Biography
When three musicians grow up together, as neighbours, going to school, and generally enjoying a misspent youth in each other's company, the inevitable is bound to happen. Long time friends Kathy Snowe, Eamonn Doyle and Paul Doyle did all that, and from time to time over the years played in bands together. Occasionally they had discussed doing something musically, but it wasn't 'til late 2005 that the decision was made to come together and form SnowDial.
Paul had just finished a degree in film studies in the UK, and had been doing some touring in Europe with Eamonn on a project that was about to come to an end, and Kathy, now a music teacher, had been off in the U.S. playing around Boston and Hartford's coffee houses… It's getting into mid-twenties time folks…about the time where people's rock and roll dreams start to die if they're not careful. But the dreams weren't dead yet and there was time to give it one last shot. They decided to get together, write some stuff, play it out, if nothing happened, they'd call it quits. SnowDial was born.
The writing began, with Eamonn and Kathy making the rounds of Dublin's singer songwriter nights and unplugged sessions, testing the material out. Meanwhile the guys built their own rehearsal space and started working on the full arrangement of the new songs and generally finding their musical direction and the best way to get across the sound that was in their heads. Three piece bands have one common difficulty, and that's achieving a big sound. It can be done though, as some of the best acts in history have shown. Kathy first of all had to develop a style of playing that would deliver as much impact as possible, with only herself as a "lead" instrument, in much the same way for example The Edge had to…being able to at once provide meaty rhythm and distinctive lead lines. By working closely with Eamonn on bass to complement each other, they produce a solid and full musical backdrop which is driven by Paul's powerful style of drumming. They then added to that the sharing of vocal responsibilities at front of stage, with plenty of strong harmonies, and the occasional switch to Piano or acoustic guitar by Kathy for a change of pace.
Their influences are varied, and include Fleetwood Mac, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Carpenters, U2, The Who, Metallica and The Police, a broad mix from which to create original ideas.
Things quickly came together and in early 2006 all three were now out on stage, and on the strength of their shows, and using some live recordings from the Temple Bar Music Centre along with "Tonight", a 3 track demo recorded with Pete Baxter at Troy Horse, they starting to get a little notice from their peers. As the year went on, offers of support slots came from Irish acts like Delorentos, The Gorgeous Colours and The Immediate. It was then that they started to work with management partners Shimmy and Carlos at GigEvent and started to move towards their first release, which was also to be the first for their very own indie label "Cool Day Recordings". "In Your Head" came out in March 2007, and was very much a test release and an opportunity for the band and their team to work together properly for the first time. The single was recorded at Troy Horse, this time with the help of Mike O'Dowd, with a video from No Returns Films, and was generally very well received by those who managed to get their hands on a copy.
After a short break to write and rehearse new material SnowDial are back to live shows, while also devoting time to preparing their next release, on which they will once again be working with co-producer and engineer Mike O'Dowd, this time at the brand new Pay Dirt Studios. This next release will get the full digital distribution treatment, taking in iTunes, Sony Connect, Napster and more. The development of the label is also ongoing, with it's first signed act, and only it's second release being licensed to Nokia's online music service.
The Summer sees them hitting the indie festival circuit, making a conscious effort to play as many gigs outside of Dublin as they can manage, while preparing for some college shows, and a short UK tour for the Autumn…
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
