The future is NewDad’s for the taking

Tucked inside a booth in a snug Peckham pub, drinks in hand, NewDad talk calmly about things that would typically remain within a band’s inner circle: from overcoming protracted periods of creative tension to growing pains and anxiety. It’s only when bassist Cara Joshi’s phone begins to vibrate that the table suddenly feels on edge. “Shit,” she says with a look of amused mischief, pushing her pint to the side. “My Addison Lee [cab] is waiting outside. What should I do?!”

As a measure of NewDad’s current day-to-day routine, this moment of innocent, wide-eyed panic feels illuminating. Having recently signed with Atlantic [Ed Sheeran, Fred Again..], the Galway four-piece – Joshi, guitarists Julie Dawson and Sean O’Dowd, and drummer Fiachra Parslow – are still adjusting to the perks that come with being a major label act: indulging in every swanky dinner, party and pre-booked taxi ride that’s arranged for them.

The way in which NewDad’s music untangles the minutiae of major life changes has won them the hearts of a young, devoted following to whom they are somewhere between friends and emergent rock heroes – awe-inspiring and aspirational, but also accessible. The band’s vision for their remarkably self-assured debut ‘Madra’ (out January 26) is the result of pushing themselves to new and uncomfortable limits. As O’Dowd puts it: “With this new album, we have something that will stand the test of time.”

Having previously self-released their music, being offered extensive resources to complete ‘Madra’ feels like a wholly deserved step-up for one of the most distinct new bands of recent years. Where their EPs (2021’s ‘Waves’ and its follow-up ‘Banshee’) leaned into a gauzy indie-pop sound, their debut pairs sudden changes in tempo with duelling guitars and Pixies-like bursts of dissonance, and also finds space for moments of textured shoegaze (‘Sickly Sweet’, ‘Nosebleed’). It’s a blazing display of skill and bravura.

“We had gone as far as we could completely on our own,” says Parslow. “But this album feels streets ahead of anything we’ve done before. We may have been given funding and better equipment, but the fundamentals of our work? They’re the exact same.”

“With this new album, we have something that will stand the test of time” – Sean O’Dowd

Adding to the intimacy of the record is the way it was made: across a two-week period at the legendary Rockfield Studios, Monmouth – which has previously played host to Queen and Oasis – the band watched zombie films, played board games and shared wine while penning songs. “Recently, I was listening to our early discography and I was like, ‘I don’t know who that is.’ It was almost like an out of body experience,” says Dawson. “But with ‘Madra’, I understood where I was going with the songwriting. I know her.”

Teenage insecurities cohere into genuine emotional clarity across ‘Madra’. By the ninth song, ‘In My Head’, Dawson is lying awake, detailing her panic attacks with startling intimacy: “I’m buried under blankets / Descending into madness / And there’s no escape from the thoughts burned in my brain.” This disquieting lyrical edge is only further emphasised by the record’s dark and bewitching visual identity. For their NME Cover shoot, the band chose to travel to the eerie-looking Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor, over 200 miles from their London base; the ancient forest’s name is thought to have come from the dialect word ‘wisht’, meaning pixie-led or haunted. A true commitment to the aesthetic, you could say.

“We’re not cool. We’re not perfect. But we make really good music,” says Dawson, before going on to explain how the band were afforded the opportunity to work with Alan Moulder, who has produced records for some of NewDad’s own personal heroes: from Ride to My Bloody Valentine. “Sometimes it’s hard to be proud of the stuff you create, but these songs sound fucking amazing.”

NewDad’s burgeoning confidence in themselves is testament to their scope as musicians; the shyness they occasionally exude when they talk appears to be in opposition with the wilful experimentation of their material. They are voracious pop fans, too, having previously released a cover of Charli XCX’s ‘ILY2’, alongside reworking ‘Angel’, PinkPantheress’ contribution to the Barbie soundtrack.

This form of genre-traversing, they say, has been the result of necessity: while the much-celebrated rise of Irish post-punk bands in recent years – The Murder Capital, Gurriers, ‘Dogrel’-era Fontaines D.C. – has been “inspiring”, NewDad feel as though critics have grouped them in with these acts based on their geographical location, rather than their sound. They were essentially defined by the outside world before they could become what the band they wanted to be.

“It’s something that I have noticed happening, especially being from England,” says the south London-raised Joshi, who joined NewDad in March 2022 after her bandmates moved to the capital. “It’s an honour to be associated with these bands as we love them, but our vibe is so different. I’m not sure why it even needs to be said that we’re from the same place,” Parslow adds.

