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FEB-MAR 24 could not enjoy it,’ but it was the be
st crowd it could possibly be. Like, people loved it, and they were so nice and so supportive, and there were a couple of emotional moments and it felt like a really nice room.” For Julie, her favourite moment of 2023 was when the Paolo Nutini tour brought them to Dublin’s Malahide Castle. “That’s a bucket list venue of ours,” she says. “But it’s also where we saw Just Mustard open for The Cure, and that was a big moment for us, because seeing a band from Dundalk open for The Cure, we were like, ‘Gosh! We’re from Galway. Maybe we could do that, as well!’ So, it was a real full-circle moment, playing Malahide.” The band share a mutual producer with Just Mustard, in the form of Chris W Ryan, who engineered and mixed their first two EPs, 2021’s Waves and 2022’s Banshees. While working with Chris on Banshees in Belfast, Julie began experimenting with a riff for a song and christened it with the working title of “Madra”, which was a randomly chosen word that had no bearing on the song’s lyrics, but one which would soon eventuate into the title of their debut album. “It was just a working title, and we never thought that we’d keep that,” explains Julie. “But then we had it for so long that we couldn’t really change the name because we were playing it and were like, ‘It’s just “Madra” now. It just is.’ So, it’s funny that that’s what ended up being the title, but I guess because it was the first song that was written and it led the way into what the album became, and I think having Madra as a title, it felt like it belonged to us. Like, we toyed with the idea of White Ribbons and stuff, but that felt like that could be anyone’s album, whereas Madra felt more significant to us.” While knowing that “madra” is the Irish word for “dog,” the band were unaware of its meaning “mother” in Spanish or “blood” or “crimson” in Drehu, although when told, Fiachra responds, “All those definitions work for the album!” “We should really google things before we name them!” quips Sean. “Yeah, we’re always just like, ‘Yeah, that works! Cool!’” adds Cara. When it came to producing Madra, the band once again enlisted the talents of Chris W Ryan. “Since the goal for us was to do classic NewDad but just upgraded, it made sense to stick with Chris because he gets us,” says Fiachra. “He’s magic. He knows what he’s doing.” The band recorded Madra with engineer Sean Genockey at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales. “Yeah, recording the album in Rockfield was so surreal,” says Fiachra. “That was amazing. It was gorgeous. Signing with Atlantic, we did that in Rockfield, so it was a double whammy all around!” In addition to Chris and Sean, the album is mixed by famed engineer Alan Moulder, whose past clients include the likes of Foo Fighters, U2, Nine Inch Nails, The Killers, The Smashing Pumpkins, 5 Seconds of Summer, Arctic Monkeys, among many, many more. But it was his work with Dublin’s own shoegaze pioneers, My Bloody Valentine, which piqued the interest of the band. DEFINITELY A VERY DIFFERENT SHOW.. “Because we’re so heavily influenced by the ‘90s shoegaze and grunge bands, I think that we knew that we’d get a bit of that from Alan,” says Julie on selecting him. “And I don’t think we expected him to say yes. [Laughs] And then we were like, ‘Oh, shit!’ A mix always brings the song up, but Alan gave us a good forty per cent. Like, they were amazing recordings, but he mixed them incredibly.” All of this collaboration resulted in the most polished and largest sounding project in NewDad’s discography thus far. Sean says, “In a way, this is kind of like the new chapter, ever since getting ‘Angel’ out. It doesn’t sound like a different band or anything, obviously, but it is that kind of bigger sound that the whole album is, compared to the old EPs, and then people loved it.” On how Madra differs from their past releases, Julie says, “I want the people who’ve been listening to us for the past few years - who found us when ‘Blue’ came out or whatever - I want them to love this album. I definitely think that the songs sound like NewDad songs, but they’re cleaner [and] the production is at another level. But I hope it does the same thing for people as the EPs did.” “I think it’s going to last longer,” adds Sean. “Even now, listening to the EPs – and it might just be that I’ve listened to them so much – but they do feel old to me now.” Their tour in support of Madra kicks off at the end of this month, with two shows at Dublin’s Button Factory on the 28th and 29th of February, which seem to be their last Irish shows for a while before they tackle Europe and North America in the summertime. “It’s going to be big,” says Sean of these shows. “I reckon it’s just going to be that energy [of past Dublin shows] with brand new songs,” says Fiachra. “Better songs, more people. That’s it,” says Sean. “We didn’t do much touring last year, at all, because it was all album,” says Julie. “We want to tour,” says Fiachra. “We want to play the new songs live. We want people to be like, ‘Oh, shit! It’s really good!’” Julie adds, “And I think for people who’ve seen us before - if it was a while ago - this is definitely a very different show.” NewDad’s debut album, Madra, is out now on Atlantic Records. NewDad perform at The Button Factory 28th & 29th of Feb. Tickets: singularartists.ie. PAGE 9