Therapy?

Their distinctive sound was first forged in small town Northern Ireland in 1989: three young men in a dingy rehearsal room, heads down, eyes closed, lost in music, locked into a groove: a fractured dance beat, a prowling bass line, whirring, whining guitar, distorted vocals spitting alienation and desolation through an overloaded PA. It’s a sound that quickly garnered Andy Cairns (Guitar, Vocals), Michael McKeegan (Bass) and Fyfe Ewing (Drums) a record deal with respected London label Wiija, a partnership that resulted in two corrosive, bellicose mini albums – ‘Babyteeth’ (1991) and ‘Pleasure Death’ (1992) – before the band’s departure for AandM Records. 1993’s ‘Nurse’ album spawned the trio’s first UK Top 30 single in speed-freak anthem ‘Teethgrinder’, but it was with the following year’s ‘Troublegum’ that Therapy? truly hit commercial pay dirt. Featuring the hit singles ‘Screamager’ (from 1993’s ‘Shortsharpshock’ EP), ‘Turn’ (from the ‘Face The Strange’ EP), ‘Nowhere’, ‘Die Laughing’ and ‘Trigger Inside’, the album quickly racked up sales of 750,000 worldwide. Seeing the ‘crossover’ potential of the band’s stripped down punk-metal, critics began talking up the band as “the new Metallica”…much to the trio’s amusement.

There followed what is still euphemistically referred to within the band as ‘The Lost Years’. Largely written in the studio by a frazzled trio, 1995’s dark-hued and melodramatic ‘Infernal Love’ (on which the trio were augmented by cellist/guitarist Martin McCarrick, who soon became the band’s fourth member) was a radical departure from ‘Troublegum’. Poetry, comedy eyebrows and cocaine may have been involved. By the end of the album’s touring cycle however, founding member Fyfe Ewing was gone, quitting after a brace of homecoming Irish dates in December. With young Dubliner Graham Hopkin replacing Ewing, the quartet recorded ‘Semi-Detached’, their final album for the crumbling AandM label, in 1998. Freedom from major label bullshit brought out the best in Therapy?, 1999’s ‘Suicide Pact – You First’ album (on new label Ark21) being their most experimental, caustic and cohesive album yet. Taking stock of the band’s first decade, 2000’s ‘So Much For The Ten Year Plan’ collated the best known tracks, and also signaled the quartet’s renewed fascination with old fashioned shit-kicking rock ‘n’ roll with new tracks ‘Fat Camp’ and ‘Bad Karma’, a direction explored in even scuzzier depths on 2001’s Jack Endino-produced ‘Shameless’. This would be the band’s final album for Ark21 and also Hopkins last album with the band, ex-The Beyond/Cable sticks-man, Neil Cooper, becoming the band’s third drummer in summer 2002. His energy and enthusiasm gave the band new fire and Cooper made his Therapy? recording debut on 2003’s ‘High Anxiety’ (the band’s first release on new label Spitfire Records) and was back on the stool the following year with
‘Never Apologise Never Explain.’

Fast forward to 2006 and the release of ‘One Cure Fits All’ showcased a band at its best with monster guitar riffs, huge choruses and anthemic songs. It was recorded with the help of Pedro Ferriera (famed for his production of The Darkness album ‘Permission To Land’) in the producer’s chair. Therapy? surpassed all expectations and delivered a high octane slab of pure Rock with opener ‘Sprung’, a live favorite in the making and single, ‘Rain Hits Concrete’.

In 2009, Therapy? returned, signing to Global Music’s, DR2 Records for the release of their album, ‘Crooked Timber’,

Following last year’s 2 spectacular sold out shows at Cyprus Avenue, Therapy? with be back in Cork to showcase new tracks of their highly anticipated 13th studio album 'A Brief Crack of Light' due out Feb 2012.