“Fiachra! You’re on fire today,” O’Dowd tells his bandmate, laughing. Perhaps that glass of liquid confidence is starting to do the trick.

NewDad’s relationship with Ireland is complex and emotional. A harbour city with a population of 80,000, Galway didn’t offer so much a fertile music scene for Dawson, O’Dowd and Parslow to become involved in as teenagers, but instead inspired them to look beyond their surroundings in search of opportunities to connect with other bands their age.

Going to see The Cure at Dublin’s Malahide Castle in June 2019 would turn out to be a lightbulb moment for the trio, who were college students at the time: support act Just Mustard – an acclaimed noise-rock band from Dundalk, north-east of Galway – “opened up doors” for NewDad, says Dawson. “Watching Just Mustard perform was akin to an epiphany for us,” she says. “The Cure are the best band ever; to see some kids from a similarly rural part of Ireland open up for them was amazing. They got there through hard work and made us really want to go for it.”

“We wanted to make something out of all the epic Irish mythology” – Fiachra Parslow

Dawson, with the support of O’Dowd, Parslow and former bassist Áindle O’Beirn – who left the band amicably before they signed their record deal – decided to email Chris Ryan, who mixed Just Mustard’s 2018 debut ‘Wednesday’. He would go on to help NewDad master their early homemade recordings, and has continued to work with the band since.

What they have learned from this relationship with Ryan is the importance of valuing long-term collaborators, as well as keeping as much control as possible over their creative decisions. It’s lessons like these that have been reiterated to the band by the friends and mentors they’ve connected with while touring: Paolo Nutini, Fontaines D.C. and Shame. “When we moved to London, it was pretty intense, but it’s gotten progressively more difficult. It’s a chaotic place to live after growing up in a quiet place,” begins Dawson.

“But the people we have met here have made things a little easier. All artists are in the same boat: you feel such intense highs and lows in this industry, so it’s important to have people around you who understand that.” She goes on to describe Fontaines D.C’s 2022 LP ‘Skinty Fia’, which unpacked the band’s feelings of displacement and guilt toward leaving Ireland, as “so beautiful and relatable.”

She continues: “It spoke to anyone who’s moving to a place they don’t know, and the conflict between loving your home and also being ashamed of it. I think the way that [Fontaines D.C. frontman] Grian [Chatten] voiced all of those big ideas was so dead-on; I truly believe he is one of our best songwriters.”

The weekend prior to our chat, NewDad played an intimate show at their hometown’s 150-capacity Róisín Dubh venue to air some of the unreleased tracks from ‘Madra’. The album’s title translates from Irish Gaelic to ‘dog’; a nod to how three quarters of the band spoke the language at school while also serving as a metaphor for how “heavy feelings can follow you around like an obedient pet,” says Dawson.

Parslow says that while the band don’t return to Galway often, upholding references to the Irish language in their music, no matter how subtle, “offers a genuine connection to home.” He adds: “We have a great saying in Ireland: ‘Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste’, which means ‘broken Irish is better than clever English’ – more people should make the effort to speak it and encourage others to do the same.

“I think being over here has made me even more connected to the language. People outside of Ireland think of the country in the context of leprechauns and all that shite – but that’s not right, you know? We wanted to make something out of all the epic Irish mythology instead.”

There’s something genuinely refreshing about the directness with which NewDad communicate their ambitions, and how they stay true to their word. The artwork for their recent single ‘Let Go’ depicts the woven St Brigid’s cross, an ancient Irish symbol of protection that is thought to represent peace and goodwill. They’re honest and proud, a young guitar band who truly matter.

In conversation with NME, meanwhile, there may be moments where these four twenty-somethings come across quiet – but never self-conscious, or uncertain. “I find it easy to have faith in us,’ says O’Dowd. “We’ve had rough times and haven’t always got on with each other. But the fact that we still keep going is amazing: we want to experience everything together.”

As Joshi finally attends to the cab she has left waiting outside, the rest of us finish our pints and exchange hugs. Dawson offers a definitive mission statement for ‘Madra’ before she gets up to leave: “I’m not a confident person day-to-day, but I am confident in our music,” she says. “It’s the only thing I am sure of.” Her bandmates nod in unison: it’s true.

‘Madra’ will be released on January 26, 2024 via Atlantic Records

Listen to NewDad’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music

Writer: Sophie Williams
Photographer: Joseph Bishop
Styling: Clothes loaned by Simone Rocha
MUA: Tina Khatri
Label: Atlantic Records

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