A punk band from Galway City has been crowned winner of the Connacht finals in Star Nation, a new all-Ireland music competition.
Turnstiles, a five-piece punk band, will now progress to the live final of Star Nation at the end of September and receive a one-day recording session at Windmill Lane Recording Studios.
The band, made up of Jake Tiernan on bass, Callum Mitchell on vocals, Colm Sweeney and Cillian Ryan on guitars, and Luke Mulliez on drums, performs punk music with an emphasis on simplicity, short songs and strong lyricism.
They draw their inspiration from classic groups like The Ramones and Buzzcocks.
Bassist Jake Tiernan said their winning track ‘Wasting Away’ was the first song the group ever wrote together at their very first practice.
“We had the chords and then Callum wrote the lyrics, we were too lazy to write a second verse – hence the short song!”
Speaking about finding out the band had been chosen as a finalist for Star Nation, Jake said: “When Four Star Pizza called me, I thought maybe I’d made a pizza order and forgot about it! We’ve been playing in sitting rooms, living rooms, putting on our own gigs and trying to piece together the money to record our songs so it’s a huge opportunity for us.”
Turnstiles along with Riley Holland, DALY and Clara Belle, the provincial finalists from Ulster, Leinster, and Munster will go on to play at the grand final showcase gig on September 29 at Whelan’s in Dublin, which has hosted the likes of Ed Sheeran, Nick Cave, Arctic Monkeys, Mumford & Sons and Hozier in the past.
At the live final an overall winner will then be revealed who will pick up a cheque for €3,000 of musical equipment from renowned Irish music store MusicMaker.
Music fans across the island of Ireland can now listen to each track and vote for their favourite act to be crowned overall winner by going to Four Star Pizza’s social media pages or by using the voucher code Star 1 for Ulster, Star 2 for Connacht, Star 3 for Leinster, or Star 4 for Munster when making their next order.
