Acrojunk

What do you get when you cross a radio DJ, a former Olympic athlete, a graphic designer, a photographer and an engineer? No, it’s not an extremely fit and well turned-out bridge builder who moonlights as the voice of the shipping news! Instead you get a feast of intelligent, sometimes blistering electro-folk-rock, all wrapped up in the band Acrojunk. Their latest single “Generation X-Squared” did very nicely indeed, reaching No. 2 in the downloadmusic.ie chart. Heavily influenced by the cultural writings of Douglas Coupland and melodic tuneship of The Divine Comedy, “Generation X-Squared” has plenty of wit, heart and hooks to niggle its way into the ear cavity of every listener.

“Contains possibly the oddest lyric of the year so far.” - Hotpress

Their next single released later this summer is entitled “Steve Austin” and is a forceful rocked-up ode to the Six Million Dollar Man. No one can ever accuse this band of tackling boring subject matter!

In 2006, Waterford’s Acrojunk grew out of the ashes of the critically lauded group “The Bearded Ladies” and with their fervent stage presence are quickly gaining a reputation as one of Ireland’s most promising acts. Even though they’ve only been together a year, they’ve already shared stages up and down the country with such luminaries as The Walls, Mark Geary, Fred, Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club and Dae Kim. In February of 2007, Acrojunk released their debut EP “The Cold Old Playboy” to much applause and aplomb:

“Their overall sound is quite unique. Acrojunk take the best, leave the rest and develop a likeable combination of old and new styles” – Hotpress.

Their releases have received much airplay on radio stations around the country, a selection of which are Phantom FM, Beat 102-103, WLRFM, RedFM, FM104, Flirt FM, Galway Bay FM and Live 95. Acrojunk are currently recording their debut album provisionally titled ‘Bricolage’, which is due for release in late 2008.

The five members of Acrojunk have a variety of backgrounds and interests. The newest member is Brian Roche, an engineer by day but a multi-instrumentalist by night. As well as playing guitar, piano, trumpet, pipes and God knows what else, Brian has taken up bass duties in Acrojunk. Synths and habitual guitars are handled by Neal Byrne, himself a fine singer/songwriter and former Olympic rower, who represented Ireland at the Sydney 2000 games (that was before he was bitten by the musical bug). Guitarist Dave Manser was formerly a member of the national 2002 O2 New Band Competition winning The Real, who on the back of a signing to Warner Music and a top 20 single, scored two successive shows at the UK’s Reading Festival. Drummer Trevor Nolan is developing quite a profile as a photographer, specialising in offbeat weddings and music shots. Meanwhile, frontman Rob O’Connor is familiar to many as the voice of the Irish Beats radio show on Beat 102-103 as well as fitting in some academic duties at Waterford Institute of Technology.

Acrojunk - imagine a musical cage wrestling match between The Kinks, Johnny Cash, Joy Division, Dinosaur Jr. Squeeze, Soundgarden and The Beatles and you're halfway there.

For more information please visit us at www.acrojunk.com, myspace.com/acrojunk or download music from iTunes.

10 Things You May Not Know About Acrojunk
1. The words ‘Acrojunk’ means to use too many acronyms in a sentence
2. Growing up in Brighton, Dave was once in a band with Sam Dook from The Go! Team
3. In one weekend Trev clocked up 27 hours playing online video game “World of Warcraft.”
4. Rob was once nominated for ‘Best Comedian’ award by the Association of Irish Music Societies for his role in George Gershwin’s ‘Crazy for You’
5. Despite claims he is not fussy with food, Brian refuses to eat any cheese that has “bits” in it
6. Before getting into music, Neal was a professional rower and currently holds the Junior Course Record at the Bosban Rowing Course in Amsterdam.
7. Dave, Neal and Rob performed to a crowd of over 500,000 people in March 2008 when they provided the music for giant robot entry in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade.
8. As well as recording their own album, Acrojunk are also working on an electronica project with French outfit ‘Moongai’.
9. Backstage at Oxegen 2007, Rob offered Badly Drawn Boy a 2 euro coin as royalties due for having busked his songs over the years. Badly Drawn Boy took the money!
10. If the five members of Acrojunk ever got into a physical fight with one another, all of them (with the exception of Trevor) agree that Dave would probably win.