When Chordblossom came into existence, it was always our aim to shine a spotlight on the artists and bands that make up the music scene in Northern Ireland. We’ve been doing it for over ten years now and one of our favourite methods is our Introducing feature.
Put the kettle on, curl up on your sofa and and join us for a quickfire Q&A with some of our favourite new musicians. Who knows, maybe you’ll even discover your new favourite artists.
This iteration of Introducing features the musical talents of Mucksavage who just released their latest single ‘Watto’.
What was the inspiration behind your artist name?
The name Mucksavage came from my friend Tash in work actually! I had a terrible habit of spilling tea all over myself and the floor on the walk from the kitchen to my office, so much so that she could tell when I was in work by the wet trail on the ground. One day she called me a mucksavage and I was like “wtf is that?” She explained that it meant someone who was messy or clumsy. I googled it after the fact and found out it has a couple of different meanings, one of which was a slur that rich Dubliners used to call “bog-dwellers” back in the day.
I thought it totally fit the music I’d been writing, messy bog-dwellers was absolutely the vibe, and I loved the idea of wearing the name as a badge of honour in the face of poncy slander.
You’ve just released a new single. How did it come about and what does it mean to you?
Yeah we just released our second ever single called Watto! The song was written by me (James) after I’d just come back from my first ever tour with Virgins and I felt like I was a bit stuck in a rut. I’d recently moved back in with my parents after a long-term relationship fell apart and I had some heavy metal medical issues I was dealing with at the time. It was like 4am and I was doing what I did when I couldn’t sleep, which was to try and write songs. I’d been really disillusioned by all the dating apps, felt like a bit of a failure in life, and was really really lonely and the instrumental for Watto was the result of that writing sesh. I tried writing lyrics at the time but my head was so fried I think I passed out with my amp still on!
Maybe a week later I went to see Cleo’s (bassist) band Redtail play a show in the SU and afterwards we went back to a party where we spent all night sitting on the floor of the kitchen chatting about anything and everything. While I was walking back home at 5am in an absolute state it kind of hit me that talking to Cleo and being around her made all those feelings of loneliness, ennui, and despair kind of disappear for a while. The next day I sat down to see if I could write the lyrics for Watto and the opening line “I’ve been under the weather since I found out that the weather exists” just fell out of me and the rest followed. I didn’t let Cleo hear the song until months later, even going so far as to change her name in the song to Watto to throw her off the scent! It didn’t work, we now live together and have a cat called Sadie.
We also released a B side alongside Watto called Love Bomb, which was written on Christmas Eve after a couple of (6) pints because for some reason I decided we needed a new song to open our live set with. It’s a bit of a wildcard for us because it is so tongue-in-cheek and playful, and is such a contrast to Watto. People have been asking why we didn’t release it as a single and to be honest the reason is that I love the idea of a B side potentially being as good (if not better) than the single. I am a huge Donna Summer fan and I love the fact that “I Feel Love” was the B side to “Can’t We Just Sit Down”, so I suppose Love Bomb is a bit of a Donna Summer easter egg.
Have you any more releases or studio time lined up for later in the year?
We have plans to release a couple more tunes this year without a doubt. There has been talk of a bigger release next year too if all goes to plan and we can somehow afford that. Being in a DIY band is expensive and I don’t really know how we’re going to fund and promote an EP or an album by ourselves but we’re going to try our best! I’ve never really liked listening to EPs because it always leaves me wanting more and never feels complete, so maybe we’ll do something stupid and jump straight to an album!
Big things coming!
Tell us about your song writing process.
It changes with every song we write. I (James) do the bulk of the writing and the initial idea can come from anywhere. There could be a really class drum groove I hear and want to use in a song, there could be a certain lyric that pops into my head that leads me into a full-blown idea, I could think of a cool title and write the song around that, or I could be sitting down messing about with guitar pedals and something just happens. I always find that things come to me when I’m not looking for them, and it’s when I try really hard to write a song that it never works!
One thing that I did with Love Bomb was to try and write from the perspective of a character, which was actually really good fun and let me test ideas without being really self-critical. Because I was writing lyrics from someone else’s perspective I didn’t mind when they were a bit silly or cringey and I almost allowed myself to be more creative and open to new ideas.
There’s a song in our set called Soup that we tend to end shows with and that was the first song I really collaborated on with the band and I think it is my favourite Mucksavage song at the minute (this changes daily). It started with a lyric that came from some Kurt Cobain documentary, there was a line in it that was “we’re in the soup” or something to that effect and I thought that would be a cool lyric. One day me and Cleo were hanging out and I was messing about on her bass and wrote the riff out of nowhere, and she took the bass off me and made it a million times better, then wrote a B section and all of a sudden we had the bones of a song. It’s a really good song, you should come see us live and decide for yourself though!
Who were your favourite artists/bands growing up? Have your influences changed over time?
Getting these eejits to take anything seriously is a battle that I am constantly losing, so I have taken their answers and edited them.
James: I loved ABBA, Shania Twain, and Blink182 growing up. I still love them but now I like Pixies, LCD Soundsystem, Jeff Rosenstock, and Talking Heads too! I’m finding as I get older I’m way more open to new music and it’s been really refreshing revisiting artists I’d completely written off as a kid. I’ll go through periods of listening to the same band for a month and then forgetting they exist when I find my next hyperfixation.
Caolan: He just said “Beatles”
Aidan: “Linkin Park and System of a Down” (I didn’t know they had emos in France)
Cleo ignored my calls because she has a real job and can’t take random calls at 11am on a Thursday? But her answer would 100% be the Beatles, her and her dad are the biggest Beatles fans I’ve ever met and she’s loved them since she was a kid. It’s a point of contention in the band because Aidan thinks they’re shit. Cleo has a playlist called “everything” that we stick on for road trips and it really is everything under the sun, her music taste is so eclectic and amazing.
