Belters Only: From the dancefloor to the main stage at Indiependence 

As much as your writer and this parish would like to get away from mentions of the covid crisis of the past few years, across the musical board, its reverberations are still being felt in many ways - including the emergence of artists who used the downtime to get down to creating, and reaching people in different ways as the public attention span changed.

Beginning as a club residency in Dublin, before becoming a production and performance-DJ duo, Belters Only, helmed by Robbie G and Bissett, are one such project, garnering attention with a series of new tunes and remixes that aimed to stoke the nightclub atmosphere at a time when not only had the clubs fallen silent, but conversation was growing as to whether they would survive the post-crisis circumstance.

Debut major-label single “Make Me Feel Good” saw the Polydor-signed duo, alongside similarly-ascendant singer Jazzy, hit the top-spot of the Irish singles charts and the UK top ten, powered by streaming numbers, downloads among a legacy audience, and extensive radio play. Speaking over Zoom, Robbie G talks about the milestones, including their hand in Jazzy’s subsequent smash ‘Giving Me’.

“Being a youngfella, dreaming of being part of the industry, even when I was just DJing and stuff, it was always a dream to get that number one hit, y'know what I mean? I've been in the game so long now, and obviously, I've gone through so many different experiences within the industry, the whole number one milestone has crept up a little bit.

“It was an amazing feeling, to hit that milestone was unbelievable, the track blowing up the way it did, but I think what it did was, it just put more hunger inside us. Breaking the barrier, and actually showing it's possible to go number one with a dance track in Ireland. It was more achieving that, than actually achieving the status of the number one award, if that makes sense?

“We're in the sampling era now, and I think the main goal for us, was to get a #1 that we made solely ourselves, not taking anything away from "Make Me Feel Good", but I think the goal for us was to make a song that was born and bred, made from scratch, in Ireland, and for that to go number one, and I think Jazzy's 'Giving Me', written and produced by us, made in Dublin... for that to number one, I think not just that it's more special, but I think it's just a bigger representation of who we are, what we can achieve and it also proves that it can be done, y'know?”

The rise to mainstream attention of a more-commercially-geared strain of house music might come as a surprise to some - especially former casual clubbers, many of whom have either been keeping the faith with enduring residencies like those of Cork’s Fish Go Deep, or who have committed the genre to a hazy ‘90s memory.

Robbie and his generation of DJs and producers were on a roll before the crisis, as Cyprus Avenue in particular was a hub for the local tech-house scene, but the idea of a crossover that sought to capture the genre’s past for a wider audience might not have turned up on too many bingo cards.

“I think that's the main thing for us, showing this sound that Ireland obviously loved for years, way before I was even born, on a wider stage. I think what was lacking is somebody actually doing it from here, rather than having to go to the US, or across the pond to England. That's something that me and Bissett have been trying to do, and it's a message that we've been trying to send in Ireland for a very long time, showing that you don't need to go anywhere anymore.

“There's a sound here in Ireland that needs to be shown, and what we've noticed over the past few years, maybe the past few years, what we grew up on in Ireland is unheard of, realistically it hasn't been heard properly on a world stage. Even over in England, the likes of 'Giving Me', yes, it was around in the '90s but on a bigger stage, it hasn't really been heard, consistently anyway.

“We're so happy now, that we're in a position to be able to put the Irish dance sound on a world stage. There's so many other artists, brewing all over the country, that are doing the exact same thing, and they know now that they don't need to go elsewhere, and that there is a pathway paved for them to be able to do it at home.”

The duo head to Indiependence on the Friday night for their second consecutive headlining set, occupying space at the top of the billing alongside popstar Anne Marie and festival-scene reliables King Kong Company - Robbie’s pride in Belters Only’s prowess is evident as he talks about what revellers might expect.

“To be honest, for me personally, I have a soft spot for Cork, I always did. When it was just Robbie G going around, my biggest crowd was always in Cork. They always showed me love down there, so it's always great to go back. Especially as well, off the back of Indiependence last year, when we first went down as Belters Only, the crowd that turned up for us, and the support that was down there was mad, so now we're both buzzing to get down.

“We have so much new music to show everybody, and every time we go somewhere again, we always try to take it to another level. It's bigger. It's better. We're coming here with a new production, new stage setup, loads of extras involved. It's going to be unreal.”

Belters Only play the Friday night of Indiependence festival, Deer Farm, Mitchelstown; running Friday, August 4, to Sunday, August 6. Tickets and more information are available at https://indiependencefestival.com/.