Cloakroom Q
Cloakroom Q are a rare breed — a band unafraid to be truly original in an era of algorithms and easy categorization. Hailing from Belfast, their music defies convention, moving effortlessly between heavy metal, trad ballads, lounge jazz, and hyperpop without ever feeling disjointed. Their sophomore album Tune You Have to Dance To is a sprawling, An odyssey that explores loss, confusion, yearning, and perseverance, often through a lens of tongue-in-cheek humour and wild stylistic detours. With contributions ranging from trumpet to harp, and production that embraces spontaneity over polish, the album showcases a band committed to unfiltered artistic expression. It’s dense, daring, and deeply human — a sonic collage built on emotional depth and fearless invention.
Formed eight years ago — their name born from a brawl in the queue for a Death Grips cloakroom — Cloakroom Q features Jared Green, Con Coulter, Dan Monaghan, and Danny Havern, all multi-instrumentalists who bring a stunning level of musicianship to the table. Singles like “Nail In Your Head” and “Substance” have already caught the attention of key tastemakers, and the album as a whole delivers on their promise. From the 16-minute epic “To Dance or Not To Dance” to the haunting trad-inspired “Painting My Nails for the Last Time Today,” the band constantly challenges expectations. With surreal artwork and costumes created by renowned collaborators, Tune You Have to Dance To isn’t just an album — it’s an uncompromising artistic statement from a band that truly does it for the love of the craft.
War Pigs - Black Sabbath
Paranoid as a whole is probably the album that has shaped our music and approach to songwriting the most and War Pigs is the perfect showcase of that, always introducing something new every bar and every instrument locking together to create a dominant rhythm through the track. The vocals being treated as another instrument as well has become more prevalent in our music over the years.
The Cruel Angels Thesis - Yoko Takahashi
The Evangelion opening is very important to all of us but it also sounds like the type of tune we would attempt to write. Triumphant trumpet parts over a locked in groove with plenty of dynamic tension. The post-chorus completely changing into a police chase sounding guitar solo and then coming back into a choir part is very Cloakroom Q and it’s a fantastic show to boot.
Echoes - Pink Floyd
There's too many Pink Floyd songs that have had a huge influence on us to actually name them all, but Echoes makes the most sense with the context of our album. With a couple of very obvious inspirations/comparisons between Echoes and our own songs, the most blatant would likely be our song To Dance Or Not To Dance, its got the spooky parts, the sad lyrics, the funky section and probably more guitar bends than are necessary.
Sorry For Party Rocking - LMFAO
During the writing process of this album, we as a band became unhealthily obsessed with LMFAO's discography. There are many highlights throughout their short careers, but Sorry For Party Rocking stands out most for us. To clarify, we don't agree with the poorly aged sentiments of the song and as well I'm not really sure that any of us have been sorry for Party Rocking.
Blackstar – David Bowie
This track was released around the time Cloakroom Q first formed in 2016. Since then both the track and the album of the same name have grown in our collective appreciation as a band. Consciously and maybe unconsciously they have influenced some of our compositions over the years, but I think their influence has truly culminated in our song To Dance or Not to Dance. Not just the with saxophone flourishes and the extended runtime but also the lush production, epic scale, and the way the song moves through different vibes and set pieces.
I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – The Beatles
Like many bandmates, we've spent countless hours discussing The Beatles. It’s almost impossible to create music without at least some influence from what they did. Sometimes it feels right to wear those inspirations on your sleeve. Or maybe inject them intravenously to your blood supply. Our song Perfectly Legal for Me to Ruin Your Day, the second half serves as an extended outro, which I feel harkings to I Want You (She’s So Heavy). Both songs revolve around a repeated idea that gradually intensifies while maintaining the same melodic core until the end.
Happiness - Molly Drake
This track was a big inspiration for Held At Night. The imagery of birds representing an emotion is where the idea of love with birds/flight came from. The way she wrote harmonic progressions is just beautiful and it’s something we kept in mind when composing our track.
You Let My Tyres Down - Tropical F*ck Storm
This is a mad sounding track. The angular guitar parts that seem at odds with the rhythm section, the aggressive and a bit gross lyrics at times and the overall noise bridge all directly fed into the writing process of Nail In Your Head. It’s a personal favourite of ours and we were buzzing to see them perform it live a couple years back.
Guts Theme - Susumu Hirasawa
We are pretty sure this is the best track ever made. All big fans of Berserk and this encapsulates the essence of the manga. Absolute beautiful vocals
The Dark Eyed Gypsy - Lankum
Lankum are a band that are so inspiring in so many ways, it's great to see people doing something so groundbreaking and fresh whilst still being traditional and ancient feeling. Obviously, we took a lot of inspiration from Lankum for our track Painting My Nails For The Last Time Today, with no one reference track in mind, although The Dark Eyed Gypsy would be among a list of our favourites, such a beautiful and heart breaking track.