Legend has it that The Hot Sprockets formed when two friends, Joe and Soper set out on a trip across the wide, open plains of North America. Stopping one day by a cornfield, the two discovered that a local farmer was looking for men to work the land. Hoping to make enough money to fix their beat-up guitars and fill their rumbling bellies, they signed up and started work that very day. Words: Hugh Mc Cafferty Photo: Toni Ireton The labour was tough, but before a week and seven days were out, their old six-strings were as good as new. Taking a break from the harvesting one day, they struck up a conversation with two other farm-hands by the name of Frank and Age, who, as it turned out were musicians too. Joe and Wayne got to thinking and decided to ask Frank and Age if they wanted to play a few tunes with them under a big old tree in the yard. Their new acquaintances thought this a damn fine idea and they all ran over to the shade. On their way, they came across a man, just lying there in their path. Tim, as the stranger turned out to be called, happened to have a guitar of his own and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Like all good blues bands and musicians, then, the Hot Sprockets have a suspiciously made-up-sounding biography. When I meet Tim and Soper, I decide to get to the bottom of the story straight away. A little disappointingly, the real origins of the band are just as mundane as expected: one day, about two and a half years ago, five mates from Rathmines, Walkinstown and Kilnamanagh decided it would be fun to form a band, hang out and play some gigs together. Luckily, their refreshingly loose brand of ramshackle blues more than makes up for the underwhelmingly typical nature of their formation. This looseness is probably down to the fact that most