For those unaware of the cheeky chaps from Athy, here’s a rundown on what you need to know about the latest band to rise to the top of the Irish Charts. Formed at the end of 2015, the now 11 month old band found their start online with a Facebook page that now has over 50,000 likes. Starting with carpool karaoke style videos featuring famous names such as Gavin James, the duo of Jimmy Rainsford and Ryan Henessey have taken over the Irish music scene. With the success of their single ‘Take My Hand’, which now has over 1 million streams on Spotify and views on Youtube, the band’s reputation grew as they performed at some of the biggest festivals of the year, including shows at Sea Sessions, Indiependence, and their highlight of the year, Electric Picnic. Yours truly has been hooked on the easy going tunes of this breakout band. I caught up with the guys after their sold out gig in the INEC Acoustic club, and here’s what they had to say:
Jimmy Rainsford (left) and Ryan Hennessey (right) gigging at The Academy.
Oxygen: Hey guys how’s it going, so what are your plans for 2017?
Picture This: We’ve got a lot of stuff coming up, quite a lot of it is secretive, but we’ve got plans we want to do a lot more shows, and we want to hopefully bring out an album.
Ox: Have ye any big gigs ye want to do in 2017, any arenas ye want to fill out?
P.T: Well obviously we want to fill out arenas, but we haven’t planned anything yet, come the end of the year hopefully we’ll have plans in place so people will be able to know.
Ox: Are you guys excited to be coming back to Killarney?
P.T: Yeah we can’t wait, we’re coming back to the INEC where we are now and we’re supporting the Coronas on the 28th of December.
Ox: Your E.P was released recently, massive success and of course you guys played Electric Picnic as well, do ye prefer doing the festival gigs or the smaller acoustic club style?
P.T: I love a bit of both actually, I love the intimate gigs but I love the big gigs as well, they’re both great in their own way.
Ox: What was your favourite festival of the summer?
P.T: Electric Picnic.
Ox: Will ye be going back again next year?
P.T: I hope so.
Ox: Have ye any music in the works?
P.T: Oh yeah we’ve got lots, we’re over flowing with music.
Ox: Are you guys going to release it slowly at your gigs or just as one big surprise?
P.T: We’ll make it a big surprise I’m sure we will, we always do.
Ox: You just released the first phase of your merch how’s that going?
P.T: Brilliant yeah because we love having the control of being able to release merchandise and I think that’s an important part of what we do so it’s cool to get our name out there and see people wearing it, it’s amazing.
Ox: Are ye hoping to expand the merchandise?
P.T: Yeah all the way from USB keys to dogs, yeah dogs.
One of the branded dogs in development as merchandise for Picture This.
Ox: What are you guys most excited for at the end of 2016?
P.T: I’m excited to come back to Killarney because it’s the last gig of 2016 that we’re doing, 28th of December with the Coronas, right here in the INEC it’s going to be amazing.
Ox: What would be your highlight of 2016?
P.T: Electric Picnic.
Ox: You guys are a brand new band, how did ye find your start?
P.T: Well we started when, we’re both from the same town, we knew of each other, we both played music and I just messaged Ryan one day and I said ‘Listen I’m bored let’s do something’, and we did it and we never stopped.
Ox: Your videos are very different do you film them yourselves?
P.T: Everything we do, we do ourselves, it’s all independent, there’s no big production team.
Ox: You’re in-car videos are huge as well, they’re viral now; with the success of James Corden’s carpool karaoke do ye think ye could be the Irish version?
P.T: Oh thanks very much yeah we haven’t done one in a while actually, yeah I think so I want be on James Corden’s, a bit of a crossover, I want to be in that jeep, in that Range Rover I’d try and out-sing him.
Ox: What would you guys like to expand into next would you ever do crossovers with film, TV?
P.T: Hell yeah, we’re going to make a movie.
Ox: If there’s anything to take away from tonight what would you say?
P.T: People from Kerry are mental.
Well guys there you have it, five minutes with one of the biggest bands in the country right now, the boys will be finishing off their Irish tour in the INEC December 28th where they will be supporting the Coronas and you can find tickets at the link below. Check out their Facebook page as well as their Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, I’ll leave all the links here for you guys, and of course don’t forget to like comment and share this post.
Tickets: http://www.ticketmaster.ie/Picture-This-tickets/artist/2212484
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BandPictureThis/
Intagram: https://www.instagram.com/bandpicturethis/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BandPictureThis?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Snapchat: bandpicturethis
Aileen O’Leary