Martin Corrigan talks of his forthcoming "How To Hang Off A Rope" album as the musical equivalent of Douglas Adams and his "Sometimes I Think About" single borrows from the Knight Rider theme tune in an abstract way. It's safe to say that Corrigan are unique misfits come to rescue us from the nightmare scenario of 24 / 7 wall to wall garage rock and in the process push forward the new wave.

Q: The single "Sometimes I Think About" is out today. Were spotting one of those great Knight Rider style riffs somewhere in there. Tell us a little about it?
A: It's basically about the transience of life mainly, mind chatter. I've been thinking about nicking the Knight Rider riff for years, maybe change the key a wee bit - it's a great riff. But how many song's is it now though? What do you call that one with the Mad Max style video - Busta Rhymes - there was a great use of it there. But yeah, I nick it and no one notices that it's there.
 

Q: You grew up in quite a small town in Ireland. How was it for a young Martin Corrigan trying to discover new music?
A: We had as much influence through television and radio as anywhere else really and all the albums we needed to get our hands on could be got through a very nice local music shop called Bus Stop Records. You could even get your f**king deleted singles because there were a lot of people around that area that were really into their music.

Initially it was Talking Heads and AD/DC that I listened to. And Jesters Of Destiny, this American band that I always pictured would end up doing great things but I think they imploded in their needles.
 

Q: How do you feel about Corrigan being presented to the world with these sort of influences when essentially all the kids seem to be listening to are garage rock?
A: A lot of the influences them bands have are essentially great bands - music that is never going to die. Bands like Iggy Pop and MC5 doesn't really disappear, it's always going to pop it's head up now and again.

But I think the reason Corrigan do stand out is to do with working on our own compositions rather than learning other people's songs. If you learn other people's songs they're going to influence the way that you write. I remember seeing an interview with the Vines saying that they initially started off doing Nirvana and Kinks covers and you can tell in their songs that it basically a cross between Nirvana and the Kinks.

I can't play anybody else's songs so I just went to try and develop something myself. Even guitarists like the Edge, he couldn't play anybody else's songs and the only 3 strings he had that were working on his guitar were the top 3 so he had to stick everything in D. I'm influenced by a guitarist called Janger Wrinehart who only used 2 finger's so I try to keep everything as simple as possible.
 

Q: We've got the "How To Hang Off A Rope" album in May. What can we expect?
A: I just tried to write good songs because the song is king. My favourite authors are Philip K Dick and Douglas Adams, so maybe if they formed a band you'd get something like "How To Hang Off A Rope"