Shark School’s breakthrough on Netflix’s House of Guinness soundtrack
Forget the cherry on top – the predominantly Irish soundtrack in Netflix’s hit show House of Guinness is the creamy head on a perfect pint.
Galway’s own Shark School’s 2024 track “Choose Life” is featuring on the huge Netflix global hit, House of Guinness.
The show is a fictionalised depiction of the four Guinness children in the aftermath of the famed patriarch’s death, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness.
Shark School’s bassist, Peggy Ford, spoke to Galway Pulse and she said:
“This is huge for a small band like us, because it’s so hard – well, it’s not so hard – but there’s so many different ways of getting exposure as an artist nowadays.”
“And for something like this, considering we recorded the song so long ago and released it so long ago, it feels like a bit of a spell has just been put on it and rejuvenated it again, which is really cool.”
Director Tom Shankland told Hot Press earlier this year that he worked closely with music supervisor Amelia Hartley to source music that fit the show’s distinct Irish tone.
“We were never directly approached by Netflix about the show”, Peggy explains “From what I can gather, they wanted to make the show as Irish as possible and add as many Irish elements in that they could. So, one part of that was the soundtrack.
“Somehow, luckily for us, they came across us”.
Nestled alongside longtime Irish legends like The Stunning, Lisa O’Neill and Thin Lizzy, Shark School also joins the ranks of current Irish sensations on the show’s soundtrack, such as Fontaines DC, Kneecap and The Mary Wallopers.
“For us to be written about alongside Fontaine’s, Kneecap, Sprints – bands that we go to their gigs and have so much fun, but we’re obviously nowhere near the same level – to be put in the same articles and on the same playlist, it’s really an honour,” Peggy explains.
Galway born and bred, Shark School formed in 2023, playing their first gig in Club Áras na nGael: “it was amazing. It was so much fun”, Peggy reflects. They released their first single “411”, a scathing semi-love-letter to the Galway city bus route in February 2024.
“Since then, we have been all over Ireland, up and down, up and down,” Peggy explains, “festivaled all summer long, released our second single, Choose Life, in September 2024, and then kind of been doing the same gigging, festival buzz since then”.
From shadowy snugs in Galway pubs to teeming tents at All Together Now and Electric Picnic, Shark School have created a feverish buzz within the Irish music scene. However, the clambering crowds and silver-screen debuts are supplements to the friendships formed from within the music community.
“The highlights of the music journey, like it’s so cliché, but it genuinely is the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made”, Peggy laughs.
“Like, you know, you meet a band because you’re playing the same lineup and then you play the same lineup again, then you meet them at a gig and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, we’re really, really good friends”, she continues. “And I see you now, go for pints, go for coffee, sleeping on each other’s floors, just kind of that, again, it’s so cliché, but the friendship element of it.
“Because like I said earlier, like there’s so much about being a small band that’s really, really hard work. But everyone in the Irish music scene, and the Galway scene particularly, really, really looks out for each other.”
Punky alt-rockers with a garage influence that seeps through their frenetic live sets, Shark School are the perfect match to House of Guinness’s punchy, rebellious, wild atmosphere.
“Choose Life” is a pulsating mesh of bracing guitar and sizzling drums, accompanied by vocalist’s Nora Staunton’s playful drawl that veers from ironic to desperate in tandem with the cynical yet sanguine lyrics, a knowing wink to the film that inspired its title: Trainspotting.
Questionable Irish accents and even more questionable Irish stereotypes aside, House of Guinness does its job of keeping you clicking the “yes I’m still watching” button. From Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the show is an addicting story of salacious scandal, and is showcasing some of the best and brightest of Irish music on a global screen.
“Everyone loves Guinness now, it’s topical and it’s young and cool,” Peggy comments.
While Peggy claims that “world domination” is the next step in Shark School’s agenda, for now, being featured on the show is a massive boost for the young Galwegians.
“Music nowadays is such hard work and it’s not like – that’s not complaining,” Peggy says. “We’re happy to do the hard work, but something like this, I can’t even put into words how helpful and important it is.”
