCloud profile and there was a classical excerpt there.

Bobby: Oh wow! I dabble! I don’t play as much as I should but I like to dabble in it a little bit you know (laughs) I’m not very good at it really to be honest, Ben would be a better… look the main thing I play is on piano is probably Elvis… what’s the one The Villagers does?

Ben: Uh, ‘Wonder of You’

Bobby: Yeah ‘Wonder of You’ by Elvis

Simmo: Oh beautiful!

Bobby: I actually made that little thing that you found because I was trying to get into college and I said I’d try and do something and show them and see if they’d let me in, and I showed it to them in Ballyfermot but sure I ended up going to Brighton anyway

Simmo: Cool. I have a couple of questions for Ben now

Ben: Yeah

Simmo: So I you know we talked a little earlier that you were doing some session work, so aside from Scally, what other kind of music have you been playing on?

Ben: I’m in a group at the moment up in Dublin called Guud Grief as well, so there’s a guy basically, Mark Logan he runs Collective it’s like a film company up there he started a new group which is an interesting auld project, we’ve got a few releases that’ve just come out and nialler9 has been posting some stuff so it’s been going well and been just doing some session work with a few other bands around Dublin as well just because I studied in college in BIMM up there so just a few heads I worked with before kinda reached out so, yeah no it’s going well, bits and pieces

Simmo: Sweet sweet. So also I read you study fashion; can you tell me a bit about that?

Bobby: Ooh!

Ben: Yeah, studying fashion and then working as a stylist as well at the moment so kinda doing that part and part, but yeah we’re actually keeping busy with it now at the moment, did some stuff there with The Academic last month their music video and a few other, predominantly working with musicians and artists because I kinda wanna keep it in that vein anyways and keep it all connected

Simmo: Totally yeah

Ben: Trying to merge the two anyways but the lads have yet to style them properly but sure look we’ll get there

Simmo: (laughs)

And you know you seem like you’re stylish yourself when you appear on stage, personally I see a bit of Joe Perry, Keith Richards, dare I say Marc Boland[sic]; are there musical figures that inspire you fashion-wise? Or is it kinda two worlds colliding?

Ben: Ah yeah like Alex Turner would’ve been a great one for me. Harry Styles as well, he’s got cool style. But yeah no the shouts you said as well, I’ll take that (laughs), appreciate it thanks

Simmo: And in the course of my research I came across something else, you gotta tell me: what went down with the Bachelor Festival?

All: (laughs) Oh no!

Bobby: Bad man, you dirty dog Simmo!

Ben: This is like some Nardwuar stuff now! Yeah that kinda came about I was actually in a pub in Mullingar one night and I was drunk and a friend of mine was like something about the bachelor festival someone dropped out and I was like “Oh I’d do that for the craic” and they were like “Would you actually?” and I was like “Yeahhh I’d do that sure gwan” and he was like “The guy running it’s just over there” and I was like “Yeah grand!” so I went over to him like half-jarred and I was like “I’ll do the festival” and he was like “Would you actually?” and I was like “Yeahyeahyeah” and then forgot about it and then like he called me like a day or two later and he was like “Do you actually want to do this thing?” and I was like “Oh, ehh…Yeah! Yeah go on so”

So I did this f***ing Westmeath Bachelor Festival, played the guitar for Louis Walsh, I played like a Jimi Hendrix song and he turned to me and was like “And who is the artist again that you played?” and I was like “Yeah… Jimi Hendrix, Louis…” (laughs).
He was like “You’re very good, you should get a band around you”; I was like “Cheers, I’m intrigued but…” but yeah it was an experience! An experience, probably won’t do it again, but an experience.

Simmo: Ah well you’re a good sport anyway, cool.
So, sorry, back to the tour: so you’re kicking off The Dream Rotation Tour in Galway right after this interview it sounds, you’re performing two shows per week for the next month or so; how frequently do your personal lives and commitments permit ye to get out and perform live?

