About
In the summer of 1997 a group of Dublin school friends came together to form a band inspired by the music that had been soundtracking their teenage years. Although, why Jonathan Black, Andrew Brennan, Declan Garvey and Anthony Mooney – who were inspired to make music by Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins…
In the summer of 1997 a group of Dublin school friends came together to form a band inspired by the music that had been soundtracking their teenage years.
Although, why Jonathan Black, Andrew Brennan, Declan Garvey and Anthony Mooney – who were inspired to make music by Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins and Jeff Buckley chose the band name ‘Purple Haze’ – remains a mystery to this day.
Shortly after forming – a much-needed change of name and lead singer occurred and Melaton was born.
Led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Luke Slott, the five friends quickly realised that they could write their own songs and by 2001 were the centre of a major label bidding war, with the band eventually signing to Sony UK. Much to the delight of the band members’ parents, the bidding war coincided with the lead up to their final school exams, with the Sony deal signed in May 2001, weeks before their leaving certificate.
Shortly after www.melaton.ie was set up and a CD was promised to anyone who logged on that year. “We initially said we would do 2,000 of them and we thought that would do us for the year,” Luke remembers, “but it ended up we had requests for over 7,000. And we really did make them and send them all out.”
Melaton went on to release two more EPs – ‘Falling Star’ and ‘Still Water’ and toured extensively throughout the UK and Ireland as well as playing support to Ian Brown, Elbow and JJ72. At the time their sound was as “…early U2 shot through with the haunting impact that first made us treasure Jeff Buckley. It’s the complex, ethereal grace of Radiohead with none of the emotional distance.”
Stints with producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur) at Townhouse Studios in London and with U2 engineer Richard Rainey at St. Catherine’s Court in Bath (the site of the fabled OK Computer recordings) failed to yield the more commercial sound being sought by the record label. Pressure mounted to write more radio friendly singles and by early 2004 Melaton had collapsed under the weight of corporate expectations and the compromising of their creative process.
Asked why the band chose Sony UK’s offer above any others, Andrew Brennan says, “I think they were the only label that weren’t insisting we had to move to London”.
Over twenty years later, Melaton are delighted to announce that they have reformed to play a show in Dublin’s Whelan’s on 26th June 2026 in aid of the amazing work done by Focus Ireland.
