Intersectional feminist post-punk band M(h)aol are here to challenge us with their bracing honesty and queer perspective.
“We won’t be able to feel what the album is like coming out because we’ll be dead. We won’t have any feelings,” says bassist Zoë Greenway when asked about how post-punk band M(h)aol are feeling in the lead up to the release of their debut album Attachment Styles. This is because of a packed tour schedule which sees them on the road before their record even hits the shelves. “It’ll be our deceased corpses on stage. I worked out that last year M(h)aol played 40 shows together so we played a show every 9.125 days,” calculates lead singer Róisín Nic Ghearailt with their album tour looming before them.
The Irish five piece have already been making waves with their tuned-in, slap to the face music that throws you straight into the head banging scene of post punk and modern feminism. Dealing with topics like biphobia, therapy and sexual assault, M(h)aol are attempting to convert the male dominated genre by teaching their audiences about subversion. Their first album feels critically unique and is tearing down stereotypes that are still taboo amongst many people.
“People leave! People leave every time we play it.” ‘It’ being their song ‘Period Sex’ which sings the praises of the more forbidden way of sex. “It’s our most divisive and overtly political song which you wouldn’t think of given our other songs. Blood on their fingers, absolutely not. Part of the inspiration for ‘Period Sex’ is the photographer Nolwen Cifuentes who did a series on queer period sex. She photographed different couples caught naturalistically in the moment afterwards. It was really controversial but ended up going viral. I looked at that exhibition online so many times and it was so beautiful and honest and raw. That was the springboard,” Nic Ghearailt explains.
M(h)aol pushes boundaries, to say the least, but their motivation isn’t to be controversial even if it means being perceived as such. It’s to open up the conversation even more, says Róisín. “For me, I’m doing it for that one queer teenager that’s in the audience, the trans kids who message us on Instagram, the people who are coming with their parents who are trying to help them understand and bridge the gap. Just because we’re a feminist post-punk band doesn’t mean that we’re actually appealing to a feminist audience. It’s a largely white, straight male audience. You have to work really hard to make it not so.”
It’s not all hard work for the band though and they have their fun in the chaotic process of making songs. Fellow bassist Jamie Hyland acted as producer for Attachment Styles and used everyone’s sense of weirdness to add an extra dimension to the record. “Every single song, we’ll jam and then one of us will say, ‘Yeah but it needs to get weird,’ and it’s always a different person every time,” says Róisín and Zoë chimes in, “We never know what weird is, weird is a different direction every single time.”
“Sonically, this is a much more expansive album. It’s a labour of love and trust. Minimum drum mics, no headphones, we’re recording in the same room that we’re writing the songs. There’s no ego in it, that permits a lot more room for sonic experimentation,” says Róisín of the difference between their previous EP Gender Studies. Inspiration to switch things up resulted in some malignant murmuring on ‘Nice Guys’ and heavy breathing on ‘Period Sex.’ “It’s easier to experiment as well with people you’re happy expressing yourself in front of. The experimenting that we do is just so fun. The horror piano that goes in and out of some of the songs was the skeleton of an old piano that we found outside,” says Zoë.
The theme of exploration isn’t limited to the music for M(h)aol. Zoë also acts as the visual artist who films and directs the band’s music videos as well as creating the album and single covers. The sea acts as a massive influence behind the visuals of Attachment Styles. “My dad was like, ‘You need to stop using the sea. It’s getting old.’ I told him, ‘No, the sea will never get old!’” jokes Zoë. She continues, “The album cover is a message of healing really so I was experimenting with a lot of different characters and visual ways of showing that. I went into the sea 10 times with different fabrics and lenses, over the sea, into the sea. It’s excavating that idea that feels natural. This is from one of the shoots I did in the middle of figuring out what that idea should be and I kept coming back to it. I think it’s because it is shrouded and hard to figure out. You can sense something from it. To me, it was to find power through healing and what empowers you to heal.”
Róisín sums up what being in M(h)aol is like: “I view being in a band like being in a family business. You’re doing all the things that a family would be doing; you’re eating together, you’re sharing a space together, you’re in a car together, there’s two people in the front and they’re mom and dad. You have to be on each other’s rhythms that really brings you back to childhood but at the same time, there’s the business element of it. You have to be professional. You have to be there on time. You have to turn up for interviews. There are very little structures to show you how to balance the combination of emotionality which is the art side of it with the day to day reality of it which is sitting in a van for hours and hours and your ass is getting sore. We’re going to go into Lidl and see what they have in the discount aisle!”
Despite the challenges that come with disrupting societal constructs, M(h)aol are rising above. They’re fearless in what messages they want to convey and they understand the importance that comes with dealing with sensitive topics. Coming together as musicians, artists and writers, they’ve used their backgrounds to create a layered record. “If you could have picked five people who are destined to be in a band, I don’t think we would have been the five. It’s a real eclectic mix,” says Róisín and yet they all work together almost like the sea, moving melodically in and out with the motion being a modern band.
Attachment Styles is out now via Tulle Collective.
M(h)aol will play on April 15 in The Workman’s Club, Dublin.
Words: Sophia McDonald
Photo: Naomi Williams
