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Ticketmaster Fresh List 2026 – Really Good Time
Our latest Fresh List pick Really Good Time chatted to us about the catharsis of being in a band, career highlights, and their debut album 'Affirmations'.
Can you introduce yourself?
I am Wastefellow. I’m 1/3 of the band Really Good Time, and we are the Ticketmaster Fresh List Artist of the Month.
How did the band start?
We started playing together in 2019. I was doing a solo project, the guys were in another band that had finished up, they kept on playing together to just to keep things going, but there was no real plan. They invited me then for a jam, expecting me to bring some synths and drum machines and things, which is what I was doing at the time, but the thought of having other people to play with was so exciting and made me think of reliving my teenage punk fantasies. I brought a guitar that I couldn’t play and was quite dictatorial at the start, that everything needed to be louder and faster, and all the reverb had to be turned off, and eventually that became a band.
How would you describe your music?
I have in the past described our music, and I think this still stands, as being kind of like Vertigo era U2 covering Viagra Boys, or maybe the other way around these days. One of the two.
Who are your influences?
We took a lot of influence on the album that we just released, Affirmations, from Soulwax, which maybe isn’t a super obvious one because it doesn’t really doesn’t sound like the Soulwax stuff that we all know. But Aido Tornado, our dear drummer, introduced me, and I think Jack as well, to them. Just as we were starting to write the record, we were on a drive to our first writing session, and he put on their Night Versions LP, and yeah, I think we were very blown away by that, because it’s kind of dance music, but the record is a remix record of a rock album that they made that they didn’t like. There’s this real, focused arrangement in there. Everything is constantly moving the track forward because it’s kind of functional music, and I think that we were in the process of making the band more focused and stripping it down. We had just become a three-piece, and that really went into how we were writing things at that time, even if not, you know, what the songs actually sound like. So yeah, Soulwax were a very big one on this record.
How did you come up with your name?
It came to me in a dream. I actually had that dream when I was a very young child, and I’ve never told anyone this. It was a recurring dream from about the age of four to six. A blue entity would appear at the window of my room repeatedly, saying, “Really good time, really good time,” and knocking on the window. I think it was wanted me to invite it in. I would wake covered in a cold sweat, absolutely terrified, and I think as a way of kind of getting over that kind, to finally step over the fear that has dogged me since childhood, I named the band that. I didn’t tell the lads about it, but yeah. It’s worked, and I think a lot of the band Really Good Time, and what Really Good Time means to me and for us is sort of about catharsis and overcoming your fears and your anxieties and your troubles through collectively joining together in in rock and roll music. Thank you for listening, it’s been a long time coming.
You’ve obviously got quite a distinct sense of style as a band, you’re wearing a custom Really Good Time jumpsuit, can you talk us through your fashion?
Well, I guess this was an idea that I had before we, I think even had the name of the band or were a band was that we would wear these jumpsuits, which I’m currently wearing. They’re a bit more effective when the three of us are here together because they’re the same, but it’s still a beautiful piece of clothing embroidered by our dear friend Brickbear. The idea there I think partially meant that fashion didn’t have to come into it. So, you know, we just have the look and that’s it. I think there is an aspect to it, it’s workwear and so it’s like you’re gonna do the gig or an interview or whatever it is. You’re showing up for work, and it kind of helps to get into that zone. It’s almost like a little ritual before that to be like, okay, now we’re switching on. It’s go time or whatever. They’re also very uncomfortable on stage. Really non-breathable. And personally, I like to have a little bit of, or quite a lot sometimes, of deep discomfort when performing. I think being on the edge and having the sweat running down your hands and things kind of falling off, makes things a bit more interesting, if not always more technically correct.
What would be your dream venue to play?
I’d love to do a Vicar Street, definitely. Yeah, would really love to do a Vicar Street. That’s where some of my favorite shows have been. Up until now, it would have been a Button Factory because that’s also where a lot of my favourite shows that I’ve seen here have been. So we’re ticking that one off! We’ll hopefully, tick the next one off! It’s a great venue.
Do you have any backstage rituals?
