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Northern Irish post punk band

That Petrol Emotion were a London based Northern Ireland originating band with an American vocalist, Steve Mack. It featured the O'Neill brothers from celebrated Derry pop punk band The Undertones plus ex members of fellow Derry bands Bam Bam and The Calling and The Corner Boys. They recorded five albums between 1986 and 1994, exploring an eclectic fusion of alternative rock, post punk, garage rock and dance music (including sampling) which in part anticipated and overlapped with the dance pop era of the 1990s. Following a 14 year break, the band reunited in 2008 for various dates, tours and festival appearances before returning to hiatus in 2010. Four members of the band went on to form The Everlasting Yeah.

Following the split of The Undertones, John O'Neill (the band's former guitarist and principal songwriter) returned to his hometown of Derry and teamed up with friend and fellow guitarist Raymond Gorman (ex Bam Bam And The Calling) to DJ together at Derry's 'Left Bank' club. Inspired by the records they were playing, the two formed first a new songwriting project and then a new band, playing a couple of gigs with a drum machine and Gorman's then girlfriend as singer. was the next member to join. In autumn 1984, the nascent That Petrol Emotion relocated to London, where the existing three members were joined by John's brother and former Undertones lead guitarist Damian O'Neill (who, desperate to join, agreed to switch to bass guitar). In 2020, comedian Paul Whitehouse revealed that he had unsuccessfully auditioned for the band during this period. That Petrol Emotion's influences encompassed artists as diverse as The Beatles, Afrika Bambaataa, Television, Sly & the Family Stone, Captain Beefheart and Can. Following some initial interest from Creation Records, they released their debut single "Keen" on Pink Records in July 1985. The sound of the new band severed overt musical links with The Undertones due to its darker, more edgy sound: That Petrol Emotion were also far more political and outspoken than The Undertones had been, with the Irish members listing their names in their Irish language forms on the sleeve art and (in their songwriting) beginning to look into issues relating to the Irish Troubles. O'Gorman would later describe the band as having been "like the Undertones after discovering drugs, literature and politics, with a lot more girls in the audience dancing." They were described by Rolling Stone magazine as "The Clash crossed with Creedence", and the New York Times described them in 1987 as "a youthful Rolling Stones" crossed with a "revved up Television". The band's second album and major label debut Babble (released in 1987 on Polydor Records) broke into the UK Albums Chart In the UK, the single "Big Decision" was released in 1987 which charted at number 42. This would be the band's highest chart position for a single release. Demonstrating an intensification of the band's political stance, the back sleeve of "Big Decision" had contained text criticising the Diplock Courts in Northern Ireland and their potential ability to convict on false or forced confessions. Twenty seven years later, Raymond O'Gorman would comment "with regard to the politics and having grown up with Protestants, my thing was always to go back to civil rights. To make people understand that the only reason the IRA were in existence in the first place was due to the intransigence of the British and the Unionists. The whole situation in Northern Ireland is too difficult to explain and hard for most outsiders to grasp. Once we started talking about politics the music almost became secondary." (at the time, a hate figure for the UK establishment due to his suspected links with the IRA, which would lead to his voice being banned from British media between 1988 and 1994). O'Gorman has pointed out "there was no need for any reference to (Adams) 'cos the quote was from Liam Mellows, but I think it had been left to our tour manager to sort out the sleeve and without thinking he included a reference to Adam's book. It will haunt us forever that one. Pretty poor excuse all the same to ban us/the single; pathetic, really; however, no one knew we were banned as they didn't make a fuss a la Frankie Goes To Hollywood, very smart on their part." However, the band's failure to gain further hit singles led to problems with Polydor when the latter's management changed in this period. Following demands made to the band to deliver immediate hit singles, That Petrol Emotion exploited a loophole in their contract and left Polydor, only to be snapped up within a few weeks by Virgin Records. Having completed tour dates to promote the album, John O'Neill left That Petrol Emotion in October 1988. before switching to guitar and returning to work as a solo singer songwriter. Singer Steve Mack returned to Seattle, where he would later play bass with Seattle pop group Cantona and form Anodyne with fellow songwriter Harris Thurmond: an Anodyne album, Tensor, was released in 1998 (using the project name "Marfa Lights" in Europe). Raymond Gorman, Brendan Kelly and Damian O'Neill formed a new band called Wavewalkers in 1996, which played six shows in London, Derry and Paris before splitting up (Gorman would later resurrect the name for a solo project). In 2000, Damian O'Neill released a 12 inch single, "Higher Grace", on the Toy's Factory label (under the name of X Valdez, featuring arrangements by Xavier Jamaux and vocals by Athena Constantine) and, in 2001, signed to Alan McGee's post Creation label Pop Tones in order to release the experimental electronic album A Quiet Revolution. Former TPE guitarist and songwriting mainstay John O'Neill had already formed the intermittently active Northern Irish trip hop band Rare in 1990, scoring a hit single in 1996 with "Something Wild" and releasing a lone album, Peoplefreak, in 1998. In November 1999, the O'Neill brothers reunited in a reformed Undertones (with a new lineup minus estranged original frontman Feargal Sharkey) which continues to perform and release records to this day.

On 26 March 2008, Steve Mack announced that That Petrol Emotion were reforming (in their Fireproof lineup) to play reunion concerts in the summer. In August 2008 the reunited band played London's The Boston Arms and Dundalk's Spirit Store, then went on to play at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally, Ireland. In March 2009 the band played at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. In the same month their official site confirmed that That Petrol Emotion would be playing the Hop Farm Festival in Kent, England in July 2009. Shortly afterwards a UK tour also in July 2009 was announced along with stints at Oxegen Festival in Ireland and T In The Park in Scotland. That Petrol Emotion continued their reformation with a spot at the My Bloody Valentine curated Nightmare Before Christmas All Tomorrow's Parties festival in December 2009, followed by dates in the UK and the US.

Since 2010, That Petrol Emotion have been on an indefinite hiatus, due to Steve Mack choosing to stay in Seattle and concentrate on parental duties. Gorman, McLaughlin, Kelly and Damian O'Neill continued working together (initially with the intention of carrying on with the existing band playing kosmische/Krautrock influenced music. The new band's debut gig was in London in support of The June Brides, while their debut album Anima Rising was released on their own label Infinite Thrill in 2014. Via crowdfunding, Damian O'Neill recorded the Refit Revise Reprise album with new project The Monotones for release in 2018. In 2022 Edsel issued a boxed set entitled “Every Beginning Has a Future: An Anthology 1984 1994” of all the band’s albums, the majority of their live tracks/b sides released while the band was active. An unreleased 1987 live show was included as part of the set.

That Petrol Emotion's body of work remains critically acclaimed within the music press. It is widely agreed that, while never achieving chart success, the band left a lasting influence on the Britpop and Madchester movements, specifically on such artists such as The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Manic Street Preachers, Andrew Bird, Spoon, Blur and Radiohead. They were posthumously described as having perfected "the art of the scuzzed up alternative pop song" during the 1980s.