Introducing Fight Like Apes

Words by Brendan Monteiro

Fight like apes is a new entry to specified section of my CD collection which I like to call “the weird and whacky”. Having formed in Dublin back in 2006 the Irish four piece consisting of Mary-Kate “MayKay” Geraghty (vocals and synth), Jamie “Pockets” Fox (keyboard and vocals), Tom Ryan (bass) and Adrian Mullan (drums) have come a long way and have already reached some unique interest in Japan.

Their sound is like an audio Ouija board that fuses genres in a spastically magical way, with bits and pieces of pop, punk, screamo and nintendo sounds scattered in their sonic fusion. Mary-Kate is at the helm of Fight Like Apes and she takes the listener through an audio crusade of comical assaults that are released in a very deadpan form. She sings with an angelic matter-of-fact voice but can manipulate it at any time with her absurdly vociferate lyrics that give off an artificially grave demenor:

Hey! You! Watch your face!
I got a pocket full of fists, you got a stupid face.
Hey! You! Watch your face!
You’re like Kentucky Fried Chicken, but without the taste.
Hey! You! Get some grace!
You know you’re driving Miss Daisy all over the place.
Hey! You! You’re takin’ up space, and you’re a fucking disappointment to the human race.

The diverseness in her voice does not stop just there and on songs like Battlestations she transforms it in to banshee screeches that could wake the dead. If Mary-Kate were a cauldron of sounds, to me it would be Zooey Deschanel (Actress and singer of She And Him), Krysta Cameron (singer of iwrestledabearonce) and Katie White (singer of the Ting Tings).

Their music has also been said to be heavily influenced by their infatuation with wresting. This can probably be confirmed by their video for Do You Karate? or maybe the fact that they are planning on doing a special gig to end off the year with a wrestling ring incorporated for a full on night of as they put it “body-slamming, gut-grappling, seconds out, no holds barred electronic punk rock”

Their debut was released in 2008 but has been re-released with a second disc of rarities recently. Fight Like Apes singer MayKay says – “It wouldn’t have been right to leave those early songs off the album, but it wouldn’t have been right to put the same recordings on. They were always rushed jobs before, but this time we had the chance to make them sound like we always thought they should”. FLA cohort Pockets adds – “We’re the same band, just with a stronger, faster, more unstoppable sound”. So if your into the archly strange and different unconventional then get your hands on Fight Like Apes now

This post is tagged Adrian Mullan, Fight Like Apes, Jamie Fox, Mary-Kate Geraghty, MayKay, Pockets, Tom Ryan