Formed in 2015 Loud Motive are Paddy Tunga – Drums, Kevin Fitzgerald – Guitar, Marvell Mavungu – Vocals, Eli Dapson – Keyboards and Danny Duho – Bass Guitar. Four of the bands members moved to Ireland from Africa as children, a big cultural adjustment that hasn’t been without it’s own set of difficulties, but as with most hard challenges in life what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger and in some way the challenges faced by Paddy, Marvell, Eli and Danny have been offset by each of the individuals passion for music. The only Irishman born and raised in the band guitarist Kevin Fitzgerald didn’t have it all so easy either as he says with his own individual swagger.
“On the north side of Dublin born and raised, in St.Annes park is where I spent most of me days, chillin with me cash and relaxin all cool and drop kickin dudes from St.Pauls school, when a couple a rats who came straight from the flats, threatened all me mates with some baseball bats, I got in one little fight and me ma couldn’t breathe, she said your moving to your aunty and uncle in West Meath.”
Fresh Prince of Raheny aside this obvious sense of humour can be seen throughout the bands optimistic attitude towards life and the music they create and when it appears in their compositions it’s like a tip of the hat to the memorable skits of Dela Soul on their pivotal and hugely influential work “3 feet high and rising”. Being able to back up this ‘off the cuff’ humour musically is no easy task particularly with musical reference points as diverse as “Stevie Wonder” to “A Tribe Called Quest” but somehow Loud Motive make it all sound so effortless. Learning their musical craft has never been that easy as keyboardist Eli Dapson recounts.















“At the age of 7 I wanted to learn the violin. But of course that didn’t quite pan out as you’ve probably already figured…I mean at the time it was just quite a daunting task hunting down a descent violin instructor in that part of West Africa…I immediately shifted my focus to the keyboards…much to my surprise I didn’t enjoy my first couple of lessons at all. I thought that the bald headed exasperated banker who was my teacher at the time was a bit too intense. It felt like he’d always had a bad day at work and he came to the lessons to take out some of the stress of banking on me, he would hit my fingers with the edge of a wooden ruler for not learning my scales properly. I was sure to learn them correctly for the next lesson”
Like most other African kids that migrated to Ireland Paddy, Marvell, Danny and Eli found themselves going to church every Sunday which gave them the opportunity to learn and play gospel music completely for free. Bass Guitarist Danny Duho remembers this as being where the seeds were sown for the creation of Loud Motive
“Dapson and I knew each other from church, all four of us were all brought up in the gospel/African side of church except Kevin…Kevin he is a child of the devil!”
The influence of gospel music can be heavily felt from Eli’s chord voicing’s and progressions to Paddy’s sense of rhythmical space. Whilst the early years of their musical training can be traced to Gospel other musical genres have played a role in the formation of their sound. In Daniel’s baselines you hear the un-mistakeable groove of Afro-beat and in Kevin’s guitar work the heartfelt soul of Curtis Mayfield and pop sensibility of Nile Rogers. Drummer Paddy Tunga even recalls that the gospel church he attended in someway influenced the introduction of new musical genres into his style.