LABELLED a band that "never received the acclaim or attention they deserved" Kilkenny rockers Kerbdog are finally getting some kudos - nearly 20 years after they first hit the big-time.

An independent UK record company, co-owned by one of their 90s rock cohorts, is releasing Pledge - A Tribute To Kerbdog at the Dublin Academy next month.

Kerbdog was formed in 1991 by local boys Cormac Battle (vocals/guitar), Colin Fennelly (bass guitar), Darragh Butler (drums) and Billy Dalton (guitar) and their rise to fame came shortly afterwards.

It was short-lived though, lasting just two albums before they split, leaving both fans and fellow musicians wanting more. The tribute album is a nod to what Kerbdog meant to many people.

"I'd say the album's been in the works for about a year, but I thought it was just a dream by some crazy fan," Darragh said. "Then all of a sudden, the album arrived in the post. It definitely came as a bit of a shock. You would expect something like this for a massive band with a 20 album back-catalogue, not a band with two.

"At the time, our ambitions were just to tour with our favourite bands ,which we did, not global domination. Also, to have a body of work we can look back on and be proud of. The tribute album is a huge compliment and testament to that."

Bandmate Cormac agreed. "I thought tribute albums were reserved for the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and to have one dedicated to my own band Kerbdog is truly astonishing," he said. "I was totally unaware that we had been heard of by these bands never mind influenced their sound. We are humbled, honoured and chuffed by this record and a sincere hats off to everybody involved."

The album will be released by Stressed Sumo Records which is co-owned by drummer Neil Cooper of Northern Irish alternative rock band Therapy? - the band which helped Kerbdog kick-start their career back in the early 90s.

The bands featured on the tribute album are not groups Kerbdog would have played with, or even heard of when they were touring and recording in the 90s, but the lads seems fairly impressed with the line-up.
"I didn't realise how much effort was going into it," Darragh said.

"There's about 13 established, signed bands and it's quite a good recording. They're not bands we would have crossed paths with back in the day but considering we spent four months and nearly half a million quid recording our second album, they've gotten great results in a couple of days."

The tribute album features contributions from the likes of Dutch Shultz, Mike Got Spiked, Knievel Genius, Frank Turner and Left Side Brain who all recorded their own versions of some of Kerbdog's biggest hits.

It's fair to say that Kerbdog achieved in just 10 short years with just two albums what most bands never achieve in a lifetime - cult status among the general public.

And there's no secret to that, Darragh said, they just played really good music. "There's still huge interest in the band because we ended prematurely," Darragh said. "We had two albums which were really good and we had two legendary producers so that helped us as well."

The first album, the self-titled Kerbdog, was recorded in 1993 at Rockfield Studio in Wales, at the same time rock gods Sepultura were recording Chaos AD. Kerbdog's album was produced by Jack Endino - a man who made his name working with Nirvana and Soundgarden, among others. The debut was released in 1994 to great acclaim and several of its singles made it into the UK top 40.

"The fact that there was no third album when everyone was expecting there to be probably contributed to that cult thing," Darragh said.
The band always intended to release three albums, but it didn't work out that way.

"The first album was never going to be huge, it was just supposed to establish us," Darragh said. "The second one was bigger and better and cost half a million quid to produce. But I'm sure the third one would have been a success as well. On our last tour before we split up, we sold out 40 dates in a row."

The second album, On the Turn, was recorded in Los Angeles in 1996 and produced by Garth Richardson of Rage Against The Machine fame. But due to a shake-up at the record company, it took 18 months to release the album and this, Darragh says, was a big problem. During that time, Billy had also left the band. The album was eventually released in 1997.

"By the time the label got around to releasing our second album, everyone one we'd worked with originally at the company was gone, including the guy who signed us. And no one there wanted to bother working with a band if they weren't going to get the credit of signing them. We were doomed because of the situation, not because of the music or our fanbase," Darragh said.