Stephen: It’s different for everybody I think

All: Yeah

Bobby: Luckily we all kinda have a nine-to-fiver like to pay the bills so we get to do this craic at the weekend which is an absolute bonus to our lives

Robbie: This is what we want to do really like this is all we wanna do

Bobby: We’re kinda just treating it as a holiday really you know like getting away together spending some time, rub a few shoulders shake a few hands kiss a few babies you know yourself

Robbie: This is serious this is serious stuff we’re serious musicians

Ben: Oh that too as well yeah, but we’re enjoying it we’re super grateful for it the fact we get to this like

Stephen: This is all we wanna do like

Ben: So we have like more lined up in the pipeline anyways but just getting to start off the year with this tour has been amazing, just a really exciting start

Bobby: More to come, hopefully

Ben: For sure

Simmo: Absolutely. Well it’ll be an action-packed start in Galway anyway, it’s always a fun night out

Ben: Definitely

Simmo: And you know you’ve played Waterford several times before; is it important to cultivate a following in each city? Even though like Ireland’s such a small place, does each location have a unique audience or unique scene, in your view?

Robbie: Yeah Waterford’s pretty, in my books anyway, it’s always the one that delivers, along with Mullingar and Dublin

Stephen: I love Waterford it’s one of my favourite places in the world

Ben: Yeah it’s a beautiful city

Stephen: I think the Backroad lads definitely helped us there as well, we have to give a big shout to them, they did a lot for us there

Ben: They’ve always been very good to us. But like it’s usually like, we usually get started working with a band and then that band would be from a certain area and then we build that connection with that band and that will just kinda have more love for that place because of that band as well if you get us

Bobby: In terms of crowds though you can’t bate a Mullingar crowd. Mullingar crowds are insane

Ben: Yeah (laughs)

Simmo: I’ll have to check it out for myself. So can you tell me a bit about the challenges of keeping active during all the lockdown stuff, performing online or live when you can? Like I saw you guys participate in uh You Can’t Always Get What You Want there was like 50+ musicians; does that help you keep the fire alive or was it a frustration? Like what was your experience?

Robbie: It was a bit of both I think, for me anyway. It’s just because you wanted to get out and play live shows and then you were just like constantly writing but you were writing to no end. It was just like usually you write stuff and then you go out on the road and try it out and see what people’s reaction is and there was just, I personally didn’t find any of that because we couldn’t play to anybody

Ben: Yeah

Bobby: Yeah we did a couple of livestreams over the COVID as well and one of the strangest experiences of that is when you finish a song like you expect to hear noise from anywhere but when you’re playing to an absolute empty room you don’t know whether you’ve done good or bad it’s just like the silence is definitely deafening. I don’t care I just need to hear something whether they boo or clap I don’t really mind

Simmo: For sure. Like the Belvedere House show was like a wonderful production but you know you must’ve just been hearing crickets or something; where there people in attendance at that?

Stephen: That was distracting of how amazing that was, we were just looking out at a lake the whole time. It was freezing but that was so cool

Ben: I remember I think that was the first livestream we did and we thought when we were asked to do it “Yeah it’ll be grand it’ll be a small production” and like seven or eight camera crew, this huge setup and then we did our first song or whatever and then that pause that Rob was talking about; and we were just kinda looking around and the cameraman just sorta looks up from the camera to look at us and be like “…go on”

Bobby (laughs) Yeah, “keep going”

Ben: And we were like “Oh right okay yeah yeah anyways!”

Stephen: No that was savage though

Robbie: Mark Bennett yeah, Mark Bennet did a great job there

Ben: Shout out to him. They’re all for charity as well I’m pretty sure wasn’t he?

All: Yeah

Ben: So fair play to Mark Bennett

Bobby: Cancer research or something like that I think it was?

