Meet Pebbledash: The Cork Band Redefining Irish Indie Rock

With Their New Single Asha’s Waltz Just Released We Talk to Cork Band Pebbledash

If you’ve spent any time around Cork’s buzzing music scene lately, chances are you’ve already heard the name Pebbledash. The rising four-piece have been turning heads (and turning up the volume) with their raw, guitar-driven sound, mixing sharp lyricism with a kind of chaotic charm that’s impossible to ignore.

With their recently released EP Four Portraits of the Same Ugly House making waves and their live shows gaining in popularity, Gig Noise caught up with the band to chat about noisy beginnings, the Cork music scene and why making music that feels a little messy might just be the point.

Pebbledash is such an evocative name — where did it come from, and does it hold any symbolic meaning for the band or your aesthetic?

Like many band names Pebbledash as a name has a bit of a foggy origin and in turn has come to inform the music in hindsight. Having studied architecture in college materials and texture were always on my mind and this was something, particularly texture and layers, I wanted to convey in our music. Pebbledash is something you see everyday stuck and sometimes crumbling from buildings yet when used right and viewed, for instance, washed in a setting sun it’s beautiful. So yes, Pebbledash has come to represent for us the pursuit of beauty and wonderful things, especially those right in front of our eyes.

And just to follow on from that question for those who might be new to Pebbledash, what best describe your sound, and what drew each of you to this blend of alt. rock, noise, and dreampop?

I think defining ourselves has always been tough for us as we like to dip into various genres and aesthetics, but this has come to be what we call our own aesthetic and sound, the uncurated becoming the curated due to the fact that how we play and how we represent our art is an extension of us. We all share a common love for artists and bands like leonard Cohen, Yo la tengo, planxty and the velvet underground and I guess these influences occupy veins of our songwriting, its varied but it’s exciting to try blend all these different things

How do you typically begin writing a song — is it riff-first, vibe-first, or do lyrics lead the way?

The songs usually come from a specific interest in something that leads to ‘the line’ or the ‘the riff’. We try to keep everything grounded in a real emotion or event or person which helps to steer the song and give it a foundation which we build from. We are also big fans of messing with alternate guitar tunings, which can be a hassle on stage, but leads to what we believe are richer songs that wouldn’t necessarily arise from standard guitar tuning

Cork has a rich and sometimes overlooked musical heritage — how does being based there influence your music and your sense of community as artists?

In our (somewhat unsurprising) opinion Cork is the most fertile of all places in Ireland for musical and non musical art. There’s a strong lineage of bands and artists pushing the boundaries and we are proud to try to shoe ourselves on that path by creating something new informed by those before us. You could go to a brilliant gig nearly every week here and see some stunning artists and i’m constantly amazed by the talent, once your eyes have fallen on cork its really hard to take them away, the landscape and people lend themselves to poetics and stories and we are just the vessels in which they pass through.

I know from Some of my friends in bands how hard it is to get any kind of foothold in the music scene. What are your thoughts on the current state of alternative and independent music in Ireland — do you think it’s a supportive space, or are there still big gaps to bridge?

I think there’s great support from band to band and we can see many groups breaking out at the moment so there’s definitely lots of encouragement but I think when it comes to reaching a certain level it can be difficult to push through and proceed to what seems like the natural next step. I think what is most frustrating is that the barriers to ‘Making it’ whatever that means to you, today seem to be things like the cost of living or not being able to rent somewhere without sacrificing all your time to a job where you can’t dedicate your time to your art. So I think it’s important to remember for us the reason we are doing this is because we love writing and performing our songs and hanging out with each other and if we work hard hopefully things will go our way

What’s been the most pivotal moment for the band so far — a breakthrough gig, a weird studio session, a turning point creatively?

We’ve had many great gigs like the first few times we went to london which was a nice moment for us to see that we could take what we are doing and bring it outside the country but I think for me when we recorded our double single Killer Lover / Carraig Aonair it felt like oh this is it , this is what we sound like and want to do, and there was a real sense of confidence in our ability and I think everything since has sprouted from those sessions in a cramped crowleys music store with a makeshift studio recording between cars passing on the street and seagulls singing (if you can call it that) outside

With streaming platforms being such a dominant force now, do you think they help or hurt emerging bands like yours?

Both really, I mean there’s great streaming services like bandcamp where you get a big portion of the money from purchases and then there’s spotify where we have been resigned to knowing we’ll never be able to sustain ourselves from that income alone so I think for emerging bands like ourselves, the focus should always be on live and physical music , the streaming will always be there but probably won’t be make or break for any great band. Yes it would be great if streaming platforms supported artists better and we should continue to campaign for that but I don’t think I’ve ever judged a band by their stream numbers or followers, so lets continue to support each other in our communities first by going to gigs and buying merch!

After the very well received debut EP, “Four Portraits of The Same Ugly House”, released earlier this year, your about to drop a new single Asha’s Waltz which is awesome, what inspired the track, and how does Asha’s Waltz reflect your evolution as a band compared to your earlier releases?

Asha’s Waltz is a song written by Asha, hence the name, and explores feelings of isolation from landscapes and people, and when we came to writing the music we wanted to capture that air of poignancy, nostalgia and almost hopelessness. It is the beginning of the new path we’ve forged now that the first EP is out of our system and is something we really believe in musically and the waltz is a great first marker as to where we are going. In many ways we have all slotted comfortably into our roles and its important to us that we don’t feel like we’ve done anything in excess, so this song and alot of our upcoming things explore this idea that if you simplified it any more it couldn’t get any better

What’s next after Asha’s Waltz? Is this single part of a larger project, or are you exploring a looser release approach this year with more live performances?

There’s certainly more coming, some sooner than later but this is a standalone single, a single of intent and to show people we are still here and this is how we are going to proceed. Everything we do is connected but that doesnt mean everything will be the same. It is constantly evolving through changing musical tastes and outer obsessions with everything from a seashell to a carnivorous bog plant, it all comes out in the music, it think its just really a passion for beauty which is what life is really about I think, so ya I think thats what can be expected, more personality, explorative shows and maybe some new tracks!

And finally, what do you hope listeners feel or imagine when they hear a Pebbledash track for the first time?

Anything, as long as the answer is not nothing we’ll be happy, I don’t think we necessarily write with the thought of how do we want listeners to feel it’s actually quite an insular process but I think if you can make yourself feel something and not construe it too much your bound to find someone who listens that can connect with it, our new set has a wide variety of old and new songs with varying emotions so we are excited to get out there and see how people react.

Well, it’s been great catching up with you guys and I have little doubt we will be hearing a lot more from Pebbledash, but for those wanting more information about the band we will leave all the details below, including a link to their new single Asha’s Waltz out now

Band

Asha Egan McCutcheon singer
Fionnbharr Hickey (singer/guitar)
Cormac Donovan O’Neill (keys/synth)
Eoin Schuch (drums)

Connect With Pebbledash

Instagram | TikTok | Youtube | Bandcamp | Spotify

Asha’s Waltz Listen Here

Upcoming Dates

31.05.25- River Runs Round + Cork Harbour Festival, Cork

14.06.25- Beyond The Pale Festival, Wicklow

04.07.25- The Shacklewell Arms, London

06.11.25- Cyprus Avenue, Cork

07.11.25- Workman’s Club, Dublin

08.11.25- Voodoo, Belfast

12.11.25- Servant’s Jazz Quarters, London

15.11.25- Castle Hotel, Manchester

16.11.25- The Attic, Leeds