The Blizzards

Before I went to Sicily I did an interview(my first actually) with Niall Breslin, lead singer of the Blizzards for the new "Pulse" magazine out this week in Limerick(mainly UL)

The Blizzards are not my swim in the sea.....I think they are very shit to be completely honest but I did my best to give as unbiased an article as I could. Here it is:



The Blizzards return to UL this September, David Morrissey talked to Niall Breslin “Bresy” about what can be expected of the upcoming gig and upcoming album.


The Blizzards return to UL this September armed with new material from their new album “The Domino Effect” which is due to be released . The lads from Mullingar have enjoyed a certain amount of success as a result of their 2006 album “A Public Display of Affection”. Their performance on the main stage at Oxegen 2007 helped them to the Meteor award for “Best Live Performance of that year. If infectious pop fused with a bit of punk and ska is your thing, well the Blizzards won’t disappoint.

Is there going to be a change in musical direction for their new album? The answer to this was no. According to Bresy there “isn’t much change”. He quickly followed on to explain that they did push themselves very hard on the new album but were very careful not to change anything. I found this slightly peculiar, especially for a relatively fresh and young band who would be expected to experiment to some extent. I queried him further on the matter of why there was no real change and he forwarded the example of Radiohead. He claimed everything that they have come up with after “The Bends” has been “rubbish”. Before their change in musical direction (from “OK Computer” onwards) they were producing “great rock music” he argues.

There is a bit of resemblance between the Blizzards and the now indie heavy-weights the Artic Monkeys. That point of resemblance is that of each bands vocal delivery and lyric style. Both bands use a colloquial styled collection of lyrics i.e. “street talk” and both bands, thanks to their lead singers, deliver the lyrics in a sort of “talkative” manner that transcends the lyrics perfectly. Recently Alex Turner (lead singer of the Artic Monkeys) has approached both lyrics and vocal delivery in a more articulate/mature manner with his latest side project The Last Shadow Puppets. I asked Bresy if this a direction he may choose to pursue himself. Again the answer was no. “Stick to your strengths” was his reasoning behind this.

So if they were to stick to their strengths they would yield huge amounts of success? Not necessarily. The Blizzards have enjoyed success in Ireland but have yet to break the UK market. They have built themselves into a very tight performance unit on the road throughout Irelands live venues. So if there is little or no change in their musical direction this time (or in the future by the sound of things) what is going to keep the Blizzards appeal in motion?

The simple answer to this is attitude. Throughout the interview Bresy spouted the word “attitude” several times. This was his interpretation of how the music has changed(if only very slightly) His tone throughout the interview was very direct and slightly rebellious. It was as if he was trying to say “F**k all the doubters, this is going to be a great album and we are going to show everyone. There was a very determined stigma attached to his speech. I for one felt quite convinced about the bands future as a result.

I asked what we can expect at the upcoming UL gig. He remarked amongst other things that they will have a brass section new to their shows. Brass and attitude-an intense gig it should be so.