"Before that, we spent too much time in England and not enough time in the States. We were recording and playing heavy, riff-based tunes when all anyone in the UK wanted was Blur and Oasis. We were playing the right music in the wrong place."

Indeed, one rock commentator summed it up by saying: "Kerbdog were the losers in the game of record company acquisition and label juggling that was so prevalent in the latter part of the 90s ."

After a mutual decision to part ways with their record label, the band split in '98, sending shockwaves through the UK and Irish rock music scene. And how did they feel once it was all over? "A little bit let-down," Darragh admits. "But then Battle and I started (a new band) Wilt and we got signed two or three months later and made two records. So there wasn't much time to be crying into our cornflakes."
After Wilt eventually disbanded in 2003/03, Darragh says he

took two years off to "figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life" and while he still has a massive passion for music in his day-to-day life, he no longer plays.

"I don't play at all anymore," he said. "It's hard to go from playing live on a massive stage like Glastonbury to playing by yourself in your back shed. So I just don't do it."

But doesn't he miss it? Music, for most people, is in the blood. " I don't miss it," he said. "Just the live part , not the other 90 per cent of being in a band. What I do miss is the buzz of getting up on stage with your mates."

It was that mateship that got them started in the first place. The lads lived out every young boy's dream when they started a band and achieved nearly instant stardom.

The name Kerbdog came from a Californian BMX team that the musicians were "obsessed with". "We were really into BMX as kids and those guys were our heroes," Darragh said. Before they formed under the name Kerbdog and began playing originals, the lads were a 'school covers band' known as Rollercoaster - the name which now adorns the iconic record store on Kieran Street, owned by Darragh and well-known local music man Willie Meighan.

By age 18, Darragh and the lads were living the rock 'n' roll dream - but interestingly, it wasn't a long-held ambition for the young Darragh. He didn't go to sleep as a child dreaming about being the next Axl Rose, but once the idea came to him, he found it hard to let it go.
"I heard Hells Bells by AC/DC and I just had to have a drum kit," he said. "It was just so simple and powerful. Then we heard Fudge Tunnel (UK rock band) and we had to have a riff-based rock band. It was just a neccessity in life."

As 18-year-olds who were "just messing around" with music, Kerbdog found themselves supporting Therapy? in the Newpark Inn one night and that's when things began to change.

"Therapy? suggested we send off a demo to the record companies, so we did," Darragh remembers. "We weren't expecting to hear anything from anyone, but we had 22 labels get back to us. It was just insane. We had to split them into two days, so we met 11 sets of record company executives a day in the Pumphouse. We were just kids and there they were pulling up in their limos to meet us."


They eventually chose Mercury Records subsidiary Vertigo Records to represent them because they offered the lads a creative freedom no one else seemed willing to give. That was 1993.

"We only had six songs when we got signed, although we convinced them we had another three," Darragh recalled. "At one showcase gig, we even played one song twice because we didn't have enough material."
And soon afterwards, the boys from Kilkenny really were living the rock 'n' roll dream during their years as a supergroup. Without revealing too much, Darragh admits "we availed of all the frills of being a rock band. We were fully active for 10 years and it was the best way you could possibly spend your 20s."

But then, as they say, life got in the way and times began to change. Darragh started a business, Dublin-based Cormac DJs for RTÉ 2FM and Colin works as a civil engineer.

As a Dreaded Press music reviewer put it: "The nineties never died; they just went and found a proper job to pay for their gigging habit."
Kerbdog's last played together in December 2008. Shortly before that, they played a local fundraising gig for the Susie Long Hospice Fund in Kilkenny - but don't expect to see the lads pick up their instruments and hit the stage together anytime soon. They won't even be playing their own own tribute show on March 6. Those days are well and truly behind them, Darragh insists.

"We're absolutely, definitely not playing another gig," he said. "At the tribute show, we'll let the young kids with the blind faith do it for us."