M(H)AOL: “I WANTED TO MAKE A BAND THAT I WOULD’VE WANTED TO SEE AS A TEEN”

As a group that boasts the perfect blend of quick-witted humour and powerful social commentary, M(h)aol are bound to command attention when they take the stage. VOCAL GIRLS writer Daisy Carter caught up with the band at Green Man Festival, where they talked us through their beginnings, their self-sufficient creative process, and the complications of each member living in a different city.

Made up of Róisín Nic Ghearailt, Constance Keane, Jamie Hyland, Zoe Greenway and Sean Nolan, M(h)aol arrived on the Green Man Rising stage dressed in beautiful white linens and slip dresses that had been defaced with fake blood. The visual shock of this live setup channelled the unsettling horror of their ‘The Blair Witch Project’-esque music video for ‘No One Ever Talks To Us’. In every way, the live shows of M(h)aol are a statement. Their vocalist Róisín undoubtedly delivered in her role as frontwoman - comfortably joking with the crowd at times, whilst at other times sharing anecdotes, facts, and figures which forced the audience into those uncomfortable corners that so desperately need a light shone on them. 

As a group of creatives who work on most aspects of M(h)aol in-house, the band have an air of untainted authenticity. If M(h)aol are anything, it’s forthright and honest. They are unapologetically vocal and demanding in their music and performance; not only do they want you to know what it is they stand for, what they do, and why, but they’ll make sure you do know. 

Jamie: I’m Jamie and I play bass, record and mix everything.

Róisín: Hello, I’m Róisín, I’m the singer of M(h)aol.

Zoe: I'm Zoe and I play the bass, make the music videos and also make the artwork.

Connie: I’m Connie, I play the drums and run the label that our music comes out on.

Sean: I’m Sean and I play the guitar. 

So how did you guys meet and start the band?

Connie: Róisín and I met while working in a restaurant. I was a waitress and she was in the kitchen, we locked eyes across the pass and decided to be friends! Much to the dismay of one of the chefs. 

Róisín: The sous-chef was obsessed!

Connie: It was so weird, he really didn’t want us to be friends? It didn’t get in the way of our work or anything - I didn’t understand it. Anyways… I then shaved Róisín’s head.

Róisín: Well, first we started a feminist society together! It was the first feminist society that our university ever had.

Connie: -and then I was shaving Róisín’s head, and I just asked if she wanted to sing in my punk band! I had known Jamie for years, just from music stuff in Dublin. Zoe and Róisín went to university together so they had known each other for years. Then I found Sean in a record shop.

Róisín: Also, I have to go on the record because this is possibly the snakiest thing I’ve ever done. Around a year before I was in M(h)aol, Zoe had said to me: “Maybe we should start a band together!” and I was like “Oh that sounds like a great idea!”… then immediately forgot about it. About six months later I was like, “Oh I’m in a band now! Zoe, do you want to be in my band?”. I had truly forgotten this, but then when we were at Primavera, Zoe was like “do you remember when you did that?”. So now I am atoning for my sins.

Confession time…

Róisín: That’ll be three ‘Hail Mary’s’.

Is there a particular song that you would recommend to people to start with if they hadn’t listened to you before?

Jamie: Oh no, listen to everything, it’ll take about five minutes anyway [laughs].

Róisín: I’d say ‘Gender Studies’, ‘Bored of Men’ and ‘Asking for It’ are probably the three keynotes at the moment. 

All three of those tracks have very similar themes, even just in their names - do you do most of the writing yourself Róisín, or is it more collaborative? 

Róisín: I don’t play any instruments and truly could not tell you anything about that side of things. Sometimes I’ll be like: “So I’ve heard this, [indistinguishable noise]” and they’re like “Ah yes!”. I write the songs but our music isn’t melodic, so I just write them in my notes app as poems, and then go from there. 

I finished my Master’s in Gender Studies right before we recorded our EP and we obviously had strong roots in feminism. Actually, one of the main reasons Connie wanted to start a punk band was because we were really into the documentary ‘The Punk Singer’, about Kathleen Hanna. If you haven’t already, you should also read ‘This Woman’s Work’. It’s an anthology that Kim Gordon and Sinéad Gleeson did together. They got female and non-binary writers from all over the world to talk about what music means to them. Each person understood the assignment completely differently and it’s a really beautiful overview of music. To me, it's hugely important to talk about these things and it's also what I'm really interested in; I have no real interest in being in a band except for with these four people. I'm not super into that but I'm very into the message and accessing people, I think songs are a very egalitarian platform to access people. Not everyone has the attention span to read a book or listen to a podcast or watch a film, but most people can listen to a song, and if that song can spark a question or interest… the next second they’re burning their bras!

It seems that songs have the ability to be way more reactive as well, it’s more immediate than weeks of organisation for a demonstration or something.

Róisín: I also think music moves people. That's the reason that people listen to it and go to festivals and go to concerts; to be moved. If you can move someone in a way that might help move reality and move the political landscape, why wouldn’t you?

Connie, you mentioned that you run the label M(h)aol releases its music through (TULLE), was the label adjacent to starting M(h)aol?

Connie: No, I started M(h)aol because I had been in other bands in Dublin before and I was really frustrated with how I was being treated. Especially as a woman who plays the drums, which is definitely still considered a very masculine instrument. It’s still a very ‘Boys Club’ instrument-

Róisín: -or sexy lesbians?

Connie: Yeah, you’re right. I was just really pissed off, to be honest. The band came out of frustration and wanting to have fun with my friends, while also making men uncomfortable in green rooms. I wanted to bring a sense of humour - to me and to us - into the backstage of these gigs that I had been feeling so uncomfortable at, I wanted to reclaim that space. 

