The Pale At Shortt's Live Music Venue

Wednesday, 18th July 2012

Saturday 11th of August brings another stunning live gig to Shortt's.

20 years ago, The Pale made their major label debut with Here's One We Made Earlier, an album that introduced a band that, from then to now, has succeeded in blindsiding their audience with music that is equal parts eminently melodic and utterly singular.

"I'm not good at focusing on the commercial aspects of music and trends," says lead singer and main songwriter, Matthew Devereux.

Therein lays not only the pleasure for the creative spirit but also the problem for the accountants. Inevitably, The Pale's tenure on the major label didn't last too long, and so began a number of years where the band soldiered on. The band even changed their name to Produkt, under which name more albums were released to further rippling waves of unawareness.

The aim, essentially, was to retain credibility. At this stage cult-like following achieved Matthew admits to barely eking out a living.

"I was involved in various different projects, some of which crashed and burned!," he says. "When The Pale isn't operative, I play music; yet whenever I go away from music I always veer back towards it after a month or two."

Call it resilience (compulsion, even), but such a stance is so innate that it becomes part of the creative DNA. And so – without a nod to either popularity or profitability – The Pale carried on.

"We suddenly found the drive again to make the music far more accessible, more direct. "Roll down the window, throw away the plot…', sings Matthew on It Should Be Illegal, one of the album's many highlights. The lyric could well be The Pale's new modus operandi after over 20 years of working through life's stuff and nonsense, it seems they have come to realise, finally, that less is more.

"It's about everything in its right measure," reasons Matthew. "I could never understand why some people I know would spend 12 years to be a brain surgeon. But now? Now I totally get it."