Yes, we actually have a few. We do some vocal warm up stuff, or I should say that Aido makes us do vocal warm-up stuff when he remembers to, and we all appreciate when he doesn’t. But we do that usually, and then, yeah, we usually all get together and do a bit of deep breathing. This is like a very short thing right before we go on stage, and then we do a secret handshake, which is, and will remain secret.
What has been your most memorable live experience?
There’s been loads of great ones. You were asking about the origin of the band, I don’t even think we really knew it was a band or were really serious about it until we did our first gig. Which was a semi-legal thing at our dear friend Daisy’s festival. There’s been loads, but the one that popped into my head there, I think it was maybe our third or fourth gig because we did a couple and then things locked down again here and we couldn’t do anymore. We booked a few in the UK in well, I guess that was like early 2022. We were not very good at booking a tour or understanding what that would need. And nobody knew who we were, so there were a couple of very lowly attended shows on that run, shall we say, one of which really sticks in my head as being sort of a forging experience. We played in The Blue Moon in Oxford, which is a little pub, and the venue is kind of like across the bar. The owner, the booker, Sophie, is a legend. But when we got in, I think we were really hungover. It was like a Monday night. We’d been in London the night before. Ron, our friend, who was traveling with us, had lost all his belongings and then had to meet us at the train. He almost didn’t make it. When we got in, we knew there were no tickets sold, and there was like four people at the bar plus the owner. We started sound checking, and yeah… we didn’t feel very welcome there. We didn’t feel welcome in our skin. There was still no one at the gig, but through the course of the show, we won the, you know, ten people in the bar over, then spent the whole night hanging out with them after! It was a real learning experience to always show up and give it your all, no matter the show or the attendance or whatever. I think that we’ve carried that forward into everything else.
Who would be on your dream festival line up?
I guess Soulwax because that’s been a big one for the band. Yeah. It’s Soulwax because they’re important for the record. Really Good Time headlining, of course. Lewis Doyle Singer, Maria Somerville, and oh, there’s this incredible guy who I was really, really into for a while, called sherekahnn, who makes tunes pretty much exclusively out of a Snoop Dog sample. My mates just met him, so he’s still active and he’s playing gigs. I only found this out recently, and it was like huge news. That song’s been like a really fundamental part of my growing up. I want him to headline our Really Good Time curated festival.
How do you approach songwriting?
There’s a couple of different ways that we would write a song, but I think collaboratively is the one unifying thing for us. Or sometimes I might have like a lyrical idea from whatever… the funniest example of that is “Bob Dylan Was On Pawn Stars In 2010” because I found out that that was a thing, and kind of spun out a little bit. And then I realised that spinning out over that is ridiculous, so I wanted to make a song slagging that off. Or it could be there’s like a riff or a groove or something like that. But you know, whoever has the initial seed for the thing, the big thing for us is saying yes to that. There’s no bad ideas, it’s about trusting the other person or people that believe in this thing and think that it’s good enough to make a tune out of it and going with them on that. So yeah, trust and collaboration and friendship is how we approach songwriting, at least through making this record, we’ve learned to approach songwriting that way. I think I learned the slowest, but we got there in the end.
Sorry, Bob Dylan was on Pawn Stars in 2010?
Yes, yeah, yeah. So the song, yeah, I guess as a way of explaining how the songwriting process can go. I was coming back after seeing A Complete Unknown whenever that came out, and as anyone should after seeing a film; I wanted to completely flood my mind with information by just going on Reddit on the bus to just, you know, completely overload with that. So I was reading lots of stuff about Bob Dylan, and somehow stumbled upon this thread where someone was like, “Did you know that Bob Dylan was on Pawn Stars in 2010,” and there was a clip to it. I didn’t watch the clip then, because I was on the bus, but I did immediately kind of start spinning out, thinking to myself like; “Wait, but the countercultural icon of the 60s. But wait, the film’s all about him not wanting to be the countercultural icon of the 60s. But wait, the the film is the biggest film in the world right now, so there’s no counterculture at all, and it’s all a swizz!” and you know, this all happened in about 10 seconds or whatever. And at some point after that, I kind of realised how ridiculous it is to just think in that way or whatever. So I thought that it would be good to have a song that I guess ultimately is really embracing the doom spiral of that way of thinking, and then sort of points at it and goes, “That’s how exhausting is it to live your life that way and thinking that way? And you know, the world out there is great, and it’s okay if Bob Dylan likes TV reality television.” So yeah, that’s that song. And he was on Pawn Stars, and it’s worth a watch. It’s actually quite sweet. Yeah, he doesn’t say much. He says “Hey, man.“
What was the recording process like?
