STEVE Mack remembers the moment clearly. “Good news – great gig. Bad news – they’ve blown up the hotel.” That was Belfast in the late 1980s.

Mack, frontman of That Petrol Emotion, had come over from Seattle to London and ended up in a band formed by former members of The Undertones. By the time they were playing Belfast regularly, they had built a reputation as one of the most intense live acts around.

But the backdrop was never ordinary. The band were staying in the Europa Hotel – long known as the most bombed hotel in Europe. After the show, they were told it had been hit. When they went back the next day, the front was blown out.

“The bar was still open,” Mack says. “People were standing there in coats, having pints. Only in Belfast.”

For local audiences, it was just life. For bands coming in, it was something else entirely.

That Petrol Emotion themselves came out of Derry, formed by members of The Undertones looking to move in a new direction. West Belfast bassist Brendy Kelly would later join the band in 1991. When Mack joined them in London in those early days, he had never sung in a band before.

“I told them they didn’t need a singer,” he says. “Thankfully they ignored me.”

What followed was a band that didn’t sit easily in any one category. They mixed punk energy with left-field influences, moving between styles at a time when most bands were expected to stick to one.

“If you want me to stand still, you’ve got the wrong guy,” Mack says of his approach on stage.

That energy became their trademark. For those who saw them live, it’s what stuck.

Looking back now, he’s honest about how things played out.

“We kept making the worst decisions,” he says, reflecting on records and direction.

There were also political edges. At one point, he believes the band were effectively “shadow banned” around messaging connected to the North.

Even so, their impact was real. They never fully broke through commercially, but they were a band other musicians paid attention to – and a band audiences remembered.

For Mack, the story still comes back to instinct.

“I’m adopted… I’m genetically a rock star.”

It’s said half in jest, but it explains something.

From Seattle to Derry to Belfast, it was never a straight line. But it was always music.