We sit down with the Dublin trio in the wake of the release of their second album 'Go Mutant'.
Words and Photo: Magnus Crawshaw
Search Results strike me as interesting men who aren't fussed to be seen as interesting. They have no interest in self-mythologising or crafting an image – their only craft is their music. No doubt like many reading this piece, I attended Wide Awake Festival in 2023. Amongst the dazzling headliners, including Caroline Polachek to Alex G, was a little-known Dublin band called Search Results. They stood on stage with an air introverted modesty, their aged suit trousers as high-waisted as their guitars high-chested, looking like the homeschooled offspring of an old County Sligo farmer quietly living a subsistence way of life on his isolated homestead, raising his children on mutton and aphorisms derived from Yeats. Imagine my surprise when they exploded into a chaotic, analogue and extremely tight blend of power pop, noise pop and post-punk.
Search Results sound like a pocket-sized Sonic Youth, with the insular, tinny, DIY poppiness of Teenage Fanclub. Their most recent album, 'Go Mutant', sounded like a lost early Creation Records cassette. Its target demographic is the year 1987, aimed at 15-year-old boys with pudding-bowl haircuts, Walkman in hand on the bus to school. Search Results' presentation shows a notable lack of pretension: a subdued technicolour blend of indie through the years, borrowing from the '80s Rough Trade and C86 reimagining of the '60s folk rock lookbook.
In some ways, little has changed since this wide-eyed writer saw the group two years ago: Search Results are still fiercely independent and DIY, still celebrating grassroots venue culture, still producing their brand of timeless, fuzzed-out punk. If the three Search Results – Fionn Brennan (guitar), Jack Condon (drums), and Adam Hoban (bass) – haven't been changed much by their growing cult status, the world around them certainly has. The detached sprechgesang of 2019 has been replaced by emotional melodic delivery; the underground culture they love faces renewed challenges; their native Dublin music scene has been propelled to international commercial success by the Holy Trinity of Fontaines, CMAT, Kneecap. So I start with a soft ball…
We live in a time when Ireland's cultural exports seem more ubiquitous than ever. Do you think this is part of a long-held appreciation of Irish culture, or do you think it risks fetishisation or simplification of Ireland in 2025?
Fionn: It's really cool that Ireland is getting credit for music that it hasn't been appreciated for in the past. Historically it's always been traditional folk or rock that Ireland has been known for outside of the country, so it's great that there are artists making music that's more representative of Ireland's taste, like country and hip-hop.
Jack: It also makes more space for bands like us, which I guess is nice too. We have our own problems with the Dublin music scene - it's kind of like a cartel, with a really small number of promoters and things controlling everything, so any chance to escape that and widen the net is great.
Do you have any venues or spaces that feel like home to the band? Somewhere that feels crucial to your ethos and community?
Adam: Yeah, for sure – Sin é, which means "here" in Irish. It's where we played our first show, and where a lot of bands play their first shows. It's one of only two or three remaining venues in Dublin which are properly grass roots, where tiny or new bands can play and work things out.
Fionn: There's a capacity gap in the Dublin live scene. There are, like, two venues of under 100, and every other small venue is at least 300 or 400. I think that's a challenge for most local scenes - there just isn't a hierarchy of venues for bands to work up.
What were your first impressions of one another as musicians and as personalities? Do you remember your first conversation?
Fion: We [Fionn and Jack] both met in college, at BIMM, in a guitar techniques class. I think we bonded because we were the only two in the class not constantly trying to shout over everyone else. There was a task where two people had to partner up, one accompanying the other while the other played a solo. We saw each other play and admired each other's playing.
Jack: We had a lot in common musically – basic songwriter stuff, like The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan. We got along well. And after cycling through a few different other musicians, we landed on Adam, and we knew it would never be the same.
Photo: Robbie Stickland
Imagine you have the freedom to put anything you like on your rider. Name three things you'd like waiting for you in the green room.
Jack: [Immediately] The Book of Kells.
What's your connection to the Book of Kells?
Adam: What's every Irish person's connection to the Book of Kells? It's in our lifeblood.
Fion: I live about a five-minute walk away from it. It's omnipresent in my life.
Adam: When it comes to going to see it, don't bother. You can only see two pages of it at a time anyway. They want repeat visitors.
Jack: All we want is to see the whole of the Book of Kells. Is that too much to ask? That's why we're in this industry.
I think of your music as pretty anxious. The most I've enjoyed 'Go Mutant' was today after I consumed three consecutive coffees. What emotion do you feel most and how does it inform the music?
Jack: We're not very anxious people, actually, we're pretty chilled. Because there are two songwriters in the band, me and Fionn, it makes the writing more varied than it might be otherwise, especially since we write separately. What we share is that our lyrics are kind of abstract, but the hooks are the reverse – straightforward.
'Go Mutant' felt like your most eclectic and diverse release yet. It almost felt like progressive pop at some point, with songs frequently bouncing between different sections and tempos and sounds. How was the process for putting together the new album different from previous projects?
Jack: We've always self-produced and recorded at home. We didn't plan to do that for this record, though. The plan was to record the demo album and then take it into the studio, but we ended up liking the demos so much we just stuck with the demos for the final version. We would have done a whole lot of overdubs and comping in the studio, but it just wouldn't have suited the record. And it's cheaper that way.
Fion: We recorded the whole thing with our friend Darragh Hansard at his studio, Orc's Lair, in Dublin. It's the way we've always done it and we're so comfortable with Darragh. He captures the live sound like no one else.
Outside of music, what do you each get obsessed with — books, films, hobbies, video games, random topics?
Jack: I do all my writing on tour. All my spare time on the road is spent writing songs. That's how 'Go Mutant' got written.
Fion: I've been listening to the audiobook of 'Consider the Lobster' by David Foster Wallace. I'm working my way up to 'Infinite Jest'. Can't run before you can walk.
Adam: That new Geese album, man. The way Cameron Winter writes… It's taken up all my listening time since the summer.
What's been your most surreal or bizarre experience at a gig so far?
Adam: Most of our fans are very gentle. But sometimes people go crazy for the set lists. At one of our early gigs, some fella at the front grabbed Fionn's set list out of his hand during, like, the second song. And didn't leave the front row for the rest of the show.
Fion: He was rubbing my face in it.
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