It all started with singer and guitarist Roy Duffy playing solo acoustic sets around Dublin in 2009. After some local support slots and a two week tour with Hands Up Who Wants To Die in Eastern Europe where Roy played “wimpy pop to crusties” , he enlisted childhood friend Ian McFarlane to play bass on a debut 7” release. The lead-track ‘Fake Blood’ was the first song to draw attention to Squarehead’s music. It was featured heavily on music blogs, on Popical Island’s seminal compilation of the Dublin indie-pop scene Popical Island #1 and was released on vinyl on Any Other City Records (early home to Villagers) backed with the song ‘Mother Nature’ in August 2010. The song went on to be chosen as the number one Irish song of 2010 by readers of Irish music blog Nialler9.com.
In the meantime, Roy and Ian recruited Ruan Van Vliet to play drums and the band played dozens of gigs throughout the year including Hard Working Class Heroes Festival, nationwide dates and support slots for Calvin Johnson, Deer Tick, No Age, Male Bonding and Titus Andronicus. In the process, Squarehead established themselves as Dublin live favourites, which looks set to continue into 2012.