Please no more theme restaurants to eat as fun
it's only meat in a bun
...... Please no more huge traffic jams
The day is coming when the car will be king
Raise your glasses
Let the peasants walk
They won't feel a thing
Get Up

The past eighteen months have seen many attitudes towards Sack change from that of a fine live act who may have just missed the bus to being viewed as serious contenders in a bigger arena than their home town. However, the above lyrics testify that despite critical acclaim and impending commercial success, they have yet to become immersed in the glitzy mire of showbiz and are too aware of the world around them to ignore it.

Much of this new found interest in the Dublin 5 piece is due to the success of their second album The Butterfly Effect which saw Sack up against U2 and David Holmes in the running for Best Irish Album title at 1998's Hot Press awards while the single Laughter Lines received constant airplay on MTV before gracing the Irish charts. The same bitter sweet ballad has also found it way onto the soundtrack of the Hollywood horror flick Carrie 2.

Right now, it seems that Sack have brought their own prickly mixture of guitar-based, infectious hooklines into the ring and are ready to rumble with the big boys. Meanwhile guitarist and songwriter John Brerton finds that although things have changed for this band, little else in the world outside of music has.

"I think that song writing is a great forum for expression without having to ram views down people's throats. That song Get Up which I reckon will form a core part of the next record is actually a personal song about all my gripes with the world of today. For example, take the story about that woman in America who sued the tobacco company for millions. She's still smoking after being diagnosed as having cancer from cigarettes. That's just ridiculous. People do have choices to do things or not. You don't have to accept the world the way it is and you can change things."

"Recently there was a protest march through the centre of Dublin calling for the imprisonment of the corrupt politicians and officials we've had to put up with. There were only 250 people on it. That night thousands of people turned out to watch fireworks. Can you imagine the knock-on effect if all of those people took to the streets in protest about the state of things? But it's safe to say that there will never be that kind of revolution in Ireland because the Irish are so blasé about everything. We love to complain in the pubs all right, but that's about it."

Sum and substance of their first album, 1994's You Are What You Eat was of a political nature, in it's purest sense, with early singles such as Indian Rope Trick taking on the underhanded scapegoat mentality of governments and large corporations, while What Did The Christians Ever Do For Us? questioned the integrity of organised religions with irreverent wit and sharp walls of sound that kicked holes in all senses. But, having such content in songs can give rise to all sorts of interpretation, as Brerton found during a press conference at the MIDEM '99 festival in Cannes.

"The whole press conference thing was very surreal. It's interesting being put on the spot, but of course, with us being Irish, people assumed that the word 'political' meant one thing and one thing only! I made the point that in my view, The Cranberries song about the Northern troubles, Zombie was a very misplaced sentiment and with a lot of things that got lost in translation it somehow was interpreted as 'We hate The Cranberries!!' Maybe they heard about the whole Irish begrudgery thing and assumed we were like that, expecting a Blur vs. Oasis type rant."

The Butterfly Effect

saw a departure of sorts, with singer Martin McCann taking the reins on mellower songs of a more personal nature such as Laughter Lines and Sunny Day allowing his crystal clear vocals to bloom in a space somewhere between The Beautiful South's Paul Heaton and ex-Smith and avid Sack fan Morrissey. The material which has emerged since it's release appears to be a mixture of styles, both lyrically and musically.

"The new songs are really strong, very much vocally led and the backing is even more musical than on The Butterfly Effect. Everyone's really buzzed up about it. We moved away from the simple guitar band thing using French horns and strings when demoing them, but wrote them with a view to cutting it as a five piece live."

"I have a song about technology and my total lack of knowledge of the whole thing. Computers and the internet are great as information tools, but I'm not into the idea of kids sitting in front of computers all day. Like television it can be used by lazy parents as a method of keeping their children in line. I think kids need to climb trees and dirty their knees once in a while."

While they gleaned much attention at the MIDEM festival, Sack displayed a different angle to the usual blistering material by performing an unexpected acoustic set with surprising results. "It was totally landed on us. We only found out that it was going to be an acoustic set a couple of weeks before we went. So we thought, we can stay at home or get stuck in and try it out. Fortunately it suited the new stuff as well as songs like Latitude and Angel down to the ground because they were so melodic. But while we were at it we tried it out on a real noisy stomper like Colorado Springs from the first album and did a slowed down sleazy, swampy version with bottle-neck guitar. It worked out great and because Martin didn't have to contend with the sound of a full live band, he really came into his own as the charismatic front man that he is - he was Mr Entertainer. The whole place just hushed when he stood there and started to sing."

Following a couple of years spent touring the length and breadth of the UK, Sack returned to the fray in the Autumn of 1997 to a climate of teen acts and tribute bands that littered the live circuit providing singalongs of all sorts for a world that was more than ever in love with the familiar. So how did they see themselves in such a world?

"We've never been part of any particular scene, so we just carried on as normal. To me, real girl power gave us acts like PJ Harvey and Beth Orton, so it was good in that sense. But, if you were to think too much about the bubblegum boy-band or girl-power thing, you'd be really bitter and twisted. There'll always be that kind of pop music and anyway, who's going to remember the Billie album in ten years time?"

For this quintet whose animated front man spells out the words 'stage presence' in bold capitals, their churning live sets of sudden stops played with reckless abandon, have established them as one of the most interesting acts around. To quote their new single, "though nothing's changed, a sunny day will put that smile back on your face." Right now, they seem to have plenty to smile about.

Sack's new double A-side single A Sunny Day / Angel, is available on their own Sack label. See gig guide for details.