Dublin band Scustin venerate Ireland’s pub culture in funk, disco, rock and spoken word.  It’s hard-hitting and it’s hilarious and it hits out at targets way beyond the sanctity of the pub.

Release Date:  19^th September 2025

Label: Self Release

Format:  Digital

A VENERATION OF PUB CULTURE – AND MORE…

From Bray, Co. Wicklow, Scustin are a band who blur the lines between crowd and artist.  There are no spectators at a Scustin show, only participants.  The band have been compared to The Streets, Viagra Boys, Blur and Kneecap and those comparisons are particularly valid for Confessions Of A Pub Talker, Scustin’s debut album. 

Confessions Of A Pub Talker is a concept album but not in the way that older readers might understand that discredited term.  A fresh blend of post-punk, funk, disco, rock and spoken-word poetry, it’s a political statement that venerates the pub culture of Ireland, rightly recognizing that institution’s role as a vital community hub.  Along the way, the songs and statements fire a broadside at subjects like the housing crisis and modern blame culture.

THEY MAKE YOU LAUGH, THEY MAKE YOU THINK

The stories and thoughts are expressed via the medium of Larry, a cheeky, charming, barman who acts as both narrator and confessor in a fictional Dublin pub.  “The idea for Larry came out of spending years behind the taps and also on the other side of them,” explains Scustin frontman, Joe Hearns.  “Irish pubs are more than just places for pints, They’re like modern-day churches.  People come in looking for connection, for ritual, for someone to talk to.”

The album takes the form of a layered commentary.  The songs and recitations are socially-aware, yet deeply entertaining and there’s no shortage of humour here.  “We love making people laugh, but we want them to think, too,” says Joe.  And the music is performed masterfully.  Scustin can turn their collective hand to any genre you’d care to name.  the funk and 70s-flavoured disco is tight and authentic and their rock packs a punch.

DON’t PUT BLACKCURRENT IN THAT PINT OF GUINNESS!

Opening monologue, The Man Behind The Bar, introduces Larry.  The virtues of the pub – and the challenges of running one – are summarized in a few succinct sentences, before Larry opens up his thoughts to wider social opportunity with Social Scene, a quickfire rap, delivered to a hard funk accompaniment.

“Don’t put blackcurrant in that pint of Guinness,” shrieks Larry, in the hilarious The Ick – “You give me the ick – it makes me sick,” he rightly asserts.  In a list of things that disturb him, recited to fast, shuffling drumbeat and a pattering bassline, it’s the act of Guinness adulteration that upsets him most!  But his mood is calmer as he reflects on more bar gossip in the part-funk, part hard rock The Killer.

WE ALL NEED SOMEBODY TO TALK TO

Confessions of a Pub talker is peppered with short, subject-linking spoken-word passages tagged as ‘skits.’  There are four of them and, in the first, Larry encounters a customer with high but, apparently, thwarted musical aspirations -Bray’s very own Cassanover, who recalls an encounter with a ‘certain VIP’ on a New York-Dublin flight.  And, with Charmer, an authentic slice of 70s disco, our Cassanova goes on to recall his romantic advances to said VIP – “I want you to love me like you’re loving someone for the last time,” before he realizes his washed-out state, admitting “I was a Celtic tiger; now I’m worth a fiver…”

The antics of pub customers – including sniffing lines through rolled-up fivers and conducting (possibly same-sex) conjugal relationships in the pub toilets provide Larry’s subject matter for the absorbing Deep Dirty Bastards. He isn’t judgmental, though – as he demonstrates when he concludes: “We all need somebody to talk to…”

LOCKDOWN, CANS, MATT DAMON…

Skit #2 takes the form of a disturbing telephone call that prompts Larry to involve his pub’s doorman, Sham, who duly – in the heavy, crazy, Sham The Doorman – expounds at length about his eye for the ladies and his dislike of “compassionless people.”  Then, in a quick shift of topic, Larry’s musings are taken back to the days of the pandemic and his habit of sneaking away to drink a couple of cans and chew the fat in a quiet location with a mate.  Only, this time, the ‘mate’ turns out to be American actor Matt Damon, who shares his booze, his food and his ganja with Larry, as he recounts in the delightful, bright, tight Drinking Cans In A Field With Matt Damon: “Nothing makes sense anymore – we’re drinking cans in a field with Matt Damon!”

His adventures give him a hangover, which, in Happy As Larry, prompts our hero to swear of the booze – but he doesn’t, of course…

CAUGHT IN RYAN’S TRAP

Perhaps my favourite track on the album, the searing I’m Never Flying With Ryanair Again, is a riot.  It’s hilarious but, it packs a punch, too.  Prompted by a conversation overheard by the band at an airport, the song is merciless critique of the blame culture that pervades our society, and lines like: “The prices are low, the service is crap.  I’ve no room for my legs – I’m caught in Ryan’s trap” say everything that needs to be said.

The album’s fourth – and final – ‘skit’ recalls a conversation with a British Border Guard: “Bray – is that in Southern Ireland?  Never heard of it!” And that’s the introduction to closing track, Our Regards, a scathing swipe at the problems – pub closures, the housing crisis, greed and more – that affect Dublin and elsewhere. 

IF IT MAKES YOU LAUGH, THEN MAKES YOU THINK...

Confessions Of A Pub Talker covers a lot of ground, tackles subjects that will be familiar to all – with a hilarity that never once dampens the social messages that Scustin are so keen to get across.  As frontman Joe points out: “We’re serious about not taking ourselves too seriously.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t care.  If a song makes you laugh, and then makes you think – the, we’ve done our job.”

Listen to the hilarious, poignant, I’m Never Flying With Ryanair Again – a song from the album – below:

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