The recording was amazing. I’ve been going to therapy for a little while, and I recently went, and my therapist said it was the most unguardedly positive thing I’d ever said, that I was completely happy with the record, and that we had left no stone unturned in the making of it. The recording process, which we did with our dear friend Rian Trench in The Meadows in Delgany, was a huge part of that. We’ve worked with Rian for a while, and he really gets what the band is, and we’ve grown to really trust him. Because we all work, the process of making the album ended up being very spread out over about half a year. And while it’d be great to have done the whole thing in two weeks, I think for us, it was really nice because we were kind of finding what it was, and what the sound was throughout. Having a bit of time to reflect on things that we recorded and then going in again, and letting that inform what you do the next time. And yeah, learning from one another through that process, that thing I was talking about like kind of trusting each other, and learning not to say no, or not to hold on to your part of the idea with white knuckles or whatever. All that really came from having that spread out over that time. So yes, it was a deeply life affirming process. Affirmations.
Live or studio?
Umm… do I have to pick? No, they’re both wonderful. I used to prefer performing in our band, but I have come to value them both equally, I think. But I used to prefer performing because most of what I did before this band was very centred around the studio and that kind of process. So, discovering something that was this fun to perform was quite life changing for me.
Who would be your dream collaboration?
As the band, I’m actually going to steal Aido’s one again and again say Solwax because he’s been talking about wanting to get them to do a remix of our stuff, and I presume they are reading this and we are available. Hey guys.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
The best advice I think I was ever given that pertains to performing was from my dear friend Oisin. I’d had a terrible gig, supporting Lapalux, who’s an artist that I love, and I was inconsolable for about a week. Not that much had even gone wrong. Oisin just said to me, “There’s always going to be another gig, so shut up.” And he was right. As simple advice as that is, it’s really stuck with me, and you know, I’ve been able to let things slide when things go wrong as they invariably do ever since. So yeah, there’s always going to be another gig.
If you were to recommend people listen to one of your tracks, that gives the best idea of who you are and what you sound like what would that track be?
I think right now for me, if they were listening to one track that kind of encapsulates Really Good Time in this moment, it would be “On Dublin Bus”, which is the first song on our debut album Affirmations. It sort of sets up everything on the record sonically and thematically. So yeah, “On Dublin Bus”, I think is your starting point. There’s also a hidden message in the song. No one’s decoded it yet, and it contains a set of coordinates. Search at your peril. It could be called a prize by some, perhaps a curse by others.
What has been your career highlight to date?
We’ve had a bunch of kind of career highlights as a band. I think putting the the album out, just having it out, has been one. The response has been amazing. We’re still kind of in the middle of that, though, so I feel weirdly a little numb to it, I guess. But that’s been a really big milestone. The last headline gig that we did in Dublin was in Whelan’s, and that was a really big kind of career highlight. Again, it’s like you asked the dream venue thing earlier, and it’s like, well, it was Whelan ‘s, and we did that. So that was a really big one. That was a big moment for us. It was a great show, and it kind of put a marker in where we were at that point. So yeah, I would say the Whelan’s show that we did. It sold out, which was a great surprise to me. Yeah, that was a big one, Whelan’s 2024.
Where can fans see you next?
We have an Irish tour coming up in December, celebrating our debut album Affirmations, and we’re going to be playing our biggest headline to date at the Button Factory on the 5 December, and we’re very, very excited.
What are your plans for the next year?
Next album, and do lots of gigs. Yeah. It is always a Really Good Time.
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