Started as a fun experiment in the kitchen of a house in Perrystown, The Scratch are a 4-
piece act from Dublin, Ireland. Born from a shared love of guitar, metal and traditional
Irish music, The Scratch have moulded triumphant melodies with the groove and
intensity of metal. You will not have seen anything like this band.
A 2017 busking trip to Rory Gallagher festival in Ballyshannon kick-started the journey,
as a video of the band busking racked up an astonishing one million views in just a week
and was shared around the world. This began a whirlwind of momentum, culminating in
two sold out Olympia Theatres in Dublin in 2022 alongside a sold out Irish and UK Tour.
2022 also saw them play at some of Europe’s biggest festivals, including Download,
Reading and Leeds, Electric Picnic, Latitude and Rock For People.
The band’s first EP Old Songs was released in 2018, a collection of older instrumental
material. Next up came stand-alone singles and crowd favourites Get It Right Up Ye and
Punisher that summer. 2019 saw the release of The Whole Buzz EP as well as singles
Cúnla and Flaker, with a marked development of their song writing style and sound. The
Whole Buzz further cemented The Scratch as one of the best trad revival / metal crossover
acts in Ireland and one of the most exciting acts in the world with high energy riffs and
soaring melodies littered across the 5 tracks.
In 2019 With the arrival of Covid-19 changing the industry and indeed the world, the
band decided to take matters into their own hands and release their debut album Couldn’t
Give A Rats three months early to give their fanbase something positive in a difficult
time. The album has received critical acclaim, scoring a top 10 album in Ireland, a 4-star
review from The Irish Times, and Hot Press describing it as one of the “boldest Irish
debuts in recent memory”.
It is impossible to fully understand this band without seeing them in the live environment,
where they challenge anybody to come to show and not leave with a smile on their face.
