For those of us who might remember their single The Business Enterprise (My Friend John) from the early 1980s, it is hard to believe that it has taken 40 years for Sligo’s Those Nervous Animals to record their first complete studio album!
Those Nervous Animals, who started making music together in 1981, will release the album The Mission Sessions in March, preceded by the re-release of The Business Enterprise (My Friend John) tomorrow.
The Mission Sessions will consist of songs from the early days and from every decade since, including the most recent material recorded remotely during the first Covid-19 lockdown of 2020.
The core band consists of singer and instrumentalist Barry Brennan, bassist and arranger Eddie Lee and guitarist and songwriter Pádraig Meehan. On this project they are joined by Susan Rowland on vocals and by percussionist/sound engineer/drummer Tom Jamieson.
The Mission Sessions refers to a Georgian house in Union Place, Sligo (nicknamed ‘The Mission’), where the very earliest rehearsals were held and where some band members lived as students for a period in the 1980’s.
The area of Union Place was one of Sligo’s most charming quarters, lying between the railway station and Sligo docks, beside the Harper Campbell warehouses and the site of a bicycle factory. The house – and entire historic neighbourhood – was lost to the new inner relief road at the turn of the 21st century.
Those Nervous Animals were just a little bit unusual among new Irish bands of the 1980’s: they mixed blue-eyed soul, funk and indie. Producer Bill Whelan, excited by the band’s audacious approach (and assisted by engineer Philip Begley), helped shape the adventurous arrangements of TNA into something more radio-friendly, giving rise to two singles, Just What the Sucker Wanted and The Business Enterprise (My Friend John) between 1983 and 1984.
A spate of sell-out gigs, major festival appearances, a mini-album (Hyperspace!), a couple more singles and huge music industry interest followed.
Producers Donal Lunny and Nicky Ryan also worked with the band. Donal produced Damien in 1986 and around the same time Nicky worked on the first demo of He Can’t Resist a Mystery.
Over the decades that followed the band members pursued various other paths, occasionally coming together for one-off gigs and – in the early 1990’s – a tour and single, Rocket Ship.
Again in the early 2000s came a new set of Those Nervous Animals’ recordings and shows, including work with keyboardist and producer Trevor Knight.
In early 2020 the worldwide pandemic and subsequent lockdown found Those Nervous Animals in both a retrospective and a very contemporary mood. so the songs on The Mission Sessions unconsciously capture a changing Ireland over four decades.
To meld diverse elements and sounds from across the decades, the group enlisted the help of American-based mastering engineer David Glasser, whose work includes the restoration of materials from the birth of sound recording for the Smithsonian Folkways’ collection and also The Grateful Dead back catalogue.
The most recent recordings feature many familiar elements for people who know the work of the band, featuring the vocals of Barry and Susan, Pádraig Meehan on guitar and Eddie Lee on bass.
Tom Jamieson is on drumming duties and Seamie McGowan plays guitar. Nichola MacEvilly (vocals) contributes to the new recordings as does ex-David Bowie sideman Gerry Leonard on Transatlantic guitar and mixing duties.
The artwork for the album was done by a team consisting of designer Niall McCormack and Maria Murray, who designed the original …My Friend John single cover.
