Get that wasp off my sandwich

The Saw Doctors smashed into the charts at number one in 2008 with their version of About You Now leaving new releases from bands such as Kings of Leon and Snow Patrol trailing in their wake. Yet it’s the modesty and down to earth nature of The Saw Doctors that really makes them a gem. “You have to laugh, that’s just a bit of a craic really, the best thing about that song was it got us in the public eye again. It made other people realise we were still around and you need that every now and again.”

It was an appearance on RTE’s The Podge and Rodge show that led to them accidently discovering that they had a potential hit on their hands. “We got the rocking roulette on Podge and Rodge, so we did the song and got a really amazing reaction to that on television. It was the most popular reaction I’d say we ever got from being on a television spot so it was kind of obvious that it’d have a good chance if we did it as a single, it’s a great song.”

The Saw Doctors first burst onto the Irish music scene in 1986 and since then have gone from strength to strength building up a steady and loyal fan base across the world. The creation of the band name came about when the boss at the local saw mills called a guy a “saw doctor” in order to motivate him. “It had a kind of a ring to it for some reason, I’m not sure why, but it stuck.”

2008 saw a very eventful year unfold for The Saw Doctors, yet for a band used to playing at sell out gigs across Ireland, Britain and the US while still managing to remain hidden from the watchful eye of the mainstream media, awards were the last thing on their minds. So when they found themselves being awarded the Meteor lifetime achievement award they were more than a little shocked.

“Wow yeah, it was a funny one. When you hear it, it sounds like you’re dying but then you realise that the other people who received it before are all well and happy and still doing good things. It was a much appreciated piece of recognition from the industry, as I’ve said before we often seem to operate in our own little world where we’re not fully in tune with the music business as such, but for the industry to give as an award like that it meant we must have been doing something that they noticed.”

While many bands are in some ways hugely affected by the changing tides of the music industry this has never been the case with The Saw Doctors. “We’re outside it all a bit really because we’ve been our own record company for a long time now. Just doing our own thing and making our own albums, so really the changes that have happened over the years haven’t affected us a huge amount except other than the internet of course. It’s fantastic now that you can record a song or a video and people over in New Zealand can see it in Ireland where once when you got to record a song and put it out you were really stuck to a much more limited audience, now you can have a worldwide audience.”

“I think it’s brilliant for young bands as it means they can record cheaply and publicise themselves cheaply. That’s a very big thing and that would be the most major change for us other than that it’s been the same.”

To categorise the age group that follow the band would be impossible. Few bands appeal to such a wide audience and this is the everlasting attraction of The Saw Doctors - their ability to captivate the musical interests of a seven year old right up to those in their late 70s.

“We’re delighted to appeal to such a wide audience. It’s not something we designed. We wrote the songs and we went out and played them and we didn’t really aim at any particular audience so the fact that it brings in a whole other age group and different people is great, we’re just delighted.”

“I have footage of people coming into a gig over in America and there’s four generations of the same family going into the show. We really feed off the audience and the energy we get off people when we start playing, that’s what keeps us going.”

For the last two decades The Saw Doctors have prided themselves on writing their own music from songs about football to songs about being penniless to songs about driving home along the N17 “Stone walls and the grass is green…”. Their music never fails to captivate; it stirs up a sense of patriotism in its listeners which is probably why the band continues to play at sell out gigs across the world.

When it comes to finding that all important inspiration Leo Moran says “You never know where it will come from, you just have to try and make yourself receptive to different ideas and then hopefully they land on your shoulder and you make something of them. We write a lot of songs, they don’t all work but we write enough of them so some work and people like them, and we get to play them over the years and they seem to be worthwhile whatever that is, it’s very hard to define. As I said you write a lot of songs and you never know which ones are going to be the ones which connect with people.”

Another much-loved characteristic of The Saw Doctors is their originality, the rawness of their live performances is something which just cannot be recreated on CD, they really are a band that has to be seen live to be truly appreciated. Yet despite numerous sell-out gigs and a continuously growing fan base The Saw Doctors never forget their roots. That’s what keeps them all so well grounded; their humble nature is part of their everlasting appeal in a music industry which has become all the more driven by arrogance and profit.

The Saw Doctors are a safe haven where the art of live performances has been truly perfected. It’s music you can completely immerse yourself in.

“I don’t know, we’re just a band that played a few songs that people liked; that’s the way I see it.”