In terms of our songwriting, it happens when we all eventually get in a room together because we live in five different cities. Róisín is in Bristol, Jamie's in Belfast, Sean is in Dublin, I'm in London, and Zoe’s in Cork. It's all over the place! So we're a very deadline-heavy band - we basically set aside a week together, I'll go into a room and Róisín will have lyrics on her phone, Jamie has sometimes come up with some lovely titbits, and we’ll just go from there. We have a saying in the band about things being a ‘Sunday Problem’ because we have a habit of finishing things up on a Sunday. We’ll say things like “we need to have the EP finished by Sunday!”. So if it’s Wednesday and you’re feeling like shit, you’re like: “It’s a Sunday Problem”. It seems to work for us at the moment, you get into a room and it is just pure collaboration. 

Róisín: There’s no ego, that’s the thing. 

It’s interesting that everything is so self-contained - you guys seem to cover all your bases and do so much yourselves. Do you maintain creative control to make sure the message doesn't get distilled or twisted?

Róisín: Yes to an extent but it also just happened! We formed in 2014, then went on a hiatus, and it just so happened that in the interim of four years so many of us went off and did different things. When we came back we were like “well look at this little skill set we’ve built up! Isn’t that fun!” [laughs]. 

Every box ticked!

Róisín: Exactly! Connie started a label, Zoe studied cinematography, I did a master’s degree in Gender Studies, and Jamie has just been on the right track the whole time. She’s been pushing the cult vibes. 

Jamie: I started this cult but I just don’t know it yet [laughs].

Róisín: Zoe adds so many interesting things to our music videos too. With ‘No One Ever Talks to Us”, at the beginning you’re like: “Oh no! Why are these people covered in blood in the woods?”, and your mind automatically goes to the worst for the woman. Then throughout the video, you’re like “Oh! They’re the evil thing, they’re the bad thing in the woods, they’re the thing you should be afraid of!” Which I feel pays homage to things like The Craft and Buffy - things that skew that narrative of women being vulnerable and frightened.

Zoe: Well, I studied film and I worked in film for a while, there are a lot of influences from that. So that they aren’t just basic ‘bands playing in a music video’, they bounce off Róisín’s lyrics a lot to create a visual realm that can compliment them. 

How do you find the intensity of playing so many shows and being together constantly for a very short period of time, then going your separate ways again?

Róisín: It feels like a long-distance relationship.

Connie: Maybe check in with us in two weeks. 

Jamie: We’ve only done this once before, and that was only for around five days. All the other summers we would just fly in for single shows, which in a way is worse: it’s like seeing your long-distance relationship person in a cafe for 20 minutes and you don’t even get to hold hands!

Róisín: We’ve all known each other for such a long time - For me, the most beautiful part of being in a feminist band is the sense of support and camaraderie. It’s not easy, we are essentially in a long-distance relationship, and we’ve found in the past that there needs to be a huge emphasis on mental health, communication, and trying to meet people’s needs. We’re a mixture of neurotypical and neurodivergent people too, so that comes with different thresholds that aren’t necessarily spoken about enough. In the music industry, it can be like: “burn bright and then burn out”, you know? We all have a deep love and respect for each other, so we’re all open and honest with each other, which also maybe stems from the fact that we’re a little older - we’re all in our late twenties or early thirties. 

Clearly, as a band you’re on the same page in terms of the music you make and your feminist ethos; do you find that reflected in your crowd?

Connie: It depends on the show. A lot of the time we get Radio 6 Music dads. Which is fine! Once they’re actually paying attention and listening, then I have no issue with that. But do I want the whole front row to be cis, white, straight men? Not particularly. I think we’re now starting to reach more of an audience that we relate to. A huge reason for me starting M(h)aol was that I wanted to make a band that I would’ve wanted to listen to and see as a teen. So with this tour, I thought it was really important that we had an all-ages show - it’s actually really hard to plan all-ages shows in the UK, it’s pretty much impossible! - so the only one we could get was the one in London which is over 14s. For us, accessibility is really important. We're trying to open it up so that there's as much opportunity for the crowds that we want to come to our show as possible, the goal isn’t to be performing in front of just men.

Róisín: It's interesting, in the UK our audiences tend to be quite BBC Radio 6 dad-heavy, whereas when we play elsewhere, there tends to be more young and LGBTQ+ people. We have a song about bisexuality, and it’s funny - sometimes I’ll be like “are there any bisexuals in the audience?” and it’ll just be dead silent and I’m like “oh sure!” [laughs]. Then when we played Paris loads of people were like [screams]! 

I also think that when you’re a certain kind of band, it’s easy to be instantly paired up with other acts in your scene, so when I was booking the support band for London and Bristol I was like “let’s actually try and push the boat out on who we’re getting here!”. Post-punk is so white, it’s white music. So for our shows, we’ve made a conscious effort to think - “we’re a buzzy band at the moment so we’re getting press attention, who could do with that?”. At the end of the day, we are five white people playing within a white genre.

That approach reminds me of Dream Wife! When they tour, they do a call out on Instagram to find support acts to make sure they’re local to the city they're playing in.

Róisín: Yeah, that’s a great idea! It’s just fun to look at things holistically. 

Looking at the bigger picture.

Róisín: The bigger picture! You know the music video for [MUNA’s] ‘Silk Chiffon’? All of the cast in the video were queer, but then they also tried really hard to hire all queer or non-binary people to make the video itself. I think Phoebe Bridgers does a great job at looking at things holistically - we use the term ‘uplifter’ in the band.