Ben: Yeah. So we were lucky that we were around people, again like Mullingar that there was a lot of proactive musicians and like creatives to keep people like kinda motivated because I dunno personally for me I found it tough like just not being able to do that consistently and get out and play live so yeah it was tough but we’re here

Bobby: We’re back, we’re back baby

Ben: We’re live! We got through it

Simmo: That’s it, we all came through in the end.
So you know speaking of Belvedere House, also performing in Waterford’s historic Theatre Royal, but even Electric Picnic, like they’re quite diverse venues; do you think the funk energy translates when you’re in kind of a “posher” setting?

Bobby: (chuckles)

Stephen: It’s weird I think we just feel out of place probably a little bit

Bobby: Yeah yeah sometimes yeah

Stephen: But sometimes, once we start playing we’re just gonna do what we do and have the craic and enjoy it

Ben: Just give it regardless

Bobby: Yeah once they kinda figure out what we’re about and we figure out what they’re about we can meet in the middle there you know?

Ben: We did a gig before that was the opposite of posh once, in Mullingar actually, in Murray’s

All: Oh yeah (laughs)

Bobby: “You’re not a band you’re an orchestra!”

Ben: Yeah it wasn’t our usual crowd they were like let’s just say more, I dunno, GAA-orientated possibly I dunno, but like some lad shouted out like “What’s with all that orchestral music there?” and I was like “Ah yeah yeah”

Stephen: We were an instrumental band for a very long time

Ben: We still are…

Stephen: We still are you but know but we had no songs with words and some people just don’t understand that

Robbie: The comments were just…

Ben: Yeah they don’t get that

Stephen: Which, look, it is what it is, people are just into different stuff that’s cool

Bobby: We’ll get them though, we’ll get them

Ben: We just do what we do regardless of the fact like we’ve played packed crowds we’ve played to no crowds and still given it the same energy and I think that’s one thing I kinda pride us on that we do that regardless so: posh crowd, rough crowd, normal crowd, no crowd; it’s all the same

All: Yep

Simmo: It’s like ye say, it’s just the four of ye having fun with each other and you know, kinda what comes out of that. And I guess it’s kind of a bonus if you can freak out some minds as well you know, infect them with the groovy ideas

So do you guys have any resolutions for the new year? Any plans to tour more, appearing at any festivals? Or are you planning on going into the studio for anything?

Stephen: I think this tour obviously was a big thing that we were talking about at the end of 2022 and then you know we have definitely some releases that are on their way and a lot of stuff that is done that’s just in the works so there’s definitely a lot of stuff to come out this year and a lot of stuff that we’re really excited to show people and kind of

Bobby: Sure single’s coming out this month or next month?

Robbie: March, next month

All: Next month; March

Bobby: Next month yeah, March, ‘King of the Castle’, two singles

Stephen: Yep, single and a B-Side.

Ben: Last year we kinda sat on a few things, we were working away but this is the year that we’re kinda ready to release it so within the next few months we’ll be just hitting people with music, as much music as possible, so it’s going to be very exciting, very very exciting! And loads of gigs as well, so it’s going to be a great year for us

Simmo: Nice, I’m excited. I can’t wait to see ye in Waterford. Thank you very much for taking the time

All: Thank you Simmo appreciate it

Simmo: And rock it tonight I’m sure you’ll f***ing blow the roof off it.
Cool, thanks! Any other last words, anything you want to get out there? Do you want to shout out your social media or anything?

Bobby: “Bobby and the Blunts” everything: Bobby. And. The. Blunts.

Ben: Instagram; Facebook; LinkedIn… probably not

Bobby: RIP.ie

All: (laughs)

Simmo: I’m going to touch some wood

Ben: Yeah thanks. And thanks again so much

Stephen: Thank you for your very in-depth questions as well they’re savage

Bobby: Yeah brilliant questions, fantastic Simmo

Simmo: Thank you!

Do NOT miss Bobby and the Blunts live at Uisce Beatha, the Quay, Waterford on Saturday 28th January!

Follow the band on Facebook, Instagram, and listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and SoundCloud.