Sligo band Rackhouse Pilfer have racked up another triumph, this time as the session band for two tracks on Tom Jones’ forthcoming album, one of them a duet with Imelda May. Paddy Kehoe talked to Fiachra Cunningham from the band.
The Tom Jones story begin with hot shot record producer Ethan Johns, son of the legendary producer Glyn Johns. UK-based Ethans has produced Ryan Adams, Paolo Nutini, Ray LaMontagne and Kings of Leon and he is a much sought-after studio wizard. He would still be the six-piece band’s dream producer, says Fiachra Cunningham who plays dobro, slide guitar and fiddle and sings with Rackhouse Pilfer, who are essentially an old timey Americana-tinged string band.
Fiachra recalls how his band-mate, drummer Willie Kelly tried to get Johns to produce their album, Love and Havoc. “Willie Kelly thinks sky high, he doesn’t see glass ceilings,“ he says. In the event, the producer was not available, but the band sent Johns a copy of the finished Love and Havoc, and in return received a proposal last January.
Ethans told the band that he had loved the warm sound on their album and would the lads fancy coming to London, to work with him on the new Tom Jones album at the prestigious Church studio. There were two outstanding songs to be recorded, an old Rolling Stones number called Factory Girl and a Milk Carton Kids song called Honey Honey.
Jones had recorded some 35 songs, which were whittled down to 13. “Up until two weeks ago, we didn’t even know our contribution was going to make the album – now we’re on the leading single off the album,” he says, his excitement about the lucky break palpable. The single is the aforementioned Honey Honey on which Tom Jones duets with Imelda May.
Rackhouse Pilfer had opened for Imelda May some years ago in Sligo, and she remembered the boys when they met up again in the studio. “We spent the day there in this big church of a studio, with the same (mixing console) desk on which Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here was recorded, a handmade Neve desk worth millions that had come from Abbey Road."
So the band played their version of Factory Girl with "a big rock sound" and Tom sang along, although the song was stripped down to a slimmer sound in the end. For Honey Honey - the first single from the album- the men of Rackhouse Pilfer stood in a circle with Tom and Imelda and a few vintage microphones. “The whole point of it was like a rustic,old-fashioned recording – we sang it about five or six times, they were just looking for the magic take.”
Fiachra is delighted with the whole project, citing the fact that the last two Tom Jones albums went platinum and were in the charts for weeks. The omens are good, in other words, for chart success with the Welshman's new record, which should help spread the name of Rackhouse Pilfer far and wide. “It’s a great opportunity for the band, let’s enjoy it and see how far it takes us, " says Fiachra. "I’m very proud of us.”
Tom Jones’s Long Lost Suitcase, featuring Rackhouse Pilfer is released by Universal on October 9.
