Galway trio Shark School are quickly establishing themselves as one of Ireland’s most ferocious new alternative acts, and with the announcement of their debut album 'Selachimorpha', they look ready to take that chaos to an even bigger stage.
Arriving alongside the blistering new single 'Don’t Trust A Man', the band’s latest chapter is loud, confrontational and impossible to ignore. Blending abrasive guitars, biting humour and raw emotional intensity, Shark School channel themes of identity, frustration and modern disillusionment into a sound that feels both cathartic and wildly unpredictable.
So with the new single out now, we sat down with them to find out more about their origins and what has been inspiring them most over the years.
-
What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
Peggy: For me it was the bass. I’d been playing guitar for a few years before I picked up the bass, but I knew it was for me as soon as I started playing it. I didn’t know a lot about the instrument so I learnt how to play alongside learning its place and role in a band, which was pretty cool.
Meg: Guitar; when I was about 3 or 4 my dad dusted off his old acoustic to play the postman pat theme song for me and I went absolutely feral. The idea that you could take something from the tv and play it in the real world blew my little mind.
Nora: Guitar the first time I heard Guitar being played in my house was from my brother‘s guitar teacher and he was playing I think three chords in a loop and I remember feeling this warm lifting feeling in my chest and I could not stop smiling no matter how hard I tried because of how happy that made me feel I will never forget that feeling and it’s what I get now when I gig and I play guitar it’s almost unexplainable but this is me trying to explain it.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
Peggy: My mum had a huge CD collection and I loved everything she had. Standouts were Paolo Nutini and LCD Soundsystem. I used to think Daft Punk Is Playing at My House was the funniest thing ever.
Meg: The first song i remember being really obsessed with was cosmic dancer by T-Rex. When I was really little it used to be on an ad for Ballygowan water I think? My dad noticed that I'd always go mad dancing when the ad was on so he brought me over to his Cd player and went 'I think you're going to like this...' , putting on his copy of electric warrior. I was absolutely ecstatic that there was MORE of this incredible music and the world felt huge to me.
Nora: From day one what caught my heart and my soul was loud loud music where the guitars sounded like earthquakes and the voices sounded like they could convey the feelings of frustration that this life brings.
What was the first album you remember owning?
Peggy: Hozier’s debut album. I was camping with my family in Kerry when it came out and it was the only thing we listened to in the car.
Meg: I think it was something by green day? It was a short lived love of that band but I was so proud to physically own music.
Nora: The first album that I owned was heart under by just Mustard I remember buying it in bunker vinyl in Cork and when I got home I listened to it for three days over and over again in my room and I was just in awe of the sound that they created with that record.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
Peggy: Me And The Girls by Amyl and the Sniffers.
Meg: I'm sure there's millions, but at the moment I'm obsessed with the songwriting of Thawing Dawn by A. Savage. He's able to communicate feelings and moments so beautifully but so concisely in a way I really admire and struggle to do.
Nora: Bull believer by Wednesday every time I hear that song I get goosebumps and I have heard it a lot of times, a lot of times.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
Peggy: I like to go watch other bands. It always inspires me. Or I go for a long walk.
Meg: Getting very lost in my thoughts until it feels resolved, and not being super aware of the world around me, just kind of passing through.
Nora: Emotional turmoil.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
Peggy: Die Spitz, Babe Haven, Rua Rí and The Prodigy
Meg: Fiona apple, tropical fuck storm and Hayley Williams.
Nora: At the moment, I have found myself listening to a lot of a lot of mannequin pussy and crumb I have also been really getting into watching live videos of Die spitz! Any loud rock ‘n’ roll music to scratch that itch of silence of my brain.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
Peggy: Die Spitz pleeasssseeeee notice us Die Spitz
Meg: Toss up between patti smith and King gizzard and the lizard wizard.
Nora: Lambrini girls or Die spitz please!
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
Peggy: The connection you can make with people. I’ve met some of my best friends by seeing them at the gigs or sharing stages with them and I’m really grateful for that.
Meg: Hitting a flow state at a live show has got to be the best feeling. And it's with your best buds!
Nora: For me, it has to be the people as before I found music I was very alone and now I have so many friends who I love and adore, thank you music.
And what is the most frustrating part?
Peggy: Writer’s block drives me crazy.
Meg: That money has to be involved with music at all. I hate seeing music as content or a product, it sucks the life out of it.
Nora: The most frustrating part has to be the fact that it’s not really respected as a career and you’re not really paid a living wage even though you spend every waking moment working and thinking and worrying about it.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
Peggy: Elaine Malone told us once that if we’re on tour or in a green room and you see a piece of fruit eat it immediately.
Meg: That you shouldn't want anyone to hear you when you're practicing, cause if you do, you're not pushing hard enough.
Nora: If you are on tour and you see fruit eat it, Elaine Malone give us this advice and we have taken it to her because we do not want to get scurvy that would suck.
-
Shark School's new single 'Don't Trust A Man' is out now. Check it out in the player below.