What’s been your favourite local release from the last twelve months?
Again, I’m sorry for their answers.
James: My favourite album is 10000000% Foreign Owl’s album “child”, it is so beautiful and manic and perfect. Favourite single would have to be Wynona Bleach with “I Deserve That” because the drums are class.
Caolan: He just said “Kevi Forex – Come With Me” (I made him change it from Kneecap”
Aidan: “I hate local music”
Cleo ignored my calls again but she absolutely loves Tramp’s new EP Bimbofication
If you weren’t musicians, what line of work would we find you in?
We are all 9-5 nerds in Mucksavage, but just for the craic here are the answers!
James: I’d actually love to be a postman, I used to watch this documentary called Postman Pat when I was younger and it looks chill
Caolan: Parking ticket enforcer
Aidan: He just said “Bruh”???
Cleo: She said to me last week she’d be completely content just doing nothing for the rest of her life and I respect that.
If you could collaborate with one artist or band from NI, who would it be and why?
Kevi Forex, needs no elaboration. He could totally spit bars over some Mucksavage tunes.
That or Parker or Foreign Owl or Tramp, we love the Derry girls!
Or we could get all the different bands that we’re in and make a supergroup, it could be called Slow Bleachsavage Fatale. Chordblossom make it happen!
It is intensely difficult to be successful in the music industry. What does NI need to do to invest in/develop to boost your chances?
Yeah it feels like the system is rigged against us a lot of the time, which is why we love independent blogs like Chordblossom so much! I think a lot of people still think of the music they consume as a luxury, which to an extent it is, we’re not saving lives here. Having said that though, I think that a lot of people take music for granted and don’t see a career in music as a viable option unless you’re in the corporate side of things, so I think the first thing to change would be to try to destigmatise a career in the music industry from an artist’s perspective. I think sending clear messages to the masses by paying artists fairly through streaming services would be a game changer for us, I know so many artists who are sitting at a million streams and selling out big rooms who still have day jobs which is crazy to me.
Secondly and more locally, I think NI needs better infrastructure put in place to support late night events. Things like night buses (or even late buses) and trains would mean easier access to more gigs and events, meaning more footfall and more money for artists and promoters alike. I think licensing laws need to be seriously re-evaluated as well so more venues can open and stay open later which would in turn mean more opportunities for people to play original music. All of this is hard to even conceive when it’s a struggle for our government to take their seats never mind agree on something. So in addition to that I’d say that musicians need to use their vote effectively so that we can get what we need from our government.
And thirdly I think we need more support and funding for grassroots venues like the Oh Yeah Centre. The OYC is where Mucksavage had our first ever show and it holds a special place in all of our hearts. It’s also such an important venue for young people to be able to safely attend shows and be introduced to their first ever live music experiences. These are the people that are going to be attending your shows and buying your merch in the future, so we need to nurture that passion and make sure these venues are well looked after for everyone’s sake.
Lastly I think that NI is a bit of an outlier geographically which hurts musicians from here. We’ve got a separate cultural identity from both ROI and the UK, taking bits from both, but always feeling like the left-out younger sibling I think. From experience this makes it more difficult to reach audiences from both ROI and the UK, so I’d like to see better initiatives for creating touring opportunities between the South, the UK and the North of Ireland. One thing that may help is government-sponsored band swaps, much like Belfast and Nashville partake in. Holding specific events in Belfast that bring bands from Dublin, Cork, Galway or Liverpool, Manchester, London, Glasgow etc across for a night would do wonders for all parties to spread word of new music and break down geographical borders. Adding to that, sending local bands across the pond without the promise of crippling financial strain could change the whole trajectory of those artists who would’ve never normally had that chance.
What does success look like for you?
Success to me (James) looks like what we’re doing right now to be honest. I get to meet up with some of my best mates every week, hang out, play music, play gigs, have a pint, and be featured in Chordblossom! When Mucksavage started there was absolutely no end goal, the only thing I wanted to achieve was to write authentic songs and maybe play them live. We have achieved that and more and everything after that is cherry-on-top stuff. I don’t think any of us care about how many Instagram followers we have, how many views our TikToks get, and how many streams we have on Spotify; we’re just happy to keep putting out music and playing for people.
The only other thing that would fulfil all my hopes and dreams of Mucksavage is if we were able to live off the income generated by the band. I’d really sit down and think “we have actually made it” if I was able to pay the band a salary to do what we’re doing right now. Maybe it’ll happen and maybe not, I think we’ve won either way!
You’re going out on tour and can have anything you want on your rider, what would we find on yours?
James: Frozen grapes and those Vit Hit drinks you get in the Spar, and those wee chocolate covered pretzel things, and beer (rider? I hardly know her)
Caolan: “I’d give the runner a break”
Aidan: “I don’t know what a rider is”
I’ve given up on contacting Cleo but I’m going to say Galaxy Ripples
Where and when can we next catch you live?
We’ve just played an amazing show in Ulster Sports Club with Dullahan and Broncos, and also the Mandela Hall for Levels!
We have no shows planned yet because I’m away for most of March with my sidepiece Wynona Bleach, but as soon as I’m back we’ll be looking to play more shows and release more music! There’s been talk of our first headline show happening in the summer and we’d love to have a tear round Ireland for our first tour, keep your eyes peeled!
If you enjoyed this feature and fancy discovering some more new artists, we suggest you jump on over to our archive of Introducing pieces.
If you are a band or musician based in Northern Ireland interested in taking part in our Introducing feature, we recommend submitting new music to us via our Contact page and if we enjoy it, you’ll no doubt hear from us.
