"Rehearsal" An interview with CORRUPTED in the rehearsal room. It was the 10th of June, 2001 and I thought someone had put me in charge of Dublin without telling me. First of all, this guy with an English accent walks up to me and says: "Can you tell me where the train station is?" Then a fella carrying a shoulder-bag rushes over and says: "What time is it please?" Finally, a tall, thin countryman joins me in the queue and says "What's the story with that bus?" Feck it. I thought City Manager's job paid better than this. I'd spent the morning interviewing CORRUPTED in the Underground Rehearsal Studios, where they practise, compose, rehearse for six hours every Sunday. I suppose, like many people, my idea of how a studio must look was shaped by watching MTV Rockumentaries of big-name bands making big-time records in record-label facilities. CORRUPTED's reality is a little different. The room was down a flight and a half of stairs in a basement, and their first comment of the day to me was that they were surprised the walls and ceiling had been given a fresh coat of plaster. Apparently the 12' x 9' room had looked different only the week before.

The room was not elegant, but it was perfectly functional, ideal for its purpose. A shabby, incomplete Pearl drumkit occupied one corner, and amps were spaced neatly about two of the walls. The lads shambled in, some obviously the worse for wear after Saturday night. Antony busied himself assembling the rest of the kit, shaking his head critically from time to time. He reached into pockets and bags, taking out nuts and bits and pieces. I said he must have had a Mecanno set when he was a kid. He grinned and demonstrated how to make up for missing pads and plates on the cymbal stands, hanging his own cymbals carefully. At £1,000 the set, he wasn't taking chances of maybe damaging them.

There were frequent disappearances to the garage to buy munchies. Scooby sat mournfully on an amp, peeling back the clingfilm from a salad roll. "Breakfast", he said. Then, out of the blue: "I put my hand in puke last night as I was rolling a cigarette." The room erupted in laughter. "I didn't know what it was at first. Then I smelt my hand." Then: "Hope I don't puke this up."

When everyone was at least in the same room (which took a while), I asked CORRUPTED about the May 24th BLAST gig, the upcoming appearance in support of MAEL MORDHA in Eamonn Dorans, and about their CD.

BLAST seemed to go well from where I was... How did it seem from up there [on stage]?

D.G.: [The guys giving out stuff before CORRUPTED's set] basically cut into our gig. We lost about ten or fifteen minutes because of that... That's two, maybe three songs... (Or one Circles of Nine!) [Laughs] The only real problem with the time, though, was the soundcheck. There was a British band over and they took, literally, an hour-and-a-half to two hours... They had a drum machine..."

Antony: "...synthesisers, keyboards..."

D.G.: "...a computer doing samples. Rob Stephenson had gone off that [morning], and normally he's there saying, like 'Get on. Get off.' And they just sat there."

Performance-wise, how do you think it went?

Morgan: "I think it turned out alright."

D.G.: "Except I started off playing the Oddball riff, when I should have been playing Preacher. So I'm there going 'Shit! How does it go...?' " [Laughs]

Antony: "It's a pity now, like for the people who came there that we couldn't perform more, like..."

D.G.: "We were only, like, getting into it..."

You debuted your new song, "In the Garden". How did that go?

Antony: "Very well...."

D.G.: "Yeah. In the Garden was fuckin' deadly, wasn't it?"

Morgan: "I started rewriting that as well... It's got a new chorus and everything, so it's going to be different the next times..."

So the general consensus is that the last BLAST was good? Looking forward to the next one?

Antony: "Yeah. SPINDRIFT will be coming down from the North to hang out with us [at BLAST]. We're playing up there in Belfast in August... maybe two or three dates.

A Belfast gig would be your first one outside Dublin.

Antony: "Yes. It's going to be more or less confirmed..."

Scooby: "They're coming down to see us. Anto was talking to Jennifer, their manager..."

Are you going to be playing the same set at Eamonn Doran's?

D.G.: "Naw. We're going to make it a whole lot heavier."

Morgan: "We'll be playing three new songs: Born of Dust... and a lament I've been playing around with."

Scooby: " and one SEPULTURA cover..."

Its been a while since you last played in a pub setting...

Morgan: "Yeah, it has been...."

Scooby: "The Gasworks was our last one..."

D.G.: "This is going to be mad though, cos we have to get a real heavy set going. The people that are going... a lot of them are in bands... Death Metal, Black Metal heads, you know...?"

Antony: "They'll all be over-age people... You can see the difference. There'll be no pit or anything. They'll just be sitting there, having a pint..."

D.G.: "The stage is smaller as well..."

Emmet: "It's not bad. It's a lot bigger than the Gasworks."

Antony: "It's going to be a bit awkward, because we're going to have to put the drums and the amps on one side of the stage so we don't all blast Morgan out of it when we're playing."

Is there any extra rehearsal going on at the moment in advance of the CD?

Antony: "There will be, definitely. Just waiting to get the exams over... they're over this week. The usual six hours each Sunday and hopefully some mid-week. We have [the songs] polished, but there's always the tendency to get a bit lazy in between gigs."

Obviously your energies are a bit divided at the moment then, with gigs coming up and the CD going to be recorded. Is it possible to juggle gigging with recording? D.G.: "No. That's why we changed the recording date to the 2nd of July. We were going to try to fit it in between the two gigs, but we just said we'd have stressed heads on us. Then the gig in BLAST would be crap..." Antony: "We all decided we wanted to have clear thoughts going in and get the job done." D.G.: "They're going to be ten hour days."

Where are you recording?

D.G.: "Trackmix, in Clonsilla."

You've settled on a list then for the CD. Can you just name those, for the record?

Antony: "The first one is Devil's Breath. The second one is Goregasm. Then the two new ones... In the Garden is track three. Then Born of Dust. We haven't decided yet on a fifth track..."

Who's doing the CD artwork?

Antony: "A friend of ours, called Paul Duffy. He's trying to set up his own business... He works for Marvel Comics..."

Any idea of the sale price of the CD, and when it'll be available?

D.G.: "Probably six or seven quid. "

Scooby: "End of July."

Anything to add?

Morgan: "Buy our CD, or we're coming after you!"

I thanked CORRUPTED and gathered up my gear. As soon as the tape stopped rolling, Antony started beating the drums. D.G. and Emmet played away confidently. Scooby fiddled with a loose battery in his guitar pedal until he was satisfied it was working. Morgan disappeared to the shop. They'd spent a half hour setting up, another talking to me. Five hours of practise to go. I waved goodbye and started up the stairs, heading for the bustop and my new job as City Manager.

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